Who are Critics? A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott, also known as Anthony Oliver Scott, is a American journalist and film critic. He serves as a chief film critic for the The New York Times along with Manohla Dargis. A.O. Scott has an honors degree in literature, which is achieved in 1988 from Harvard University. As a child, originally A.O. Scott dreamed of being a rock critic, he dropped out of graduate school he worked as a book critic, which he then accidently became a film critic, when The New York Times hired him back in 2000. It was then in 2004, he became the chief film critic after the paper named him. However he isn’t only affiliated with The New York Times, he has also dabbled in literary criticism for The Book Review.
After reading and analyzing some of Mr. Scott’s reviews, I have found his style in writing very high class. He tends to go into really high detail about the films in writes about. This in turn is a good and bad thing, the good thing about his writing, he clearly showcases he has the skills and expertise to be a film critic. The way he goes into much detail of the film and when he speaks highly of the film, he makes it entertaining to read, while not spoiling too much of the film at the same time. He makes quite a bit of references when describing and highlighting the main characters in a film, which adds a lot of personality and vision to the character that is showcased. However this also backfires, as there will be times when people won’t understand what he is talking about, since the point of referencing something is relying on the reader to have seen or heard of the reference before. True it does show his vast knowledge of films and research, but to the casual reader, they might not be as invested in the review as some others.
A.O. Scott has a habit of sometimes letting his personal feelings affect his review. In particular, his review of The House he mentions how there was no advance screenings for critics to review the film, “I know better than to take it personally when this kind of thing happens, but I do often wonder why it does happen.” Even though he states, he doesn’t take it personally, the fact that he had to mention this in his review, shows he has a bit of elitism in him. Well he is the chief film critic of The New York Times, so I guess, seeing a film earlier than everyone else wouldn’t hurt too much. You can see this elitism in some of his other reviews. When there is film he doesn’t like as much, he won’t rip the film apart, he more so gives a very quick and short review of the film. Although, a bad film won’t be interesting to the reader, the fact that he doesn’t go into very much detail on why a film is bad, unlike when he praises a film, he goes into a lot of detail, he doesn’t give equal analysis on a bad film. He however decides to make jokes throughout his review, by making references for the characters his describing and plot lines he’s trying to describe. This kind of review style maybe entertaining, because the reader is reading about a bad film, but it doesn’t go into too much detail on why the film was bad in the first place.
Even though there are some faults into A.O. Scott’s style of writing, he is a chief film critic and writing for one of the biggest publications, in fact it is regarded as a national “newspaper of record” for the United States of America, shows he definitely has the qualification to be writing for a publication that big. Only The Wall Street Journal is ahead by circulation in the USA of The New York Times. A.O. Scott has been writing since 2000 for The New York Times, and he became the chief film critic after four years shows his qualification as a film critic. Pair that up with the fact he has been writing for 17 years now, shows he also has the experience in film criticism, to be able to amylase multiple films. This shows when he is able to review different films of different genre, he can review international films, he can review big blockbusters to smaller independent films, so his knowledge is very versatile and vast, when it comes to film criticism.
A.O. Scott is a very qualified film critic, his pieces are not only very well thought out and his reviews are very well detailed, the fact he adds a lot of character to his reviews, while making it as entertaining to read as possible for the readers, showcases his own unique style of film criticism.