10 Movie Trends That Have Been Killing Cinema For Longer That You Think

3. The Critic-Audience Divide

The 'Modern' Problem: Every time a new, dumb blockbuster comes out that audiences love and critics hate the argument comes up that professional reviewers are out of touch with the people they evaluate movies for. And while you can dissect the distance between mainstream and critical taste there's no denying there is indeed a divide. It's best shown with a film like The Tree Of Life. Polarising critics initially (it got both cheers and boos after its Cannes premiere), once it won the Palme D'Or (the festival's highest honour), suddenly, out of almost critical peer pressure, the negative reviews turned good. Audiences, with no reputation to put on the line, were less gushing with praise, quick to point out you could read so much into the film only because it says nothing. It's an extreme case, but it's rare to find a film that manages to balance both sides. But Actually: The divide has existed as long as there's been critics who fancied themselves superior to general audiences. While a regular cinema-goer may be happy with an entertaining couple of hours, a critic demands more because entertainment is secondary to art apparently. Things tend to right themselves, however, with a film's enduring reputation normally a balance between the two appraisals. Hence why it always feels a new development; over time signs of this conflict have been quelled.