Clayton Davis is the latest addition to the Variety film section and his first column today, titled “How I’ll Be Predicting the Oscars for Variety,” was not a good start for a section of online onlookers. Davis raised more than a few eyebrows, despite the piece being a well-written, positive, and amicable intro to readers, due to his admittance that a) he has never seen “Casablanca” and b) considers his top three films of all-time to be “Dead Poets Society,” “Forrest Gump” and “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back”.
I like Clayton, but he seems to represent this new trend of film journalism which implies that you don’t necessarily need a firm grasp of movie history to write about it. How do you pursue a living as a film writer, and predicting the Oscars, without having seen “Casablanca”? Some think it’s not an issue, others most definitely do. I’m not trying to judge here, no, really, I’m not, I have met countless millennial film critics who have never even seen “Citizen Kane,” and/or “Vertigo,” so there are plenty of Clayton Davis’ out there and maybe that’s a problem.
It’s not like seeing any of these films should be seen as an actual legitimate commitment problem. TCM manages to squeeze in airings of these three classics on a monthly basis. Then again, how can you live as a film writer without the memory of Bogart, Bergman, Henreid, Rains, Lorre, and Greenstreet hanging at Rick’s Cafe? Suffice to say, it takes a lot of chutzpah for a Variety columnist to say “I’ve never seen “Casablanca.” At least Davis isn’t hiding it. Kudos.
Roger Ebert’s advice to younger film critics