Many readers of reviews, if not most, assume that they are reading a considered judgment on the work being reviewed, be it art, music, writing or performance. They forget or ignore the fact that reviews are essentially the reviewer’s opinions formed on her/his fresh impressions.
Criticism explicates, I wrote earlier in Criticism; the critic tries through analysis to explore the depth and reveal what is not immediately obvious to its readers. Reviews may also explicate but essentially they describe. They are introductions. A review of a film, a book, a performance, or an exhibition is always informative when it is about a new work I have never known before; on the other hand, a piece of criticism about an unfamiliar work is tedious to read and not very useful if I don’t already know the work being analyzed.
A description takes a viewpoint, and it is partial, just as we see what we see only from one particular side. If a description is thorough and exhaustive, it undermines clarity and becomes exhausting to read for the readers expecting an introduction. A review, taken as an opinion, is therefore bound to be slanted. The more we become familiar with the reviewer’s slant by reading her or his reviews continuously, the more useful they become. A reviewer is opinionated; a good reviewer is consistently opinionated. When Pauline Kael panned a movie in a certain way, I knew what to expect — that I would probably like it and it is very likely good, or, conversely, in agreement, I would not be tempted to see it. A good critical analysis illuminates, whether I agree with the author or not, regardless of my taste for the work being discussed.
A review is useful to the extent it describes the work reviewed clearly and makes the reviewer’s taste, bias, and viewpoint apparent; her or his judgment as such matters little.
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