Thomson's Anti-Movie Argument Gets Torn Apart
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- David Thomson published 'A Sudden Flicker of Light,' describing film as 'an engine of fantasy' and 'a parasite to reality' that 'has begun to diminish our nature' and 'turned us into watchers'
- Thomson makes three core arguments against cinema: the camera 'flatters killers,' movies are inferior to the 'patience' of literature, and cinema spotlights the sensational over everyday life
- Thomson takes hostile swipes at canonical directors, calling Ridley Scott's soul 'formed in doing ads' and saying Kubrick 'could have eased up an inch or two' to be a real artist instead of a 'fearful dictator'
- The reviewer counters Thomson's violence argument by citing equally brutal works in other media — death metal, gangsta rap, Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, Homer, and Shakespeare — arguing film doesn't breed violence so much as audiences demand it
- Thomson praises starkly realistic films like Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life' and Jonathan Glazer's 'The Zone of Interest' while panning 'Se7en,' 'Star Wars,' and many others; near the book's end he names only eight contemporary directors he endorses
- Thomson appears to blame movies for the rise of Donald Trump, whom he calls 'the consummate camera-ready salesman,' a claim the reviewer calls a bleak appraisal rivaling Tipper Gore's 1980s crusade against Twisted Sister
Why it matters: The review arrives as the movie industry faces real collapse — dying theaters, struggling superhero blockbusters, smaller screens, shorter clips, and AI threatening to supplant it all. Thomson's stature as a 'prolific and controversial' film historian makes his 'buyer's remorse' book a potential flashpoint in the debate over whether cinema is an art form worth saving, and the reviewer's rebuttal gives defenders of the medium an organized counter-argument grounded in specific titles like 'Psycho,' 'Casablanca,' and 'Phantom Thread.'
