Itzhak<\/a>) film is also wisely limited, telling its paired story in an efficient 82 minutes \u2014 an economy that critics of all stripes will surely appreciate.<\/p>\n\n\tSaltz (like Ebert, the recipient of a Pulitzer for criticism) and Smith play their respective roles well. He\u2019s the outgoing one, heading out into Greenwich Village on missions for their voluminous daily supply of coffee, enthusiastically chatting with strangers and slipping in sly references to their sex life because he knows those mentions embarrass her. But she\u2019s playing up her discomfort because she\u2019s clearly setting him up, time and time again. <\/p>\n
\n\tWatching their dynamic, as they work on their respective pieces in adjoining rooms in their apartment, is heartening and, honestly, aspirational in every way. These are two incredibly intelligent people who each value what they gain from their interactions \u2014 the long sessions bickering and bantering in galleries, as well as their rapport when they assist each other (but never too much) in the writing process.<\/p>\n
\n\tEach encourages and nurtures the other, a remarkable achievement for two people who are, ostensibly, competitors.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut they also understand they\u2019re both part of an endangered species, as full-time arts critics employed at legacy publications, and they (especially Saltz) are determined to articulate the differences between the public perception of their job \u2014 the lazy good-bad binary \u2014 and the way they see their mission.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou do not ask what a work of art means. You ask, what does it do? What does art do to you?\u201d Saltz says.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s a version of the job, absolutely!<\/p>\n
\n\tOr as artist Mickalene Thomas puts it, in a spirited chat with him, \u201cCriticism is about having an opinion and saying, \u2018Is this really important?’\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSaltz and Smith are both very aware as well of changes to how they think and how they approach their jobs. Saltz is very active on Instagram, even posting Smith\u2019s reviews on her behalf and grumbling, in a wholly good-natured way, that they often get more likes than his do. Smith, for her part, beautifully grapples with an artist she didn\u2019t like decades earlier, coming to the conclusion that the artist had matured but also, in a wholly ego-free way, recognizing that she has gotten better at seeing the artist\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile House of Criticism is very much about Smith and Saltz and their love story, at times, that\u2019s when it\u2019s least interesting. Saltz\u2019s biography is complicated and twisty and he doesn\u2019t always know or care when certain details make him look less than ideal. Smith tells beautiful stories of how she learned to stand up for her opinion in childhood when her mother asked her questions about interior decorating choices, but her actual professional journey never really sparks onscreen.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are stretches when the documentary becomes structurally lax and Saltz becomes a de facto interviewer himself, asking pointed questions of their famous friends, including Cindy Sherman and Lena Dunham, who\u2019s also their goddaughter. Dunham picks up the interrogator baton and asks a pointed question about the couple not having kids of their own and it yields a very strong answer. Still, these direct \u201cLet\u2019s talk about how great Jerry and Roberta are\u201d segments can feel arbitrary, if never desperate.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film moves best in a fly-on-the-wall mode, when it\u2019s following its subjects around the city as they take in New York\u2019s thriving art spaces both big \u2014 Saltz literally kneels in front of Picasso\u2019s \u201cLes Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon\u201d at MoMa \u2014 and small. In more obscure corners, you can see the gratitude the owners and dealers have for these two people who have dedicated their lives to celebrating exhibitions by budding virtuosos in cramped studio spaces as fervently as they do retrospectives by legends at the city\u2019s many renowned institutions. These relationships needn\u2019t be adversarial.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s a love letter to New York City, a love letter to the necessity of caffeine consumption in the creative process, a love letter to the importance of criticism in valorizing and contextualizing art. And it\u2019s a tribute to Chernick and her trio of editors, for having a mostly admirable sense of just how much adulation to pay this unique couple so that film critics would find House of Criticism adequately, but never overly, indulgent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Work long enough as a critic and you\u2019re bound to hear the clich\u00e9, questionably attributed to Jean Sibelius,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[265248,49,48,75,265249,231864,337,265250,259004,259005,259966],"class_list":["post-738796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alison-chernick","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-house-of-criticism","tag-jerry-saltz","tag-movies","tag-roberta-smith","tag-tribeca-2026","tag-tribeca-festival","tag-tribeca-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}