Veteran critic Kevin Courrier takes to the local lecture circuit to keep intelligent film analysis and debate alive amid a low-attention-span pop-cultural landscape.
Last Friday, TIFF Bell Lightbox hosted a panel discussion that touched on the topic of whether or not film critics are an endangered species—a timely question in light of Village Voice veteran J. Hoberman being unexpectedly let go two weeks ago. By contrast, on Monday nights at the Miles Nadal JCC, Kevin Courrier can be seen plying what might called an adapt-and-survive mentality.
A former film reviewer for CBC Radio and Metro who also maintains the eclectic arts and culture blog Critics at Large, Courrier has spent his time between bylines building a loyal audience across Toronto with well-received lectures at Ryerson and the Revue Cinema. His dedication to cultivating a generous intellectual give-and-take with his students is a rarity at a time when most critics in all disciplines engage with their readers mostly through nasty exchanges on online comment boards.
Courrier’s latest attempt to bridge the gap between a solitary practice and a public yearning for something beyond a simple thumbs-up appraisal is an eight part series called “Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors: American Movies and the Politics of Idealism.” Originally conceived (and since resurrected) as a book project, it’s a zeitgeist-surfing tour of American cinema since 1960 that parses key films produced under each U.S. presidential administration from JFK to Obama for how they reflect and refract their respective political moments. A look at the Johnson era might include canon fodder like Bonnie and Clyde or Dr. Strangelove, while a consideration of movies under Dubya entails re-evaluating the marionette madness of Team America: World Police (which so memorably reduced post-9/11 geopolitics to a global menage-a-trois between “dicks,” “pussies” and “assholes.”)
Courrier’s classes are the latest stop on a DIY-film-education circuit that’s recently been thriving in the shadow of the Lightbox, though they’re a very different proposition than Chris Alexander’s Film School Confidential programme at the Bloor, or the Toronto Underground Cinema’s cheeky Defending the Indefensible series, which invites local critics to defend maligned favourites. Courrier isn’t showing entire films: Each two-hour lecture is constructed out of ripped DVD clips, and the screening facilities are modest. Last Monday, a group of 45 people, ranging in age from their early 20s to their mid-60s, stared intently at a medium-sized television to contemplate the significance of an excerpt from 2007′s Live Free or Die Hard (the one where Bruce Willis teamed up with the guy from the Mac ads).
There’s definitely something incongruous about this kind of rigorous, film studies-style analysis taking place at a Jewish community centre: Last summer, when I taught my own course about contemporary national cinemas at the JCC, I discussed the late Taiwanese master Edward Yang in a room still littered with the debris of an after-school daycare group. But the under-the-radar setting also creates a sense of intimacy that encourages passionate debate. “It’s a great place to chat with like-minded people,” says David Davidson, whose blog Toronto Film Review enthusiastically keeps tabs on the city’s cinematic culture. “And the best nights are the ones where you go for pints afterwards.”
Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors: American Movies and the Politics of Idealism runs Mondays until March 26 at the Miles Nadal JCC (750 Spadina Ave.), 7-9 p.m.
