Michael Phillips, former film critic at the Chicago Tribune, is coming back to Iowa City for the Refocus Film Festival. There, he will join UI Professor and Filmspotting co-host Adam Kempenaar for a live taping of the podcast Friday, Oct. 10. Little Village met with Phillips to chat about the festival and reflect on his long career in a fickle field.
It’s a long career at a crossroads. Phillips announced in August of this year there would no longer be a film critic at the Chicago Tribune; the position had been dissolved. Phillips, who held the title for two decades, accepted a buyout instead of reassignment. Despite a bittersweet goodbye, Phillips savors his time at the Tribune, and his time before it.
“For 40-plus years, I was writing about exactly what I wanted to write about,” he said.
Phillips, born and raised in Wisconsin, attended college in the Twin Cities and later went on to write for publications across the country, including in San Diego, Los Angeles and Dallas. When a career opportunity at the Chicago Tribune offered to pull him back to the Midwest, Phillips was eager for a breath of fresh air. “I missed all four seasons when I didn’t have it.”
Regarding where Iowa City lands on his list of Midwestern cities, he said, “Iowa City’s got so much of what I love about the right kind of college town community. It’s also got FilmScene, which most every college town, wherever you are in the country, does not have.”
Phillips shared how grateful he is for the effort his parents made to support his cinephilia while he was growing up, driving him from Racine to theaters in Milwaukee and Chicago to catch the latest films. He also recalls being 23 and making his foray into theater criticism, when a teacher told him, “‘Phillips, you’re always backing into your thoughts,'” he recalled. “I think, detecting correctly, a fairly neurotic, Midwestern combination of a stoic and a comedian.”
The role of the critic is a vital one, despite what the job market would have you believe. The critic is an intermediary dedicated to bridging the gap between art and the spectator, whether that be by helping audiences parse their reactions to a film or by exposing them to work they might not have seen or even heard about otherwise. Writing a review can be a noble quest, but not one without its own set of structures and rules.
“I have, above my keyboard everywhere I’ve ever worked since I was 25, the letters B S B B, and that’s the simple reminder to myself on deadline: Be specific. Be brave.” Phillips quoted playwright John Patrick Shanley, “’Fear points like an arrow in the direction you must go as a writer.’ I like that. Run toward the fire.”
To Phillips, precision and nerve are the hallmarks of a strong, diligent critic. But developing one’s voice is challenging, not only in terms of form, but function, as critics must learn to strike a balance between what they value and where those values sit within the cultural moment.
“You want people to read what you’ve got to say about these contextual crises that we’re all living in, as they relate to what your particular field is. In my case, there’s always movies to look to for indications about what the American character in American history is, as envisioned by Hollywood, or any other filmmaker around the world.”
During our chat, the latest film by Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another, came up several times, as we’d both watched it the night before. Phillips feels that the film’s themes align well with Refocus, considering it’s a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland.
“I always say about adaptations, I give no points for fidelity to the original. It’s more about the spirit than the letter, right?”
Phillips is especially excited for the Refocus repertory screening of the 1973 action satire The Spook Who Sat By the Door. “It’s a great time to revisit any film that has any interest in and something to say about dissent and the arguable need for revolution in this country.”
In a 2017 lecture to students at Arizona State University, Phillips mentioned Trump and how his presidency was affecting the attention spans of audiences. Now, nearly 10 years later, in the midst of a second Trump administration, I ask him how he would expand on that perspective.
“I would probably remind my future self to pace your outrage a little, because you never know how long you’re gonna have to stew in it.”
Trump’s decision to cut federal arts funding is just one of many ways in which his administration is de-emphasizing creative fields, specifically those that platform multicultural identity and critical thinking. The tide has been turning for a while now, and brilliant voices are being drowned out in the process.
It’s unfortunate that a paper with a tremendous history of arts criticism, thanks to the work of formidable film critics, has come to an end. Phillips emerged during a time in journalism when metrics were not measured as they are today, when a critic’s success was more likely determined by whether or not the artist or filmmaker called to complain. But this does not mean all who enter the field should surrender hope.
In the aforementioned college lecture, Phillips advised that a critic should have one eye on the real world and one on the ideal world. I asked if Phillips if he considers himself an idealist, a pessimist, or something beyond.
“I try not to be pessimistic. My dad, who died about three years ago, was not much like me, but I really love that he was very sharp-witted and not really a culture vulture, but always open. He had a way of being kind of gruff and skeptical, but also optimistic in the end, and I hope I’m getting there.”
