Inspired by Real Events

Mark Kermode, the BBC 5 Live film critic and 'Culture Show' presenter, is not one to mince his words. He famously described Keira Knightley as 'Ikea Knightley' - a reference to her wooden acting - and so incensed documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield that he walked off stage during a live interview. (In reference to the biased Kurt & Courtney, he told Broomfield that he didn't think it was fair to accuse a woman with whom he hadn't interviewed for the film that she may have been complicit in the death of the father of her child).

At a talk earlier in the week at the Hyde Park Picture House (a delightful old cinema in Leeds which will be celebrating it's centenary next year), he repeated the old mantra of "if you can't say something to someone's face then you probably shouldn't say it at all." This is clearly a direct criticism of online bloggers (people like me), who make opinions about all kinds of things (again, people like me), and then neglect to include their real names. Unlike me. I agree with Kermode - if you are going to make a bold claim in any form of journalistic capacity, you have to be able to substantiate these claims when they are addressed.

This reminds me of an incident in which I wrote a (rather accurate) diatribe on a new bar in Leeds, which not only charged extortionate rates for a board of cold meats ripped from the shrink wrap of a supermarket packet but had also chosen to deck it's halls with a gross pink and leopard print colour scheme. My criticism was just, and unsurprisingly the manager took umbrage. Of many accusations, the main debate was one of integrity, and alluded to the notion that many critics are too eager to "pick fault rather than present genuine opinions." I have the comments somewhere and when enough time has passed I might put them up here. I treasure it more than my positive feedback, of which I've had surprisingly less. The bar no longer exists, by the way. Probably because - as I may have suggested in my original piece - it was shit.

Kermode told a related anecdote involving Her Majesty Dame Helen Mirren who, at a star-studded awards bash, berated the film critic for his comments regarding The Queen, which he described as "not being a real film" and that it felt more like a TV movie. He's completely right, of course. He makes an articulated argument in the face of clearly irritated royalty, but could unfortunately be seen physically shrinking in her presence. The image is a funny one and proves that although sometimes you must face the victims of your critique, you can't always control your bodily functions when you do.

Unsurprisingly, Kermode followed the talk with an extended cut of his favourite film, The Exorcist, which doesn't appear to lose any sense of immediacy or shock by being an extra ten minutes baggier, although it does include a brief moment of dialogue which director William Friedkin cut in his eagerness to not disturb the perplexities of the film's message. In it, the two priests who conduct the exorcism ask why the devil has chosen to possess a small and innocent girl, thus unravelling the story's main anomaly. "I think the point is to make us despair, to see ourselves as animal and ugly. To make us reject the possibility that God could love us." It's a good line, and you can't help but feel if Friedkin had kept it in it may have saved him an awful lot of bother.