Critical blackout

The Sydney MorningHerald’s film reviewer Paul Byrnes has won The Pascall Prize and has been named Critic of the Year. The award, established in memory of Geraldine Pascall, an Australian journalist, was announced in Sydney on September 25. It is worth $15,000. This year’s winner seems to share ABR’s concern about the deleterious nexus between critical values and commercial imperatives. Accepting the prize, Paul Byrnes declared that serious film criticism was in danger of dying out. ‘What has happened in the last thirty years,’ he said, ‘is that great films and great box office have become entwined in a way they never were before. Since Star Wars and Jaws, the balance between audience, critic and film has shifted to the extent that much of the public now believes that a great film can’t be great unless the box office makes it great.’