Criticism: The Early Years

Most film critics start very young; they start writing when they're in college, and then they hope to get a job at some newspaper or, failing that, with an alternative press publication. That's not the way it happened with you at all, is it?

What you just described is quite accurate, but relatively recent. People didn't yearn to become critics when I was young. Criticism was the sort of thing you fell into if you weren't careful. (Laughter.)

--Stanley Kauffmann interviewed by Bert Cardullo