"Art is still happening": Pulitzer winner Justin Chang on journalism and film's resilient power
The New Yorker film critic shares his thoughts on the state of film journalism and winning media's biggest prize.
When Justin Chang learned he had won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for criticism, about 24 hours before the actual announcement, he couldn’t quite believe it.
“I did not sleep a wink that night,” he tells Depth Perception. “I really didn’t. Like, sometimes when you say that, you manage to get like an hour of sleep. No. I actually pulled an all-nighter because I could not sleep. And part of it was that I was convinced that, until the announcement went out, this was all some massive hoax.”
It wasn’t, of course. Chang won the Pulitzer for his work at the Los Angeles Times, where he was employed until earlier this year. He is now a film critic at The New Yorker. In addition, he teaches at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California and reviews movies for NPR’s Fresh Air.
Chang, who lives in Los Angeles, spoke to Depth Perception by phone not long after returning from the Cannes Film Festival. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. —Mark Yarm
What’s it like to win a Pulitzer?
It does feel like a life-changing thing for a journalist. I still kind of look back and wonder, “Did that really happen?” Barely a week after the announcement, I had to go cover the Cannes Film Festival, which is one of the more intense two-week periods of my job. That just compounded my general insanity, but in a really wonderful way. I got to see and celebrate with a lot of wonderful friends and colleagues, which was really great.
How did you get into film criticism?
For me as a teenager, or even younger, film criticism really helped me make sense of movies. You just start falling in love with critics’ bylines and their voices. And at a certain point, I started wondering, “How could I do this, too?” I studied journalism at USC as an undergrad, which was a really great way just to get published regularly to get in the habit of writing frequently.
I graduated from USC, from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and then like a week after I graduated, in 2004, I got an internship at Variety, which was a great experience. The wonderful thing was that they just let you do everything and anything. They really put you to work. And I started reviewing movies as an intern, which I am told was kind of unorthodox.
How does being a film critic at the New Yorker differ from working at Variety or the Los Angeles Times?
The most obvious one is just the difference of rhythm and cadence. At the time, Variety — “the bible of showbiz” — really covered the waterfront: international cinema, movies that would never get released. I went to film festivals, and I was just writing like crazy. At Variety, they just crank it out. The challenge was, how do I write something that I hope will hold up not just five minutes from now, but five years from now? And I don’t know if I always got that right.
The L.A. Times was more freeing. You could be more personal. I could use the first person, though I tried to be sparing with those things. Even though it was liberating in a lot of ways, I also tried to see it as not so different from what I’d done before: I’m still writing about the movie. I thought about it as writing for a more general audience, just every bit as smart.
At the New Yorker, I’m still writing a lot, but I have a little more time. I get to think about the work a little more. I’m writing right now about Janet Planet, the Annie Baker–written and –directed movie, and I’m just enjoying sitting with it, letting it enlarge in my mind and my memory before I put words to screen. It feels like a luxury.
You mentioned that you hope that your reviews will stand the test of time. What’s a piece of yours that you think has held up best over the years?
I remember getting to write about Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life for Variety. When I reviewed it, it was out at the Cannes Film Festival. I’d like to think I’ve done better work since, but that review still means something to me, because I loved that movie. And I felt that it felt like a breakthrough for me, in terms of bringing a personal dimension to the movie in question, while writing in “Variety speak,” as it were.
I hope that piece held up in terms of my regard for the movie, which has only grown and grown. A lot of people hated it. And a lot of people loved it. And I have never been more convinced of the movie’s greatness. I’m glad that I didn’t hedge in any way in terms of my review. Although maybe if I were to read it again, I’d probably think, “This isn’t gushy enough.”
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What’s the biggest backlash you’ve ever gotten to a review of yours?
I don’t know if it qualifies as backlash, because there was just as much support for it. But it’s what I wrote about Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson's movie, questioning some of its representations of Japanese culture. If you read my review, it’s a series of questions. I don’t have any answers. And for me, that’s reflective of how I operate with criticism. I don’t always know where I’m going. Sometimes I do. But a lot of times, I’m just there to ask something.
And in this case, with a movie that I had sort of admired and also had reservations about, it was interesting to me how simply by asking questions you can really piss a lot of people off. It’s almost like they don’t like those questions being asked. They don’t like being made to think this way. People assumed that because I’m Asian-American — I’m Chinese-American — that I was coming to it from that place. I’m sure, yeah, I was, but I’m not Japanese and I don’t have any expertise in Japanese culture myself.
It seems like a lot of film journalism these days seems focused on opening weekend box office tallies and the like. What do you make of that trend?
It’s really annoying that this paradigm is in place where we judge a movie, and even write it out of history, based on how well it does on its first weekend, not taking into account longevity, other revenue streams, whatever. I remember seeing on Twitter a lot of really smart posts to the effect of “Why is it that film critics turn into box office analysts on a dime when suddenly something disappoints?”
I do think, “How wonderful would it be if we could actually just talk about the movies and the art?” That’s often lost when we fixate on how well the movie is doing. Yeah, of course, it’s of interest. It’s a business interest. But when we talk about a movie, like one as interesting and rich as Furiosa, purely in terms of “Well, that flopped,” obviously we’re missing something. I’m disappointed when it drowns out actual discussion. It feels like this toxic cloud of failure hovering over a really good, interesting movie in that case.
“What gives me hope for film criticism is honestly the same thing that gives me hope for movies.... I just got back from Cannes… I saw a lot of good movies. And I thought, “‘Okay, art is still happening.’” —Justin Chang
It seems like there's an ever-shrinking number of traditional outlet media outlets to write about film. What’s your take on the profession of film critic in 2024?
I always dread being asked this because I feel like I’ve been weighing in, to some extent, on the state of film criticism every few years since I started this 20 years ago. I teach on criticism at USC, my alma mater. Not everyone in my classes necessarily aspires to be a film critic, which is probably a good thing, because the jobs are very few and far between, but they’ve always been few and far between. And I tell them that.
Yet I’m reading film criticism as rich and as stimulating and thoughtful as anything I’ve read in any period through history, and that is really inspiring. It’s just often being done at a more freelance level or by people who are just so enthusiastic about it that they’re willing to do it without being paid.
As you mentioned earlier, you’re Chinese-American. At the L.A. Times, you wrote about being a Christian in a piece reviewing faith-based movies. How do your background and your identity inform your criticism?
I hope really lightly. There are times to really dive deep into it. I’ve done that from time to time with my Christian background, which, I have to say, is always changing. I mean, one’s spiritual journey or journey through religion, through faith, is always in flux. At least mine has always been. But I always hope that it informs the work lightly. I’m generally not a fan of leading with my identity.
With Christianity, it’s interesting, because there are some of us in the profession, but not maybe not a ton. And so when you drop that, sometimes people look at you funny. People do have a lot of perceptions about Christians, some right and some wrong. So I hope that when I write about things from that perspective, they see that and they’ll be like, “Oh, this is just Justin” and they know my voice.
When I’m looking at movies, regardless of where they’re from, it’s not like, “Let me put on my Asian glasses” or “Let me put on my Christian glasses.” I try not to think of myself as all that different from anyone else looking at a movie. But when something does hit me a certain way, I’ll be like, “Oh, this is interesting.”
Given that both the media and the film industry are in trouble right now, what gives you hope for the future of film criticism?
What gives me hope for film criticism is honestly the same thing that gives me hope for movies. And this is about also looking beyond Hollywood, this is about looking beyond even the American film industry. I just got back from Cannes, and though it wasn’t the most vintage Cannes in the world, I saw a lot of good movies. And I thought, “Okay, art is still happening.”
Whenever I feel down, I just try to just go back to the movies, to steep myself in the movies. And I don’t have too much trouble finding good or great movies. That’s what gives me hope.
Further reading from Justin Chang
“Why ‘Noah’ Is the Biblical Epic That Christians Deserve” (Variety, March 31, 2014)
“It’s just the Oscars — but my God, it matters that ‘Parasite’ won best picture” (L.A. Times, Feb. 9, 2020)
“‘Oppenheimer’ doesn’t show us Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s an act of rigor, not erasure” (L.A. Times, Aug. 11, 2023)
“The Enchanting Archeological Romance of ‘La Chimera’” (The New Yorker, March 28, 2024)
“Love Means Nothing in Tennis but Everything in ‘Challengers’” (The New Yorker, April 23, 2024)