On August 7, 1974, above the morning commuters, Philippe Petit stepped out on a high wire extended between the World Trade Center twin towers. The exploit brought the French acrobat huge celebrity, token rebukes, and a new life: he became Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York.

For the last six months or so the idea that film criticism is undergoing an identity crisis has been gaining momentum. I carry some of the blame for this, having edited a “Who Needs Critics?” special issue of Sight and Sound, and organized and participated in public debates, some of which were even entertaining.

Stripped of its halos, alibis, and consequences, sex would constitute a cruel, if pleasurable, formalism whose sole principle is sex for sex’s sake. And with the closing of the circle, the final surprising, yet not unexpected, match of high and low, such urgent but empty and gratuitous sex seems a universal fate.

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Superhero blockbusters, The New World, Miklos Jancso, the “Orked” Trilogy, and an interview with Todd Haynes

READ: Send in the Cyborgs, Revitalizing Film Criticism, La Ronde, and Reconsidering John Frankenheimer