Why I Became a Film Critic

by Mansel Stimpson, Film Review

I became a film critic because I was born to be one. I was eleven years old before I started to go to the cinema regularly but I immediately fell in love with it, read film magazines and began in an entirely childlike way to write reviews of what I saw – only a sentence or two at first but nevertheless an attempt to emulate what I found in the magazines and newspapers. As a pupil at Eastbourne College I wrote reviews for a school magazine and, when I left, I immediately joined the Eastbourne Film Society and soon provided programme notes for them. To share and pass on my enthusiasm for individual titles that readers might not otherwise have seen has always been a vital part of my aims as a critic.

I have been involved with the Society ever since and joining it also led to my writing criticism for the British Federation of Film Societies. Professional reviewing followed for various publications starting with What’s On in London to which I contributed regularly from 1987 to 2007. Prior to that I had not anticipated that being a critic would be more than a hobby, albeit a passionate one. Furthermore, in my youth I would never have imagined that I would one day become a member of the London Critics’ Circle and be writing professionally and continually for well over 30 years. For that matter I never anticipated that for five years or so I would prepare and introduce screenings at London's National Film Theatre and hold discussions with the audience afterwards.

In short, I never chose to be a film critic: it chose me.