RIP Barry Norman

Saddened to read of the death of film critic Barry Norman. He was my childhood introduction to criticism way back when. Before Barry Norman I either enjoyed films or I didn’t and the processes involved in manufacturing that sensation were occult and unknown to me. He made me think about the invisible hand of the director, and the mechanics of cinema and introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about films. Anyone who has been to the cinema with me and experienced one of the hectoring diatribes that reliably follows will have seen the influence that Barry Norman had on my way of thinking. Criticism can be an art form in its own right and Barry Norman had certainly mastered it.