The Last Critic

A warm and generous documentary portrait of legendary music critic Robert Christgau.

The self-proclaimed Dean of American Rock Critics, Robert Christgau helped invent music criticism while covering the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival for Esquire. His capsule album reviews for The Village Voice became legendary for their haiku-like prose and pithy praise or takedown alike. Revered as much as he was feared, his 50-year career traced the seismic changes in popular music, from California rock to the punk wave that surged out of New York's CBGB, and on through the rise of hip hop. His passion for music journalism changed the trajectory of artists' careers and opened a door for younger writers to a vocation that rarely gets its dues.

Curator’s note
Director Matty Wishnow's affectionate portrait paints an elegiac picture of music journalism and the challenges it faces in the age of social media. Christgau is interviewed throughout, alongside musicians including Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, who reads out Christgau's snarky takedown of one of their albums with bemusement. Even Moore concedes that Christgau's writing and legacy are fundamental, something to be cherished and protected.