Using well-chosen film clips to illustrate their arguments, film writers are increasingly turning to the critical video essay – many of them free to stream, some of them hypnotic…

If you’re reading this, chances are you read a fair amount of film criticism: the trusty, fusty written type, whether in print or online, that has served us well for years. I’m certainly glad you do. Yet film criticism is evolving and diversifying as fast as any form of journalism, finding new audiovisual ways to reach the less reading-inclined – which, given that film is an audiovisual medium itself, frankly seems fair enough.

The art of the critical video essay isn’t exactly about reviewing: rather, it’s a versatile form that enables both serious film scholars and curious film-makers to explore cinema in more idiosyncratic and sensory ways than the written word necessarily permits. You might not read a written essay about the significance of ties in David Fincher’s Zodiac, yet a short video examination on the same topic – to use a favourite example from the earlier days of the form – can be oddly hypnotic. The video essay can be two minutes long or the length of a feature film itself; the internet is full of them, usually free to view.

For those new to the idea of video criticism, BBC iPlayer’s current Inside Cinema series of shorts provides a bright, accessible introduction to the form. A range of mostly British film critics has been commissioned to write and narrate a series of brief video essays, four to six minutes in length, on film fixations and fetishes of their choosing. The results, while pithy, are thoughtful and often inventively offbeat, counting on well-chosen clips and fragments to illustrate their argument in tandem with their own critical insights.

So we get the Observer’s own Simran Hans musing with affection on the creative relationship between Meg Ryan and Nora Ephron; Christina Newland exploring the political fractures of Nixon’s America through the prism of 1970s cinema; or the Irish critic Jessica Kiang examining the trope of space-travelling dads in everything from Star Wars to Ad Astra – the unlikely five-minute film essay that leaves a lump in your throat. A dozen shorts have gone up so far in the ongoing series, available on iPlayer for a year.

From there, you can delve into more scholarly or more freewheeling versions of the video essay: as you search, certain names emerge as auteurs of the form, working either through their own YouTube channels, sharing platforms such as Vimeo, or cinephile outlets like Mubi’s Notebook blog. Grace Lee, for example, uses the possibilities of video to situate film in a wider context of visual art: her superb 11-minute essay on David Lynch, The Treachery of Language, deftly echoes the associative fluidity of the master’s work.

Portuguese critic Luis Azevedo’s rhythmically cut essays articulate particulars of film technique in ways it would be hard simply to write down: his quickfire videos on sound design, in the work of directors from Wes Anderson to Agnès Varda, encourage us to listen to films a little more carefully. Meanwhile, Kristian Williams (who goes by “kaptainkristian” on YouTube) is sufficiently admired in essayist circles to earn a flurry of blogosphere headlines when his 15-minute Disney: The Magic of Animation – the bland title of which belies its intricately fascinating visual breakdown (left) of Disney’s house style – ended a year-long hiatus.

At their longest and deepest, meanwhile, video essays morph into cinema itself. I’ve written before about Charlie Lyne’s elegantly atmospheric horror-film trawl Fear Itself – still on iPlayer as spooky season sets in – while Irish film-maker Donal Foreman’s marvellous, feature-length The Image You Missed (available on Vimeo) works through the film archive of his own father, American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, to assemble new familial and political narratives. It’s a far cry from a minute-long YouTube supercut, but the critical video essay is its own elastic art form.

New to streaming & DVD this week

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Taron Egerton as Elton John in Rocketman. Photograph: Paramount/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock

Rocketman

(Paramount, 15)

Dexter Fletcher’s sparkly Elton John biopic clears the “better than Bohemian Rhapsody” bar with verve, while Taron Egerton endearingly channels the star’s showmanship. Only problem: we know where John’s story winds up, and it’s not very compelling.

Booksmart

(Universal, 15)

Olivia Wilde’s fizzy teen comedy prompted a bit of a critics v punters debate when it underwhelmed at the box office, but it has bags of pop appeal: a quick, quippy study of female high-school identity that manages not to patronise any social sect.

Maiden

(Dogwoof, 12)

A bit workaday in construction but wholly absorbing in content, this rousing feminist documentary recounts British sailor Tracy Edwards’s barrier-busting completion of the 1989 Whitbread Round the World yacht race with an all-female crew.

Salò

(BFI, 18)

Not everyone has the stomach for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s snarling, furious panoply of human degradation, English-language title 120 Days of Sodom, but for those who do, this new Blu-ray restoration of his final work, dating from 1975, is an essential package, rich in extras and documentary features to contextualise its provocations.

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