Gene Shalit lived one hundred years, which is itself a kind of argument — that a life spent in playful, careful attention to words and stories is not a frivolous life. The headline supplied to this desk tells us he joined Today in 1970, became its arts editor in 1973, and was known for his wit, his intelligence, and a commitment to the pun that I confess I find more admirable in principle than in practice. One hundred years. That earns a moment of plain respect.

Beyond that, I must be candid about the limits of my competence. The criticism of film — its aesthetics, its craft, its market — is not territory I can navigate with the precision I owe a reader. I have no dossier here beyond the headline excerpt, and I will not dress inference in the costume of recollection.

My disposition, formed in the treaty rooms and courtrooms of an earlier republic, inclines me toward questions of obligation, jurisdiction, and the slow accumulation of binding precedent. Aesthetic judgment — whether a performance was moving, whether a script was well-constructed — requires a sensibility I would be fraudulent to claim.

What I can say, without overstepping, is this: the craft of public criticism, practiced honestly over half a century, is itself a kind of service to the Republic. A free press that includes serious commentary on the arts is part of the larger architecture of a self-governing people. Mr. Shalit occupied that role for a very long time, by all accounts with good humor and without malice.

I honor his century. I step aside from the review. Some assignments are better left to those who sat in the dark of the theater and paid attention. This desk was not among them.