Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Language: English
Pages: 348
ISBN: 0520086333
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
It is this last element—Rosenbaum's reflections on the art of film criticism—that sets this collection apart from other volumes of film writing. Both in the essays themselves and in the section introductions, Rosenbaum provides a rare insider's view of his profession: the backstage politics, the formulation of critical judgments, the function of film commentary. Taken together, these pieces serve as a guided tour of the profession of film criticism.
They also serve as representative samples of Rosenbaum's unique brand of film writing. Among the highlights are memoirs of director Jacques Tati and maverick critic Manny Farber, celebrations of classics such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Manchurian Candidate, and considered reevaluations of Orson Welles and Woody Allen.
The Third Man (BFI Film Classics)
Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition: Cultural Contexts in Monty Python
The Palm Beach Story (BFI Film Classics)
The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (Deep Focus, Book 5)
Canada, and Snow speaks of adding another shot to the film to prove that he exists; nobody I ask seems to know who he is.) Simon Field recalls his experience in helping to shoot part of sequence 10; Laura Mulvey points out that one of the texts in 21 comes from Pride and Prejudice; James Pettifer objects to the depoliticized use of a Mao text in the same sequence; Ben Brewster comments favorably on the film's looseness, which he compares to concerts of the music of Cornelius Cardew; Tony Rayns
the most to offer me eventually, recalling it afterward. In a slow, cumulative way, everything about it becomes interesting, and the apparent simplicity of < previous page page_42 next page > < previous page page_43 next page > Page 43 "content" and manner is deceptive. I've spent hours discussing the film with friends, and countless details that initially seemed mechanical or inconsequential have assumed interest and meaning retrospectively. The fact that Akerman seems to have kept
that goes with them. Several years later, when Manny got a shelty puppy, he named it Jimmy, after Cagney. Indeed, I suspect that even his admiration for Straub/ Huillet has something to do with their star presences. <><><><><><><><><><><><> A few other stars in the Farber canon: the heroes of Werner Herzog, the loft in WAVELENGTH, "Lee Marvin's Planter's Peanut Head," working-class domestic interiors, Barbara Stanwyck, Wellman, Godard, Fassbinder, "Stan and Ollie" (the title of a 1981 painting),
end-all of film education; I was often shocked to discover how many film teachers "taught" GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, for instance, without having ever seen the entire movie.) The Bulletin, by contrast, was never considered part of "the establishment" and was respected by many English critics who shunned Sight and Sound. As one token of this difference, I regarded it as something of a coup when I per- < previous page page_80 next page > < previous page page_81 next page > Page 81 suaded
collectively sold us a bill of goods, an impossible objecta CinemaScope of the mind, a capitalist POTEMKIN. Sight and Sound, Winter 1984/1985 < previous page page_104 next page > < previous page page_105 next page > Page 105 Gertrud as Nonnarrative: The Desire for the Image The Desire for the Image There are narrative and nonnarrative ways of summing up a life or conjuring a work of art, but when it comes to analyzing life or art in dramatic terms, it is usually the narrative method that
