Portland Public Library

American movie critics, an anthology from the silents until now, edited by Phillip Lopate

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 715-720)

no index present

non fiction

American movie critics

bibliographyreviews

62282337

edited by Phillip Lopate

Library of America

an anthology from the silents until now

A dual history of American movies and movie reviews evaluates how the nation's films have both fostered new ways of seeing the world and spawned an extraordinary body of critical writing, in a collection of essays that includes contributions by such figures as James Agee, Ralph Ellison, and Roger Ebert

I. Pioneers: the silent era and the transition to sound : 1. Vichel Lindsay : The photoplay of action ; The artistic position of Douglas Fairbanks and "The Thief of Bagdad" production -- 2. Hugo Munsterberg : The function of the photoplay -- 3. Carl Sandberg : "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" ; "Nanook of the North" ; "A Woman of Paris" ; "Manhandled" ; "The Temptress" ; "What Price Glory?" -- 4. Robert E. Sherwood : "The Ten Commandments" ; "Greed" -- 5. Edmund Wilson : The new Chaplin comedy ("The Gold Rush") -- 6. H. L. Mencken : From appendix from Moronia: note on technic -- 7. H.D. : "The Passion of Joan of Arc" -- 8. Alexander Bakshy : The "talkies" -- 9. Harry Alan Potamkin : "A" in the art of the movie and kino ; Remarks on D.W. Griffith -- 10. Gilbert Seldes : From an hour with the movies and the talkies -- 11. Pare Lorentz : "Anna Christie" ; Good art, good propaganda -- 12. William Troy : "King Kong" ; "The Invisible Man" -- 13. Cecilia Ager : "Parachute Jumper" ; "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" ; "Ladies They Talk About" ; "Our Betters" ; "King Kong" ; "Night Flight" ; "Camille" ; "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" ; "Personal Property" ; "Another Dawn" ; "A Day at the Races" -- 14. Andre Sennwald : "The Devil is a Woman" ; The future of color -- 15. Rudolf Arnheim : The film critic of tomorrow -- 16. Lincoln Kirstein : Dancing in films -- 17. Meyer Levin : "The Charge of the Light Brigade" -- II. Masters and moonlighters: the late 1930s, world war II, and the postwar era : 1. Otis Ferguson : It's up to the kiddies ("Stand Up and Cheer") ; Stars and garters ("Belle of the Nineties") ; Artist among the flickers ("Three Songs about Lenin") ; Arms and men ("Lives of a Bengal Dancer") ; Words and music ("Broadway Melody of 1936") ; In a dry month ("Hands across the Table") ; Cagney: great guy ; Through the looking glass ("Stage Door") ; Walt Disney's Grimm reality ("Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs") ; Hitchcock in Hollywood ("Foreign Correspondent") ; For better, for worse ("Time in the Sun") ; Handsome is... ("High Sierra") ; Citizen Welles ; Welles and his wonders: II -- 2. Melvin B. Tolson : "Gone with the Wind" is more dangerous than "Birth of a Nation" -- 3. Paul Goodman : Griffith and the technical innovations -- 4. James Agee : "The Song of Bernadette" ; Annual wrap-up of 1944 ; A great film ("The Story of G.I Joe") ; "The Lost Weekend" ; "Shoeshine" ; "Day of Wrath" -- 5. Siegfried Kracauer : Introduction to "From Caligari to Hitler" -- 6. Robert Warshow : The gangster as tragic hero ; A feeling of sad dignity ("Limelight") -- 7. Ralph Ellison : The shadow and the act -- 8. Martha Wolfenstein and Nathan Leites : Got a match? -- III. The golden age of movie criticism: the 1950s through the 70s : 1. Barbara Deming : The reluctant war hero ("Casablanca") -- 2. Manny Farber : Underground films ; White elephant art vs. termite art ; Kitchen without kitsch (with Patricia Patterson) -- 3. Parker Tyler : Double into quadruple indemnity ; Warhol's new sex film ("Blue Movie") -- 4. Eugene Archer : "A King in New York" -- 5. Arlene Croce : "Panther Panchali" and "Aparajito" ; A note on la belle, la perfectly swell, romance -- 6. Jonas Mekas : The creative joy of the independent film-maker ; Renoir and plotless cinema ; Marilyn Monroe and the loveless world ("The Misfits") ; On Andy Warhol's "Sleep" ; Not everything that is fun is cinema ("A Hard Day's Night") ; On Bresson and "Une Femme Douce" -- 7. Stanley Kauffmann : "The Misfits" ; "L'Avventura" ; "Lola Montes" -- 8. Andrew Sarris : "The Birds" ; "La Guerre Est Finie" ; "Falstaff" and "A Countess from Hong Kong" ; Science fiction: "The Forbin Project" ; Billy Wilder ; Billy Wilder reconsidered ; John Wayne's strange legacy -- 9. Susan Sontag : The imagination of disaster -- 10. Pauline Kael : "Band of Outsiders" ; "Funny Girl" ; Trash, art and the movies ; "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" -- 11. Dwight MacDonald : "8 1/2" -- 12. Renata Adler : Cold blood: cheap fiction -- 13. Donald Phelps : The runners -- 14. Vincent Canby : "Midnight Cowboy" ; "The Wild Bunch" ; "Easy Rider" ; "Z" ; "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" ; "Patton" ; "Zabriskie Point" ; Is "Fiddler" more de mille than sholem Aleichem? -- 15. William S. Pechter : These are a few of my favorite things ; Bunuel -- 16. Molly Haskell : The woman's film ; Sophisticated interiors ; Melancholy males or movies about men turning 50 -- 17. Paul Schrader : Notes on film noir -- 18. John Simon : "The Last Picture Show" ; Jaundice of the soul ("Chinatown") -- 19. Brendan Gill : Blue notes -- 20. Richard Corliss : "M*A*S*H" -- 21. James Baldwin : From "The Devil Finds Work" ("Lady Sings the Blues") -- 22. Penelope Gilliatt : "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" -- IV. Reconsiderations and renegade perspectives: the 1980s to the present : 1. Walter Kerr : The Keaton quiet -- 2. J. Hoberman : Bad movies ; The film critic of tomorrow, today -- 3. Stanley Cavell : Cons and pros ("The Lady Eve") -- 4. Richard Schickel : "Blue Velvet" ; Sam Fuller: movie bozo -- 5. Armond White : Rebirth of a nation ("Do the Right Thing") ; Malcolm X'd again ("Malcolm X") -- 6. David Denby : The real thing -- 7. Geoffrey O'Brian : The Italian system -- 8. Paul Rudnick (aka Libby Gelman-Waxner) : A boy named Sioux ("Dances with Wolves") -- 9. David Thomson : Cary Grant ; Howard Hawks -- 10. Bell Hooks : Cool cynicism: "Pulp Fiction" -- 11. Kenneth Turan : Titanic sinks again (spectacularly) -- 12. Jonathan Rosenbaum : In dreams begin responsibilities ("Eyes Wide Shut") -- 13. Roger Ebert : "Trouble in Paradise" -- 14. Stuart Klawans : "Gladiator" -- 15. James Harvey : "Imitation of Life" -- 16. Kent Jones : Of love and the city ("In the Mood for Love") -- 17. John Ashbery : On Val Lewton's "The Seventh Victim" -- 18. Carrie Rickey : Ratpacks and pack males -- 19. Gilberto Perez : Saying "ain't" and playing 'dixie': rhetoric and comedy in "Judge Priest" -- 20. A.O. Scott : Good and evil locked in violent showdown ("The Passion of the Christ") ; The most overrated film of the year ("Sideways") -- 21. Manohla Dargis : High hopes ("The Royal Tenenbaums") ; Not-so-nice kitty ("The Cat in the Hat") ; Once disaster hits, it seems never to end ("A History on Violence")