American Movie Critics: From Silents Until Now [Paperback]

Phillip Lopate (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2008

An anthology of unparalleled scope, American Movie Critics charts the rise of movies as art, industry, and mass entertainment. Here are the great movie critics who forged a forceful new vernacular idiom for talking about the new art,?Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Richard Schickel, Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Molly Haskell, among them. Here too are notable American writers, including Carl Sandburg, H. L. Mencken, Susan Sontag, and John Ashbery, weighing in on a range of cinematic experiences. The volume?s narrative continues to the present with a sampling of the best of today?s reviewers, including J. Hoberman, Roger Ebert, A. O. Scott, and Manohla Dargis. This paperback edition includes additional material reflecting the impact of the Internet and DVDs on film criticism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“With his deep knowledge of the medium, Phillip Lopate provides a tour of a century of film and the splendid writing it has inspired. Lopate, a gifted essayist, is an ideal guide to these riches.”
—ROGER EBERT

“This provocative collection provides not only dozens of colorful close-ups of iconic movies but also a vivid panorama of modern times.”
—A. SCOTT BERG

“A distinguished compendium, which . . . has earned its place in the library of any devoted cinephile, and on the shelves of readers interested in the development of the critical essay in America.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“It’s a great book for carefree browsing. Set it on the nightstand or the coffee table and flip through it until something catches your eye—and it will, guaranteed.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“This great, illuminating companion, . . . which features writings by great daily critics and writerly giants like Edmund Wilson, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, is both a canon and a priceless greatest-hits sampler.”
—Boston Globe

“The value of American Movie Critics lies in its sweep, its attempt to grab the whole history of a vibrant and underappreciated genre, a mode of conversation, often of provocation. . . . I loved this book even when I disagreed with it.”
—Los Angeles Times
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Phillip Lopate, editor, is an essayist, novelist, and poet, whose books include: the personal essay trilogy Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre, and Portrait of My Body; and Waterfront:?A Journey Around Manhattan. He has also edited Art of the Personal Essay and Writing New York: A Literary Anthology. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 750 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (January 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598530224
• ISBN-13: 978-1598530223
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #460,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Splendid Compendium of Classic Reviews, January 24, 2008

By 

Harvey S. Karten "Director, NY Film Critics O... (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Movie Critics: From Silents Until Now (Paperback)

American Movie Critics, Phillip Lopate, editor. New York: The Library of America, 2008. Paperback reviewed 1/24/08.

When the impressive hardcover edition was released two years before this expanded paperback reprint, I had taken issue with the editor, Phillip Lopate, for excluding Internet critics. Sure, many of the illustrious print reviewers have an online presence, but where were his selections of writers who are exclusively online? He accepted my reproach, offering to include Internet critics for balance, though the number he had apparently chosen to embrace, three, could hardly be considered a "balance," given the proliferation of such critics today. A look at just the accredited writers on http://rottentomatoes.com attests to that. Even more dismaying is that ultimately, the new "expanded" edition adds only one exclusively online critic, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com, one Internet blogger, David Bordwell, and a third, Nathan Lee, who is a print critic with the Village Voice (which has merely an online presence).

Still, in the editor's valuable introduction, Mr. Lopate does add reverence to Internet film criticism, which has come a way from the time that the public considered these writers "anyone with a modem." He praises websites "devoted to obscure art-house directors, or even a single film," notes that bloggers need not worry about word content while criticizing some "unedited stream-of-consciousness...sloppy, self-indulgent, inelegant writing." He notes that "....If most film criticism on the web is finally glibly unmemorable, the same could be said for the majority of print reviews," while singling out Internet critics Stephanie Zacharek, Charles Taylor, and Andrew O'Hehir for special kudos.

If you already have a copy of the hardcover edition of "American Movie Critics" and do not mind shelling out twenty bucks or so for the paperback, this is money well spent, as the volume of classic film essays looks splendid. Aside from a few paragraphs about online critics and a few pages of actual reviews by Ms. Zacharek,Mr. Bordwell, and Mr. Lee, though, the softcover edition and its predecessor--which I reviewed on this site two years ago--are about the same.

"American Movie Critics" consists of Mr. Lopate's personal selections of the best film criticism of today and yesterday, his defense of the art, and is a must for those who appreciate film commentary for prose style rather than their service as mere consumer guides.