Midnight Movies (Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jonathan Rosenbaum (Author) "It started out as an affectionate homage to late-night movies, and ended up being an affectionately embraced late-night movie," director Jim Sharman would say of..." (more)
Key Phrases: Rocky Horror, New York, Pink Flamingos (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

These are a few of the over 100 films discussed in Midnight Movies, a comprehensive and in-depth look at the subculture movies of the past three decades. Here is the complete history of cult films, their makers, and their audience; an examination of how films become "midnight movies," and what keeps audiences coming back to see them over and over; an exploration of the connections between subversive film and the subcultures from which it emerges. Supplemented with a new afterward detailing the accommodation of midnight movies into the mainstream and speculating on the future of the genre, Midnight Movies is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and future of American cinema.

About the Author

J. Hoberman is a film critic who writes for theVillage Voice and other publications. Jonathan Rosenbaum is the co-author of Midnight Movies, author of Moving Places, Placing Movies, and Movies as Politics; and film critic for the Chicago Reader.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 21, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306804336
• ISBN-13: 978-0306804335
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #588,388 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the definitive books on cult films., May 30, 2003

By	Cubist (United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This is one of the first serious film books I ever picked up. The picture of ol' Jack Nance from David Lynch's Eraserhead is what caught my eye. After reading the first paragraph of the first chapter, I was hooked.

Written by, arguably, the two best critics around -- J. Hoberman (who writes for the Village Voice) and Jonathan Rosenbaum (who writes for the Chicago Reader) -- this is an excellent look at a bygone era of movie-going. They document the midnight movie circuit that used to exist across the country for films too weird and strange for mainstream consumption. Sadly, most of these theatres are gone now -- swallowed up by the multiplex monster.

These guys clearly did their homework -- their chapters on the early careers of Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Waters and George Romero are definitive. Best of all, their writing style is never dry or academic but very readable (it helps that these guys write for weeklies).

This book is a must-have for any fan of cult movies (and esp. the above mentioned directors). I have read it many, many times and it inspired me to be a writer myself. Great stuff.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating reading!, August 14, 1999

By	Beverly A Ruud (Englewood, CO USA) - See all my reviews

Very good - really eclectic coverage. It has a lot of material on underground films from the late 60s, as well as "Rocky Horror", Alexandro Jodorowsky, and John Waters. Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book on Cult Films, April 12, 2009

By	The Czar of Arkansas (Little Rock, AR USA) - See all my reviews

Long, long ago, in the age before the videocassette and enormous theater chains, a strange cultural phenomenon once existed: the midnight movie. Movies that either couldn't get a regular run or had gotten one and bombed were often exhibited at midnight in independent theaters to audiences craving a different experience. Jonathan Rosenbaum and J. Hoberman explore this all-but-extinct cinematic experience in Midnight Movies.

Midnight Movies begins with an exploration of the beginning of the midnight phenomenon, harkening back to the 40's and 50's cult and exploitation films which gave rise to the art films of the 1960's. Films from Jack Smith, Luis Bunel, Hershell Gordon Lewis, and Andy Warhol are discussed. Many of these films, while unimportant on their own, pushed boundaries and proved that a small commercial market existed for off-beat cinema. Midnight Movies then moves on to explore the impact on film and audiences of four midnight offerings: Alexandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, John Waters' Pink Flamingos, and David Lynch's Eraserhead.

Jodorowsky's El Topo was perhaps the first major midnight movie, playing for weeks at midnight in various New York venues. El Topo begins as a western, although the film gets more surreal and philosophical as each reel is spun. The film chronicles the story of a gunfighter who must kill four master sharpshooters to prove his love for a girl he snatches from one of his victims. As strange as it is oddly religious, El Topo was a sensation that attracted a superstar audience for this Mexican import.

Far from Mexico--in the exotic locales of western Pennsylvania--the next midnight sensation was under construction. George Romero, while working for an ad agency, began shooting Night of the Living Dead. The entire film cost $114,000, most of which was deferred until after distribution, and grossed millions, making Night of the Living Dead the most profitable film ever released until The Blair Witch Project. Romero was influenced by B-movies and sci-fi/horror comics of the 50's, but denies that Night of the Living Dead was ever made to make the many social points later attributed to it by critics. However, the film lives on as a landmark horror film.

If critics endlessly debated the social gravity of Night of the Living Dead, they didn't waste much breath on the work of John Waters. Dedicated to bad taste, Waters' Pink Flamingos comes in for the next examination. A film about two families competing for the title of "filthiest family in the world," Pink Flamingos has something to disgust or offend nearly everyone: crossdressing, kidnapping, adult babies, gratuitous violence, homosexuality, illicit baby farms, and porn, just to name a few. Waters' work, which has clearly evolved over the years, was loved by midnight audiences for its outrageousness and lack of pretension.

Whatever pretension Waters lacked was more than made up by the book's final director and film, David Lynch's Eraserhead. Eraserhead is the nonnarrative story of Henry, who wanders through a postmodern industrial wasteland. Henry is contacted by an old girlfriend, Mary, who claims to have given birth to Henry's child. The baby, if it can be scientifically called that, is a complete grotesquerie, which Mary abandons to Henry's care while Henry daydreams about a woman who lives in his apartment's radiator. Eraserhead really can't be adequately explained, it can only be experienced. Like the far more commercial Altered States, it is a nihilistic journey probably best taken with some chemical substance. Its billing as a "nightmare vision of the future" was right on target, at least for Lynch's future: Lynch continues to get paid by big studios in the bleak hope he'll make another Elephant Man, when he really just makes very slick versions of Eraserhead.

If you're a film junkie, this book is really a must-read. Hoberman and Rosenbaum do an excellent job of discussing the making of each film, the personalities involved, and the cultural climate into which each film was released. Although the opening sections concerning underground film in the 40's and 50's were a bit long, in my opinion, the reader gets a great story not merely of how these films were made and distributed, but how audiences and fans experienced these midnight movies.