American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now (Hardcover)

~ Phillip Lopate (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A provocative and dynamic force in American culture since the early twentieth century, movies have presented several generations of American writers with a new, fascinating, and challenging subject. How writers rose to the challenge, and in the process created an extraordinary body of work-passionate, contentious, restlessly curious-makes for a dazzling and constantly entertaining volume. "I have focused," writes editor Phillip Lopate, "on film criticism as an art in itself-the magnet for strong, elegant, eloquent, enjoyable writing."

American Movie Critics is an anthology of unparalleled scope that charts the rise of movies as art, industry, and mass entertainment. Beginning in the silent era-with poets Vachel Lindsay and Carl Sandburg hailing the new medium and Edmund Wilson paying tribute to Chaplin's Gold Rush-the collection traces the rapid evolution of the medium in an age of tumultuous political and social changes. Here are the great movie critics who forged a forceful vernacular idiom for talking about the new art: Otis Ferguson in the 1930s finding in James Cagney "the dignity of the genuine worn as easily as his skin"; James Agee in the 1940s on American war films and the advent of Italian neo-realism; Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Molly Haskell, Vincent Canby, and others from what Lopate calls "the golden age of movie criticism" from the 1950s through the '70s, a period when enthusiasms ran high, and arguments over style and content often took on a larger-than-life quality. Here too are the finest film reviewers on the contemporary scene, including Richard Schickel, Roger Ebert, and Manohla Dargis.

Joining the full-time film writers are many distinguished American authors weighing in on a range of cinematic experiences, including Ralph Ellison, Susan Sontag, James Baldwin, Brendan Gill, and John Ashbery. Together they define an often underappreciated genre of American writing, a tradition filled with the "energy, passion, and analytical juice" that for Lopate mark the best in movie criticism.

Phillip Lopate, editor, is an essayist, novelist, and poet, whose books include Bachelorhood; Against Joie de Vivre; Portrait of My Body; and Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan. He has edited The Art of the Personal Essay and, for The Library of America, Writing New York: A Literary Anthology. His selected film criticism appeared in Totally Tenderly Tragically, and he currently serves on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival.

The proceeds from the sale of this book will be used to support the mission of The Library of America, a nonprofit organization created in 1979 to preserve America's literary heritage by publishing and keeping permanently in print authoritative editions of America's best and most significant writing.

From the Back Cover

From Birth of a Nation to Sideways, 90 years of great writing that shaped how we think about the movies.

"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

"An on-the-spot history of the coming into being of a new narrative medium. The arc of this story, as traced by Phillip Lopate, is thrilling." JONATHAN LETHEM

"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

"Few books published this season will prove more absorbing." THE ATLANTIC

Product Details

• Hardcover: 825 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (March 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931082928
• ISBN-13: 978-1931082921
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #177,561 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough compilation of major movie critics, February 27, 2006

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

American Movie Critics, Phillip Lopate, ed. (NY: Library of America, 2006), 714pp.
A review by Harvey S. Karten, 2/27/06
Publication date: March 16, 2006

Several movie critics have had books published, tomes which for the most part are reprints of their reviews with introductions by the critics and comments here offering clarifications. Pauline Kael, the best-known of all, wrote one with the clever title "I Lost It at the Movies," while Maitland McDonagh gave us "Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds." John Simon is known for "John Simon on Film," and my favorite for entertainment value, Anthony Lane, recently came out with "Nobody's Perfect."

The latest anthology comes from the editing pen of Phillip Lapote, whose "American Movie Critics" is a selective reprint of reviews by sixty-eight writers, living and otherwise. The author prefaces the 714-page volume with a lively introduction and has peppered the book with introductions to the works of all assembled reviewers. Some intros are a few sentences, others cover a page. In his selection process, Lopate cites a number of contemporary critics, but for historical depth, he has included well-known writers of bygone times, some whose principal output has not been movie criticism. They include Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Robert E. Sherwood and Edmund Wilson.

The reader can feel free to either dig into the book chronologically, soaking in the history of movie criticism from step to step, like a film that takes you from A to B to C (Boy chases girl, boy loses girl, girl catches boy). Or this can be utilized as a reference work, perhaps looking at contemporary reviews such as those knocked out by New York Press critic Armond White, New York Times writers A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargas, and Nation magazine's Stewart Klawas. Lovers of film history are sure to like the reviews of James Agee, arguably one of the five great critics of the 20th century ("The Story of G.I. Joe," "The Lost Weekend," "Shoeshine") and Otis Ferguson (the brilliant "Stage Door," and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs").

Essays are included as well. Paul Goodman's "Griffith and the Technical Innovations" tells of the great director's technique with special emphasis on "The Musketeers of Pig Alley," "Intolerance" and of course "The Birth of a Nation." Meyer Levin talks about how he overcame what makes us critics all feel guilty--walking out on a picture. "I rarely walk out....It is only the more pretentious cinema efforts, the ones that try to be something besides just another movie, that may stimulate me to walking out." (Read the chapter and you'll know the identity of this particular turkey.)

You'll want to absorb every word written for The New Republic by the dean of American critics, Stanley Kauffmann, who, soon to turn ninety, continues to surprise us with his scholarship. The
aforementioned Armond White is to be savored: he is an original prose stylist and a frequent contrarian, i.e. he may champion a movie by De Palma but not necessary feel groovy about some Antonioni or Fellini. If you love everything done by Steven Spielberg, White is your man.

While there are no particular errors of commission-after all editor Phillip Lapote presumably had a free hand in choosing his critics-there is an important omission which, given the fine quality of the book makes that oversight particularly egregious. Where are the exclusively online critics, the dedicated women and men whose principal readers are the main demographic, the 16 to 30-year-olds? Did Lapote bury himself so complete in paper that he included not a single one, not even the magnificent Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com? Perhaps that
editor should consider a new volume, "American Online Movie Critics?" What do you say, Mr. Lapote?

The writer is director of New York Film Critics Online at NYFCO.org.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Screen Tests, October 24, 2006

By	Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I wanted a book that would cover a wide array of reviews and struck gold with this one. Though now that I think of it, maybe I should have held out for one that included non-American writers in it. I'm such a dunce, I didn't see until too late that, on the title page, clearly marked, it reads, "A special publication of the Library of America." No wonder it's so America-centric, but I picked up the book and opened it by happenstance to Penelope Gilliatt's scintillating review of Fassbinder's Petra Von Kant, and naturally I took the book to be more international in scope than it actually is. In what universe do people think of Gilliatt as a US writer? It doesn't really matter because what remains deserves four stars.

Lopate doesn't go just for the simple nobrainer essays by each of the authors, but he actually spends time thinking of new ways to showcase their skills. Thus for James Agee we don't get the old Silent Clowns piece, or the one onm MONSIEUR VERDOUX nor Val Lewton. He goes for the unfamiliar nearly every time, which is nice. (The only exception I can see offhand is Molly Haskell on "The Woman's Film," but that's nice in a quite different way since Haskell's essay is so lengthy and comprehensive hat it is only occasionally reprinted anywhere, despite its historical significance.

Bell Hooks and John Ashbery have certainly written better work elsewhere. But it is nice to see James Harvey and Stuart Klawans, both so underrated, here given pride of place. And having Libby Gelman-Waxner in a book of this kind is certainly a victory for gay incursion into the canon. James Baldwin on LADY SINGS THE BLUES and Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir" would alone make a great book, and there are literally dozens of others of equal quality. Gee, that Renata Adler could sure bite back, couldn't she? I don't remember her as so aerbic as she is here about Richard Brooks' film of IN COLD BLOOD. Talk about cold blooded, she's the kind of writer about whom I used to think, admiringly, "She's so New York," when I meant, acidic.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but where's the index?, January 27, 2007

By	John Isner "a teacher" (Freehold, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was surprised not to find an index in this otherwise excellent book.