Jonathan Rosenbaum 
Placing Movies [EPUB ebook] 
The Practice of Film Criticism

Jonathan Rosenbaum, longtime contributor to such publications as
Film Quarterly, Sight and Sound, and
The Village Voice, is arguably the most eloquent, insightful film critic writing in America today.
Placing Movies, the first collection of his work, gathers together thirty of his most distinctive and illuminating pieces. Written over a span of twenty-one years, these essays cover an extraordinarily broad range of films—from Hollywood blockbusters to foreign art movies to experimental cinema. They include not just reviews but perceptive commentary on directors, actors, and trends; and thoughtful analysis of the practice of film criticism.


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.



Jonathan Rosenbaum, longtime contributor to such publications as
Film Quarterly, Sight and Sound, and
The Village Voice, is arguably the most eloquent, insightful film critic writing in America today.
Placing Movies, the first collect

Mục lục

Dedication and Acknowledgments


Starting Out in Film Criticism


One. The Critical Apparatus

Introduction

Theory and Practice: The Criticism of

Jean-Luc Godard

Film Comment Journals, 1974-1977: Excerpts

Edinburgh Encounters: A Consumers/Producers

Guide-in-Progress to Four Recent Avant-Garde Films

Barthes & Film: 12 Suggestions

A Bluffer’s Guide to Bela Tarr

They Drive by Night: The Criticism of Manny Farber


Two. Touchstones

Introduction

Ozu’s GOOD MORNING

Aspects of ANATAHAN

Gold Diggers of 1953: Howard Hawks’s

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

GERTRUD as Nonnarrative: The Desire for the Image

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

OTHELLO Goes Hollywood


Three. Filinmakers

Introduction

Work and Play in the House of Fiction:

On Jacques Rivette

The Tyranny of Sensitivity

Love Films: A Cassavetes Retrospective

The Death of Hulot

Orson Welles’s Essay Films and Documentary Fictions:

A Two-Part Speculation

The Importance of Being Perverse: Godard’s KING LEAR

Alain Resnais and MELO


Four. Provocations

Introduction

Jerry Lewis’s HARDLY WORKING

DOOMED LOVE: The Masterpiece You Missed

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Mapping the Territory of Rlh11 Ruiz

Notes Toward the Devaluation of Woody Allen

Crass Consciousness: BARTON FINK


Five. Inside and Outside the Movie Theater

Introduction

Bird Watching

Jean Vigo’s Secret: L’ ATALANTE

Guilty by Omission

His Master’s Vice: Fuller’s WHITE DOG

Government Lies: THE PANAMA DECEPTION and

DEEP COYER

A Cinema of Uncertainty: Films by

Michelangelo Antonioni

Bibliography

Index

Giới thiệu về tác giả

Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic at the Chicago Reader, is author of Greed (1993) and Film: The Front Line 1983. He is also coauthor, with J. Hoberman, of Midnight Movies (1983).