i really want to like andrew sarris but

In Notre Musique. I thought it was okay. Maybe it has something to do with age, but it was more like all these things I hold up are the keys to life, so please bear with me. And he had a point about images.

I'd have to read the review again, but I don't really think "urbane" in that context functions in the same condescending way that "sophisticated" or "articlate" often do.

Fired.

whoa!

For once, the "death of film criticism" howls might actually not be totally off the mark.

after he had a stroke (late 80s-early 90s?) his worked really dropped off. almost like he was a diff. person. i used to think haskell was ghost writing for him. i'd still take his writing in his prime over kael's.

nice little piece on sarris

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/movies/12powe.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw

“Pauline turned out to be a most dedicated auteurist,” noted J. Hoberman, now the senior film critic for The Village Voice. “She loved everything by De Palma and Scorsese.”

lol, but that's not really true about scorsese iirc

From the 1950s to the early 1970s the movies of François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Jean-Luc Godard broke like ocean swells upon the United States, followed in time by no less astonishing American films. A handful of critics — Mr. Sarris, Ms. Kael, Mr. Simon, Stanley Kauffmann and Manny Farber — argued that this was art worthy of sustained thought and argument.

im getting into it, but to liveblog: noooooo, this misses the point. critics had been calling it an "art worthy of sustained thought and argument" since at least the 1920s. the 50s-60s emphasis is really overdone.

in a profile of the og american auteurist, ya gotta toe the party line

i kinda gloss over that stuff because blah blah blah heard it all before, i focused on the bitchy stuff like kael passing on his wedding invite

to be brutal, he's an interesting figure and a nice guy, but he *wasn't* much of a critic. you don't go to 'the american cinema' for pleasure or for utility. but i do think a great, great book could be done about new york film culture and sarris would be a part of it. kael is quite right that auteurism was a very conservative force. on the other hand, the ny avant-garde (at least, the mekas–p adams sitney wing) was even more conservative!

his 60s and 70s stuff hasn't aged too well, and anything from the mid-80s on is very conservative. still, he was a very big deal to me as a teenager reading the village voice in the early 80s, and i fucking can't stand kael tho she is fun to read.

you don't go to 'the american cinema' for pleasure or for utility.

You, sir, are high. Even people not in thrall to The American Cinema have found it useful. Fercrissakes, he didn't miss many important names (Micheaux, Fregonese, Ludwig, Haas, Arzner [sorta - I do despise the Lupino entry], etc.). At the very least, it's a damn fine reference book. What on earth DO you use it for if not pleasure or utility?

And as for pleasure, the Sternberg entry is worth the price of admission alone. Gorgeously written and some of the most perceptive writing we have on him.

i didn't know he was still at the vv in the 80s! damn. i think it's hard to shake the kind of golden glow that exists around the 60s, even if you try and struggle against it it'll define you. (i've only been reading film criticism for 10 years so.)

xpost

some problems with the book...

the first chapter is about the greats of something called "the american cinema", including... chaplin, hitchcock, lang, lubitsch, murnau, ophuls, renoir, (and sternberg)!

also it's dated from 1929 and includes... chaplin, flaherty, ford, griffith, hitchcock, keaton, lang, lubitsch, murnau! say waaaaaht.

it's organized by director. crazy!

the first chapter is about the greats of something called "the american cinema", including... chaplin, hitchcock, lang, lubitsch, murnau, ophuls, renoir, (and sternberg)!

So what should he have called the book - Directors With Work Visas and/or Who Eventually Became American Citizens Who Made Great American Cinema?

also it's dated from 1929

What exactly is dated from 1929?

it's organized by director. crazy!

crazy!

my copy (da capo, 1996) says it's titled 'the american cinema: directors and directions 1929-1968)'.

my point is, thouse euro directors with one or exceptions evolved their styles outside the US. including renoir and murnau is particularly ridiculous. basically using the national frame is a bad and unhelpful thing. im not 'getting at' america: it's just that from very early in movie history, the movies have been transnational.

it is crazy to organize hollywood cinema by director, as if you're talking about wildly divergent styles and the operation of personal expression transcending genres and studio routines.

the first chapter is about the greats of something called "the american cinema", including... chaplin, hitchcock, lang, lubitsch, murnau, ophuls, renoir, (and sternberg)!

I can't think of many directors who should be less parenthetical than Von Sternberg.

regardless of whether his style came to fruition in Germany or in the U.S. (and I'd argue it flourished in Hollywood)

yeah i bracketed him coz he came up first in the US.

should have bracketed chaplin too but it's a different kind of debate to be had there.

my copy (da capo, 1996) says it's titled 'the american cinema: directors and directions 1929-1968)'.

All copies say that. But once inside the book, you discover that 1. Sarris addresses why he used that periodization and 2. he does indeed write about pre-1929 cinema.

im not 'getting at' america: it's just that from very early in movie history, the movies have been transnational.

Right but it seems as if birthplace is the deciding factor for you. You didn't include Welles in your list of directors that render the Pantheon chapter ridiculous. But Welles quickly became more transnational than any of the directors in that chapter (if not in the book overall). Sarris isn't denying the transnational nature of cinema. But really, how bizarre would it be for a book called The America Cinema to ignore Hitchcock, Lang, Chaplin (!), etc. because they were born/originated their styles outside America? (And even that latter point is highly debatable since Hitchcock, Lang, etc. kept evolving in Hollywood). They had a profound effect on the development of American cinema. They need to be in the book.

I agree Renoir (and Ophuls) might be stretching it some. But Murnau is an indispensable figure in American cinema history despite the few films he completed in the USA. Know how I know? Because of this Murnau, Borzage and Fox behemoth at my feet as I type.

it is crazy to organize hollywood cinema by director, as if you're talking about wildly divergent styles and the operation of personal expression transcending genres and studio routines.

This is an ancient debate. But I've never understood why an understanding of any cinema couldn't be enriched by a multitude of approaches.

She loved everything by De Palma and Scorsese.”

this is bullshit! She disliked Obsession, Scarface, and The Untouchables.

As for Sarris, I own this, and it's most useful, quite good on K. Hepburn: http://www.amazon.com/You-Aint-Heard-Nothin-Yet/dp/0195134265/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247584564&sr=8-2

this is bullshit! She disliked Obsession, Scarface, and The Untouchables.

Proving she was not only right about De Palma, she was really REALLY right!

scarface is his best film by a mile.

It so isn't. It so very isn't.

yah its clearly the one where the two chicks lez out

^^^ It so is. It so very is.

I can't even imagine Sarris talking about De Palma.

i'd bet he knew who depalma was in the 60s... but no, i can't see him being into the kind of sub-hitchcock schlock he got into later.

I can imagine him extolling the virtues of lesbian antics.

Actually, I can't, which is why I don't much like him as a critic.

my time reading sarris was his stint at the new york observer and i really wondered what all the fuss had been about. he spent at least half of each column on the kind of tedious plot recapping that i figure is the province of hack local columnists or AP coverage.

ny observer = post-stroke = mediocre

lang's american films are a great example of "personal expression transcending genres and studio routines" imo. i mean the directors he loves fit pretty well into his auteurist framework, that's why he likes them! it is ridiculous when talking about the vast majority of studio hacks tho

yeah i'd agree his pantheon (except hawks) count as auteurs in that way... and all of them were treated as such well before sarris (or cahiers) validated them. but as you go down the list it gets silly.

im not a new yorker but it's always seemed strange to me that he was the voice's guy. he just doesn't seem anywhere near the sensibility i'd associate with it. wonder if in 40 years we'll have people talking about the exciting times of nathan lee, armond white, and ayo scott. half-serious, because scott and lee are as good as any regular reviewer from the golden age.

obsession is dope

ayo! scott

yeah i'd agree his pantheon (except hawks) count as auteurs in that way

How does Hawks count? If you are saying he doesn't, I forgive you for having, in almost every other respect, a diametric sensibility from mine.

This looks pretty interesting: Sarris on his five best books of film criticism. (Can't seem to find a date anywhere...came to it through a similar link on the Greil Marcus site.)

http://fivebooks.com/best-books/film-criticism-andrew-sarris/

No Pauline Kael for some reason--what, did they have a falling out or something?

"There might be fewer people looking for a fight; it might be less polemical than it was when subscribing to a certain film theory could make you a marked man among your fellow critics."

He really did take that to his grave, didn't he?

The list seems biased in favor of critics who predate Andrew Sarris (and Pauline Kael)

Movie and music critics in general are much more charitable writing about their influences than their contemporaries.

Yeah. Note he also doesn't mention his good friend and colleague Jonas Mekas

I was checking something on Sarris's Wikipedia page, and in the links at the botom, the one for the Observer takes you to an archive of his reviews. I started scrolling back in reverse chronological order, and looks like they've kept quite a few up, maybe even all of them. (Whereas I believe almost all of Stanley Kauffmann's stuff from The New Republic is inaccessible.)

https://observer.com/author/andrew-sarris/

Amazed to discover Sarris was still writing in the ILX era. Have always thought of him as a figure of The Long Ago, tho now doing the maths if he was influenced by the Cahiers guys it's no surprise he'd still be around in the 21st century.

I think his quasi-fame diminished a lot once he left the Voice (among readers; other film critics didn't forget him), but I tried to keep up with his Observer stuff as best I could. I seem to recall that there was a paywall towards the end of his run.

Just listened to an interesting episode (the latest) of the podcast Sighs and Whispers featuring Sarris's widow, the film critic Molly Haskell. She talks a bit about what it was like being in a two-critic marriage.

I saw her introduce a film once, and she autographed some paperback collection I have with a piece by her. Can't remember the film, but, weirdly enough, I think it was a real Kael-type '70s thing. Her husband was still alive, because I remember cautiously asking her how he was doing (he'd either stepped down or was on extended leave at the time because of his health).

I can't remember if I've ever read any Sarris, but I quite liked Haskell's From Rape to Reverence when I read it a couple decades ago

oof, sorry, the title should be the other way round