Market Forces

At Moving Image Source:

In “Why Bother?” a thoughtful, searching essay on the place of literature in contemporary society, author Jonathan Franzen frets that whenever books attempt to critique modern society, they only ever find an audience already in agreement with them, and then he offers this aside...

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Madness and Civilization

At Moving Image Source:

When Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux was released in April 1947, its director was already on his way to becoming persona non grata in American culture. On top of personal scandal...

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Elizabeth Hardwick Shines On

At The L Magazine:

Hardwick, who died in late 2007, is most famous as a critic, and perhaps the most remarkable aspect of her essays was her cutting psychological insight. The first eight stories here, written between 1946 and 1959, are penetrating, richly detailed character sketches...

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Wood's Dilemma

At Moving Image Source:

Robin Wood once wrote, "Any critic who is honest...is committed to self-exposure, a kind of public striptease." In keeping with that spirit...

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Reinterpreting the Gods

At Moving Image Source:

In the story of English-language film criticism, Robin Wood looms large. He was one of the first film critics to publish serious, book-length studies of individual directors, and also one of the first to get a job teaching at a university...

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Sturm und Drang und Irony

At The L Magazine dot com:

I don’t really know what they’re about,” my friend remarked, “I just know I really, really like them.” She was voicing a not uncommon reaction to the films and videos of Michael Robinson...

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Bad Filmmaker Makes Bad Film About Good Filmmakers

At The L Magazine:

The American film avant-garde is in need of an approachable documentary that could make its staggering accomplishments more readily accessible to a wider audience. Or an erudite documentary that could spark discussion among those already in the know...

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