Cloth: 978-0-226-72664-9 | Paper: 978-0-226-72665-6 | Electronic: 978-0-226-72666-3
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226726663.001.0001
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ABOUT THIS BOOK
The esteemed film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has brought global cinema to American audiences for the last four decades. His incisive writings on individual filmmakers define film culture as a diverse and ever-evolving practice, unpredictable yet subject to analyses just as diversified as his own discriminating tastes. For Rosenbaum, there is no high or low cinema, only more interesting or less interesting films, and the pieces collected here, from an appreciation of Marilyn Monroe’s intelligence to a classic discussion on and with Jean-Luc Godard, amply testify to his broad intellect and multi-faceted talent. Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia gathers together over fifty examples of Rosenbaum’s criticism from the past four decades, each of which demonstrates his passion for the way we view movies, as well as how we write about them. Charting our changing concerns with the interconnected issues that surround video, DVDs, the Internet, and new media, the writings collected here also highlight Rosenbaum’s polemics concerning the digital age. From the rediscovery and recirculation of classic films, to the social and aesthetic impact of technological changes, Rosenbaum doesn’t disappoint in assembling a magisterial cast of little-known filmmakers as well as the familiar faces and iconic names that have helped to define our era.
As we move into this new decade of moviegoing—one in which Hollywood will continue to feel the shockwaves of the digital age—Jonathan Rosenbaum remains a valuable guide. Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia is a consummate collection of his work, not simply for fans of this seminal critic, but for all those open to the wide variety of films he embraces and helps us to elucidate.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote for many periodicals (including the Village Voice, Sight and Sound, Film Quarterly, and Film Comment) before becoming principal film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until his retirement in 2008. He is the author of many books, most recently including Discovering Orson Welles and the major collection of essays Essential Cinema. He continues to write for both print and online publications and maintains a blog at www.jonathanrosenbaum.com.
REVIEWS
“Jonathan Rosenbaum is a great film critic and I’ve learned so much over the years from his wise writing.”
"Rosenbaum's argument is simpler and more convincing: when you're looking at a film that has survived decades, has many substantive admirers and nothing in it speaks to you, you should probably do some reading on it, or at least watch the extras. You may learn how quickly your gut reaction can change."
— GreenCine Daily"Ceaselessly prolific, frighteningly well-informed on seemingly every detail of film history, and well ahead of the technological curve. . . . The handsomely curated Goodbye Cinema is a dense collection of Rosenbaum’s most fervent causes."
— The Onion's A/V Club“Jonathan Rosenbaum has long been known for forging a path for cinephilia in a changing landscape, and for cautioning against hand-wringing and nay-saying about new technologies among older generations of movie lovers. Goodbye Cinema Hello Cinephilia, Rosenbaum’s invaluable new collection of writing about film, takes those positions as one of its organizing principles—in keeping with which it includes blog posts as well as more conventionally published pieces, all bringing to bear his vast store of knowledge and dexterity in deploying it, as well as his customary social and political engagement.”
“There’s plenty of evidence on display of what has made Rosenbaum an essential critic for generations of readers.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
I. Position Papers
Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia
In Defense of Spoilers
Potential Perils of the Director’s Cut
Southern Movies, Actual and Fanciful: A Personal Survey
À la recherche de Luc Moullet: 25 Propositions
Bushwhacked Cinema
What Dope Does to Movies
Fever Dreams in Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato
From Playtime to The World: The Expansion and Depletion of Space within Global Economies
II. Actors, Actors-Writers-Directors, Filmmakers
Kim Novak as Midwestern Independent
Marilyn Monroe’s Brains
A Free Man: White Hunter, Black Heart
Bit Actors
Rediscovering Charlie Chaplin
Second Thoughts on Stroheim
Sweet and Sour: Lubitsch and Wilder in Old Hollywood
Ritwik Ghatak: Reinventing the Cinema
Introducing Pere Portabella
Portabella and Continuity
Two Neglected Filmmakers: Eduardo de Gregorio and Sara Driver
Vietnam in Fragments: William Klein in 1967–68: A Radical Reevaluation
Movie Heaven: Defending Your Life
The World as a Circus: Tati’s Parade
The Sun Also Sets: The Films of Nagisa Oshima
III. Films
Inside the Vault [on Spione]
Family Plot
"The Doddering Relics of a Lost Cause": John Ford’s The Sun Shines Bright
Prisoners of War: Bitter Victory
Art of Darkenss: Wichita
Cinema of the Future: Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa
A Few Eruptions in the House of Lava
Unsatisfied Men: Beau travail
Viridiana on DVD
Doing the California Split
Mise en Scène as Miracle in Dreyer’s Ordet
David Holzman’s Diary/My Girlfriend’s Wedding: Historical Artifacts of the Past and Present
Two Early Long-Take Climaxes: The Magnifi cent Ambersons and A Star Is Born
Wrinkles in Time: Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy
Martha: Fassbinder’s Uneasy Testament
India Matri Buhmi
Radical Humanism and the Coexistence of Film and Poetry in The House Is Black
WR, Sex, and the Art of Radical Juxtaposition
Revisiting The Godfather
IV. Criticism
Film Writing on the Web: Some Personal Reflections
Goodbye, Susan, Goodbye: Sontag and Movies
Daney in English: A Letter to Trafic
Trailer for Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma
Moullet retrouvé (2006/2009)
The Farber Mystery
The American Cinema Revisited
Raymond Durgnat
Surviving the Sixties
L.A. Existential
Index