For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
Encyclopedia
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a 2009 documentary film dramatizing a hundred years of American film criticism
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...

 through film clips, historic photographs, and on-camera interviews with many of today’s important reviewers, mostly print but also Internet. It was produced by Amy Geller, written and directed by long-time Boston Phoenix film critic Gerald Peary
Gerald Peary
Gerald Peary is an American film critic, who has been a reviewer and columnist for the Boston Phoenix since 1996. He was formerly the Acting Curator of the Harvard Film Archive and is currently the General Editor of the University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Filmmakers Series...

, and narrated by Patricia Clarkson
Patricia Clarkson
Patricia Davies Clarkson is an American actress. After studying drama on the East Coast, Clarkson launched her acting career in 1985, and has worked steadily in both film and television. She twice won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in Six Feet Under...

. Critics featured include Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 of The Chicago Sun-Times, A.O. Scott of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum is an American film critic. She joined Entertainment Weekly as film critic in the 1990s. She has been featured on CNN, co-host on Siskel & Ebert At the Movies as well as a cultural, theater and television reviewer....

 of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

, Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...

 of The Los Angeles Times, and Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...

, host of the public radio show
KCRW
KCRW is a public radio station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, carrying a mix of National Public Radio news, talk radio and freeform music format. The general manager of KCRW is Jennifer Ferro...

 The Treatment.

Many more critics, journalists, and writers from the present and past appear in film clips and interviews. Among them: Jami Bernard
Jami Bernard
Jami Bernard is an author and media consultant, an award-winning film critic for The New York Post and The New York Daily News, and the founder of Barncat Publishing . She has appeared in documentaries as herself, including the Independent Film Channel's Indie Sex series , on which she was a...

, Manny Farber
Manny Farber
Emanuel "Manny" Farber was an American painter, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic" , Farber developed a distinctive prose style and set of theoretical stances which have had a large influence on later generations of film critics; Susan Sontag considered him to be "the...

, Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...

, Molly Haskell
Molly Haskell
Molly Haskell is an American feminist film critic and author. Her most influential book is From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies...

, J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...

, Harlan Jacobson
Harlan Jacobson
Harlan Jacobson is an American film critic, literary editor, radio host, film Lecturer and author.-Education:Harlan Jacobson received a Bachelor's Degree in English from Haverford College in 1971.-Career:...

, Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann is an American author, editor, and critic of film and theatre. He has written for The New Republic since 1958 and currently contributes film criticism to that magazine....

, Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans has been the film critic for The Nation since 1988. He won the 2007 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism and he received a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a critical study of Preston Sturges...

, Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...

, Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...

, Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris is a film critic at The Boston Globe where he reviews films alongside Ty Burr. Morris and Burr also make regular appearances on NECN to discuss the latest films and do the weekly Take Two film review video series on Boston.com...

, Rex Reed
Rex Reed
Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...

, B. Ruby Rich
B. Ruby Rich
B. Ruby Rich is an American scholar, critic of independent, Latin American, documentary and gay films, and a professor of Film & Digital Media and Social Documentation also known as "SocDoc" at UC Santa Cruz. She has also taught documentary film and queer studies during spring semesters at UC...

, Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...

, Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....

, David Sterritt
David Sterritt
David Sterritt is a film critic, author and scholar. He is most notable for his work on Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, and his many years as the Film Critic for The Christian Science Monitor, where, from 1968 until his retirement in 2005, he championed avant garde cinema, theater and music...

, Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....

, Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...

, and Gene Siskel
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal "Gene" Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted the popular review show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies from 1975 until his death....

.

Other figures from film history appear in photographs and include Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...

, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

, James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...

, Otis Ferguson
Otis Ferguson
Otis Ferguson was an American writer best remembered for his music and film reviews in The New Republic in the 1930s.Although he can be seen as a key predecessor to film critics like James Agee, Manny Farber, Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, he has also been characterized by Robert Christgau as...

, Vachel Lindsay
Vachel Lindsay
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was an American poet. He is considered the father of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted...

, and Frank E. Woods
Frank E. Woods
Frank E. Woods was an American screenwriter of the silent era. He wrote for 90 films between 1908 and 1925. Woods was also a pioneering film reviewer. His contributions to film criticism are discussed in the documentary, For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. He was also...

.

Bringing the history of film criticism up to the present we meet internet-based critics Harry Knowles
Harry Knowles
Harry Knowles is known for his website called Ain't It Cool News. Knowles is a member of the Austin Film Critics Association.-Biography:...

 of Ain't It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News is a website founded and run by Harry Knowles, dedicated to news, rumors and reviews of upcoming and currently playing films and television projects, with an emphasis on science fiction, fantasy, horror, comic-book and action genres...

and Karina Longworth
Karina Longworth
Karina Longworth is an American film critic, film blogger, radio personality, author, and journalist based in Los Angeles. She is one of the founders of the film culture blog Cinematical and formerly edited both Cinematical and the film blog SpoutBlog and, while living in New York, was heard...

, when she wrote for spout.com.

Theme

Gerald Peary says, "For the Love of Movies is the first feature documentary to tell the rich, colorful, and undeniably controversial story of the American film critic ... I had to sort of invent what I think is the history of film criticism, because there wasn’t any formally written book on it."

Partly due to difficulties in getting financial backing, the documentary took nearly a decade to make. Peary says, "I guess one of the things that happened during that period was the so-called decline of print journalism ... eight years ago, film criticism still seemed a viable profession ... by now, there are over fifty critics who are made redundant"

Filmmaker Magazine asks: What is the crisis of criticism? Gerald Peary replies: Simply that if you are a print critic you are in danger of losing your job at any moment. As newspapers are worried about dropping dead, it seems like film critics are a particular target. The film begins by saying, "There are 24 critics who have lost their jobs in the last several years," but since we finished the film, many more have lost their jobs. A lot of people are tagged with a title of ex-critic, but they were not ex when we filmed them just a few years ago. Sure, you can work on the web, but if you do that you're not getting paid much, or at all. And critics should be paid — this isn't an amateur thing to do, it's not like Sunday painting.

"It's a stop-the-bleeding movie," Peary tells Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

. "I hope that those who watch the movie value criticism and will read it and demand it in their newspapers."

Peary laments, "Today, people select which movies to see based on advertising. Lots of excellent little pictures — foreign, independent, and documentaries — are passing through without being seen. The only way to get people to go to those films, because they have no advertising budgets, is reviews by good critics ... We want people to read criticism. One way to motivate people to do that is by showing the critics’ faces and letting their voices be heard."

Critical reception

  • Scott Macaulay: "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a tender and detailed documentary spanning the art form’s beginnings, middle, present and future."

  • Victoria Large: "Peary has wisely determined that the best defense of film criticism is, well, film criticism itself. In addition to archive footage and lively interviews, he includes voice-over readings of excerpts of film reviews past, lively passages that remind us that great critics have to be great writers, astute observers and thinkers who are skilled in expressing themselves."

  • Michael Guillen: "Gerald Peary sharply evaluates the history of critical-analytical writing on moving pictures in this stimulating tour through the rise, fall and reorientation of film criticism in the United States ... a smart look at key figures and how they've changed public consciousness of both the movies and criticism itself."

  • Roger Ebert
    Roger Ebert
    Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

    : "I enjoyed it immensely, I learned a lot. Very well done, edited, researched — and narrated!"

  • Eugene Hernandez: "Peary spent nearly a decade making For the Love of Movies, working with producer Amy Geller to examine the history and future of film criticism."

  • Anne Thompson: "Thus the film, which offers an excellent history of American film criticism, also serves as a valentine to a vanishing profession, something Peary could never have foreseen ... It's hard not to feel sad at the end of this movie, about a world that no longer exists, a profession that seems to be dying in front of our eyes. "

  • David Bordwell
    David Bordwell
    David Bordwell is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including Narration in the Fiction Film , Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema , Making Meaning , and On the...

    : "It’s a lively and thoughtful survey, interspersing interviews with contemporary critics with a chronological account that runs from Frank E. Woods to Harry Knowles ... For the Love of Movies offers a concise, entertaining account of mass-market movie criticism, and I think a lot of universities would want to use it in film and journalism courses."

  • Ty Burr
    Ty Burr
    Ty Burr has been a film critic for the Boston Globe since 2002 where he reviews films alongside Wesley Morris.Born in 1957, he studied film at Dartmouth College and New York University and has written three books: The Hundred Greatest Movies of All Time, The Hundred Greatest Stars of All Time and...

    : "...this is a meal no one has ever cooked before: an affectionate, knowledgeable overview of film criticism from the silent era to the Internet ... the movie’s a lively and important first step in assaying the worth of a field on the verge of extinction, as more and more professional reviewers are let go from struggling news organizations (nearly 60 in the past 3 1/2 years)."

  • Chris Faraone: "... Peary incinerates the barrier between subject and reporter, demonstrating more than mere comprehension of the art he's scrutinized for decades ... his larger challenge was to assemble a story that would entertain not just critics but those pedestrians who don’t know Cinéaste from bouillabaisse."

  • Jeffrey Wells: "For The Love of Movies…is finally here and it does the job nicely. Which is to say intelligently, competently, lovingly and, after a fashion, comprehensively ... It's a hell of a subject — a chronicle of magnificent obsessions and magnificent dreams, and a rise-and-fall story covering scores of critics, the entirety of the Hollywood film culture from the '20s to the present, and hundreds if not thousands of movies."

  • Chale Nafus: "Gerald Peary’s seminal cinematic exploration of the wealth of American film criticism provides a wonderful roadmap of where we have been and observes the many directions the whole endeavor is now moving."

History

For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism premiered at the South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...

 (SXSW) film festival in 2009. It was broadcast on TCM France and TCM Spain, and was shown in February of 2011 on the Documentary Channel
Documentary Channel
Documentary is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , the National Film Board of Canada and four other independent producers...

. In addition, it has been shown at the following venues:
  • Hong Kong International Film Festival
    Hong Kong International Film Festival
    The Hong Kong International Film Festival is a platform for filmmakers, film professionals and filmgoers from all over the world to launch and experience new film work. There are seminars, conferences, exhibitions, and parties celebrating the festival community...

  • Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara
  • Nashville Film Festival
    Nashville Film Festival
    The Nashville Film Festival , held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2009, Nashville Film Festival received close to 2000 submissions from 86 countries, programmed nearly 260 films and had an attendance...

  • Atlanta Film Festival
    Atlanta Film Festival
    The Atlanta Film Festival is an Academy Award qualifying, international film festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Started in 1976 and occurring every April, the festival shows a diverse range of independent films, including genre films such as horror and sci-fi...

  • RiverRun International Film Festival
    RiverRun International Film Festival
    The RiverRun International Film Festival is a regional film festival held annually each spring in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The festival is a 5013 non-profit organization and presents a variety of feature-length and short films from all genres, and also presents special events, regional...

  • Independent Film Festival of Boston
    Independent Film Festival of Boston
    The Independent Film Festival of Boston is a not for profit film festival in Boston, Massachusetts.- History :The Independent Film Festival of Boston was created in 2003 by the non-profit organization the Independent Film Society of Boston. The festival takes place each April in the Boston area's...

  • San Francisco International Film Festival
    San Francisco International Film Festival
    San Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries...

  • Berkshire International Film Festival
    Berkshire International Film Festival
    The Berkshire International Film Festival was founded in 2005 by Kelley Vickery inGreat Barrington, Massachusetts. The four-day festival features independent films for filmmakers and film aficionados, with showings of features, documentaries, shorts, and animation—as well as panel discussions and...

  • Lake Placid Film Festival
    Lake Placid Film Festival
    The Lake Placid Film Festival is an annual Film Festival held in Lake Placid, New York. The Festival, previously known as the Lake Placid Film Forum, has played host to famous film personalities such as directors Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese...

  • Provincetown International Film Festival
    Provincetown International Film Festival
    The Provincetown International Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1999 and held in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The festival presents a wide array of American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films for five days in June of each year.With panel...

  • Edinburgh International Film Festival
    Edinburgh International Film Festival
    The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...

  • Jerusalem Film Festival
    Jerusalem Film Festival
    The Jerusalem Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in Jerusalem, Israel. The festival was the brainchild of Lia van Leer, who inaugurated it on May 17, 1984...

  • Maine International Film Festival
    Maine International Film Festival
    The Maine International Film Festival, or MIFF, is a 10 day film festival held annually in Waterville, Maine. The festival usually runs in the third week of July at and , with occasional satellite venues in Bangor, Maine. Founded in 1998, the festival showcases independent and international films,...

  • Woods Hole Film Festival
    Woods Hole Film Festival
    The Woods Hole Film Festival was founded in 1991 by Judith Laster and Kate Davis.Over the years, it has grown from a one day invitational event to an eight day event with films submitted from around the world. The Festival is held each year from the last Saturday of July through the first Saturday...

  • Montreal World Film Festival
    Montreal World Film Festival
    The Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...


  • Reykjavik International Film Festival
    Reykjavík International Film Festival
    - The festival :Reykjavík International Film Festival , is an international film festival held in Reykjavík, Iceland annually. The festival lasts 11 days each year and emphasizes young talents...

  • Vancouver International Film Festival
    Vancouver International Film Festival
    The Vancouver International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for two weeks in late September and early October...

  • Mar del Plata Film Festival
    Mar del Plata Film Festival
    The Mar del Plata International Film Festival is an international film festival that takes place every November in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina...

  • St. Louis International Film Festival
    St. Louis International Film Festival
    The St. Louis International Film Festival is an annual film festival in St. Louis, Missouri, which has been running since 1992. The coordinating organization changed its name to "Cinema St. Louis" in 2003...

  • Portland International Film Festival
  • Cleveland International Film Festival
    Cleveland International Film Festival
    The Cleveland International Film Festival, first held in 1977, is the largest film festival in Ohio. The 2010 festival featured over 300 films. Since 1991 the festival has been held at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland.-Roxanne T...

  • Green Mountain Film Festival
    Green Mountain Film Festival
    The first Green Mountain Film Festival took place in Montpelier, Vermont in 1997. In March 1999, a second festival was held and it has been an annual March event ever since. In 2010 the festival was extended to include a series of satellite screenings in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.The program focuses...

    , Montpelier, Vermont
  • Ashland Independent Film Festival
    Ashland Independent Film Festival
    The Ashland Independent Film Festival is a film festival in Ashland, Oregon, United States that has been presented by the non-profit Southern Oregon Film Society since 2001. Founded by D.W. and Steve Wood, the festival is held each spring over five days at the Varsity Theatre in downtown Ashland...

  • Wisconsin Film Festival
    Wisconsin Film Festival
    The Wisconsin Film Festival is an annual film festival, founded in 1999. The five-day long festival is held every April in Madison, Wisconsin.The Festival presents a broad range of independent American and world cinema , restorations and revivals, and locally made pictures from Wisconsin filmmakers...

    , Madison, WI
  • Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival
    Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival
    The Minneapolis–St. Paul International Film Festival is a springtime film festival in the U.S. state of Minnesota that has been held since the early 1980s. Known as the largest film event in the Upper Midwest, the festival invites numerous films from all corners of the globe, and attracts a large...

  • deadCENTER Film Festival
    DeadCENTER Film Festival
    The deadCENTER Film Festival was founded in 2001 in Oklahoma City. The festival was named "deadCENTER" because it is located in the exact center of the United States...

    , Oklahoma City, OK
  • Midnight Sun Film Festival
    Midnight Sun Film Festival
    Midnight Sun Film Festival is an annual five-day film festival in Sodankylä, Finland. The festival usually takes place in the second week of June. One of the main themes of the festival is to show films without a break all day and night long, while the sun keeps on shining.The Midnight Sun Film...

    , Sodankylä, Finland
  • New Orleans Film Festival
    New Orleans Film Festival
    The New Orleans Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the nonprofit organization New Orleans Film Society, a film society founded in 1989. The festival has been held since the society's inception. The festival takes place in mid-October. The festival, nicknamed "Cannes on the...

  • Houston Cinema Arts Festival


External links

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