Jonathan Rosenbaum
Encyclopedia
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. He has published and edited numerous books and has contributed to most of the world's notable film publications, including Cahiers du cinéma
and Film Comment
.
He openly promotes the dissemination and discussion of foreign film. Indeed, his strong views on filmgoing in the U.S. hold that Hollywood
and the media tend to limit the full range of the films Americans can see, at the Cineplex
and elsewhere.
Jonathan Rosenbaum appears in the 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
discussing the film criticism of Manny Farber
, and giving his approval to young people writing film reviews today on the Internet.
Regarding Rosenbaum, French New Wave
director Jean-Luc Godard
said: "I think there is a very good film critic in the United States today, a successor of James Agee
, and that is Jonathan Rosenbaum. He's one of the best; we don't have writers like him in France today. He's like André Bazin
."
, Alabama
where his grandfather owned a small chain of movie theaters. His childhood home was the Rosenbaum House
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
. As a teenager, he attended The Putney School
in Putney, Vermont
, where his classmates included actor Wallace Shawn
. He graduated from Putney in 1961.
Rosenbaum developed a lifelong interest in jazz
as a teen, and continues to make frequent references to it in his film criticism. He attended Bard College
, where he played piano in an amateur jazz ensemble that included future actors Chevy Chase
as a drummer and Blythe Danner
as a vocalist. He studied literature
at Bard with the intention of becoming a writer; amongst his professors there was German philosopher Heinrich Blücher
, whose teaching made a serious impact on Rosenbaum. After graduate school, he moved to New York
and was hired to edit a collection of film criticism
, which marked his first foray into the field.
Rosenbaum moved to Paris
in 1969, working briefly as an assistant to director Jacques Tati
and appearing as an extra in Robert Bresson
's Four Nights of a Dreamer
. While living there, he began writing film and literary criticism for The Village Voice
, Film Comment
and Sight & Sound
. In 1974, he moved from Paris
to London
, where he remained until March 1977, when he was offered a two-semester teaching position at the University of California, San Diego
by Manny Farber
. Farber had been a major influence on Rosenbaum's criticism, but the two had never met until the latter arrived in San Diego.
While teaching at UCSD, he shared a house with filmmaker Louis Hock and critic Raymond Durgnat
. Towards the end of his teaching stint there, he received a National Endowment for the Arts
grant
, which lead to the writing of his first published book, Moving Places. Rosenbaum then returned to New York
, initially sharing an apartment with future Philadelphia Inquirer critic Carrie Rickey, a former student of Farber's.
as the main film critic for Chicago Reader until 2008. He is the author of many books on film, including Film: The Front Line 1983 (1983), Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995), Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980; reprint 1995), Movies as Politics (1997) and Essential Cinema (2004). His most popular work is Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (2002). He has also written the best-known analysis of Jim Jarmusch
's film Dead Man
; the volume includes recorded interviews with Jarmusch; the book places the film in the acid western
sub-genre. He edited This is Orson Welles (1992) by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich
, a collection of interviews and other materials relating to Welles, and was consultant on the re-editing of Welles's Touch of Evil
released in 1998, based on a lengthy memo written by Welles to Universal Pictures
in the 1950s.
In August 2007, Rosenbaum marked the passing of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman
with an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times entitled "Scenes from an Overrated Career".
He is a frequent article contributor to the DVD Beaver website, where he offers his alternative lists of genre films. He also writes for the Global Discovery Column in the film journal Cinema Scope, where he reviews international DVD releases of films not widely available.
Rosenbaum has launched a website, which archives all of his work for the Reader as well as pieces written for magazines and film festival catalogues.
Rosenbaum was a visiting professor of film at Virginia Commonwealth University's art history department in Richmond, Virginia
in 2010-2011.
published in 1998, Rosenbaum published his own list, focusing on less well-established, more diverse films. It also includes works by important American directors (such as John Cassavetes
) who were absent from the AFI list. A second list by the AFI would incorporate five titles from Rosenbaum's list.
In Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons (2004), he appended a more general list of his 1,000 favorite films of all nationalities, slightly over half of which were American. He starred his 100 favorite films on the list, marking both traditionally canonical films like Greed
and Citizen Kane
and harder-to-find films like Michael Snow's La Région Centrale
and Jacques Rivette
's Out 1
.
Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...
and Film Comment
Film Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
.
He openly promotes the dissemination and discussion of foreign film. Indeed, his strong views on filmgoing in the U.S. hold that Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
and the media tend to limit the full range of the films Americans can see, at the Cineplex
Cineplex
-Specific multiplex groups:*Cineplex Entertainment, Canada*Cineplex Odeon Corporation, Canada*Loews Cineplex Entertainment, United States*MegaStar Cineplex, Vietnam*Cineplex Australia...
and elsewhere.
Jonathan Rosenbaum appears in the 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a 2009 documentary film dramatizing a hundred years of American film criticism through film clips, historic photographs, and on-camera interviews with many of today’s important reviewers, mostly print but also Internet...
discussing the film criticism of 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...
, and giving his approval to young people writing film reviews today on the Internet.
Regarding Rosenbaum, French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
director Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
said: "I think there is a very good film critic in the United States today, a successor of 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...
, and that is Jonathan Rosenbaum. He's one of the best; we don't have writers like him in France today. He's like André Bazin
André Bazin
André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist.-Life:Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918...
."
Biography
Jonathan Rosenbaum grew up in FlorenceFlorence, Alabama
Florence is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the northwestern corner of the state.According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,721....
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
where his grandfather owned a small chain of movie theaters. His childhood home was the Rosenbaum House
Rosenbaum House
The Rosenbaum House is a single-family house, designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built for Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum in Florence, Alabama. A noted example of his Usonian house concept, it is the only Wright building in Alabama, and is one of only 26 pre-World War II Usonian houses...
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
. As a teenager, he attended The Putney School
The Putney School
The Putney School is an independent high school in Putney, Vermont. It was founded in 1935 by Carmelita Hinton. It is a co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school, with a day-student component, located outside of Brattleboro, Vermont. Emily Jones is the director...
in Putney, Vermont
Putney, Vermont
Putney is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 2,634 at the 2000 census.On December 26, 1753 Col.Josiah Willard led a proprietors' petition for a Putney charter which was issued by Governor Benning Wentworth of the New Hampshire Grants under King George II of England...
, where his classmates included actor Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn
Wallace Michael Shawn , sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, author, voice artist, and intellectual. His best-known film roles include Wally Shawn in My Dinner with Andre , Vizzini in The Princess Bride , and debate teacher Mr...
. He graduated from Putney in 1961.
Rosenbaum developed a lifelong interest in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
as a teen, and continues to make frequent references to it in his film criticism. He attended Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
, where he played piano in an amateur jazz ensemble that included future actors Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
as a drummer and Blythe Danner
Blythe Danner
Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.-Early life:...
as a vocalist. He studied literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
at Bard with the intention of becoming a writer; amongst his professors there was German philosopher Heinrich Blücher
Heinrich Blücher
Heinrich Blücher was a German poet and philosopher. He was the second husband of Hannah Arendt.Blücher was born in Berlin. He was a member of the Communist Party of Germany until 1928, but soon rejected Stalinism and left the party in protest of its Stalinist policies...
, whose teaching made a serious impact on Rosenbaum. After graduate school, he moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and was hired to edit a collection of 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...
, which marked his first foray into the field.
Rosenbaum moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1969, working briefly as an assistant to director Jacques Tati
Jacques Tati
Jacques Tati was a French filmmaker, working as a comedic actor, writer and director. In a poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly of the Greatest Movie Directors Tati was voted the 46th greatest of all time...
and appearing as an extra in Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
's Four Nights of a Dreamer
Four Nights of a Dreamer
Four Nights of a Dreamer is a 1971 French drama film directed by Robert Bresson and starring Isabelle Weingarten. The film was entered into the 21st Berlin International Film Festival...
. While living there, he began writing film and literary criticism for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, Film Comment
Film Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
and Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
. In 1974, he moved from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he remained until March 1977, when he was offered a two-semester teaching position at the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
by 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...
. Farber had been a major influence on Rosenbaum's criticism, but the two had never met until the latter arrived in San Diego.
While teaching at UCSD, he shared a house with filmmaker Louis Hock and critic Raymond Durgnat
Raymond Durgnat
Raymond Durgnat was a distinctive and highly influential British film critic, who was born in London of Swiss parents...
. Towards the end of his teaching stint there, he received a National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
grant
Grant (money)
Grants are funds disbursed by one party , often a Government Department, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, to a recipient, often a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. In order to receive a grant, some form of "Grant Writing" often referred to as either a proposal...
, which lead to the writing of his first published book, Moving Places. Rosenbaum then returned to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, initially sharing an apartment with future Philadelphia Inquirer critic Carrie Rickey, a former student of Farber's.
Career
Rosenbaum followed Dave KehrDave Kehr
Dave Kehr is an American film critic. A critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune for many years, he writes a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases, in addition to contributing occasional pieces on individual films or filmmakers.-Early life and education:Dave Kehr did...
as the main film critic for Chicago Reader until 2008. He is the author of many books on film, including Film: The Front Line 1983 (1983), Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995), Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980; reprint 1995), Movies as Politics (1997) and Essential Cinema (2004). His most popular work is Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (2002). He has also written the best-known analysis of Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
's film Dead Man
Dead Man
Dead Man is a 1995 American Western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, and Robert Mitchum . The film, dubbed an "Acid Western" by its director, includes twisted...
; the volume includes recorded interviews with Jarmusch; the book places the film in the acid western
Acid Western
Acid Western is a sub-genre of the Western film that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s that combined the metaphorical ambitions of top-shelf Westerns, like Shane and The Searchers, with the excesses of the Spaghetti Westerns and the outlook of the counter-culture...
sub-genre. He edited This is Orson Welles (1992) by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
, a collection of interviews and other materials relating to Welles, and was consultant on the re-editing of Welles's Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime thriller film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson...
released in 1998, based on a lengthy memo written by Welles to Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
in the 1950s.
In August 2007, Rosenbaum marked the passing of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
with an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times entitled "Scenes from an Overrated Career".
He is a frequent article contributor to the DVD Beaver website, where he offers his alternative lists of genre films. He also writes for the Global Discovery Column in the film journal Cinema Scope, where he reviews international DVD releases of films not widely available.
Rosenbaum has launched a website, which archives all of his work for the Reader as well as pieces written for magazines and film festival catalogues.
Rosenbaum was a visiting professor of film at Virginia Commonwealth University's art history department in Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
in 2010-2011.
Alternative Top 100
In response to the AFI list of 100 greatest American moviesAFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
The first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...
published in 1998, Rosenbaum published his own list, focusing on less well-established, more diverse films. It also includes works by important American directors (such as John Cassavetes
John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
) who were absent from the AFI list. A second list by the AFI would incorporate five titles from Rosenbaum's list.
In Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons (2004), he appended a more general list of his 1,000 favorite films of all nationalities, slightly over half of which were American. He starred his 100 favorite films on the list, marking both traditionally canonical films like Greed
Greed (film)
Greed is a 1924 American dramatic silent film. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim and starring Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller, Tempe Pigott, Sylvia Ashton, Chester Conklin, Joan Standing and Jack Curtis....
and Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and harder-to-find films like Michael Snow's La Région Centrale
La region centrale
La Région centrale is a 1971 experimental Canadian film directed by Michael Snow. The film is 180 minutes long and was shot in Canadian mountains over a period of 24 hours, using a robotic arm and consists entirely of preprogrammed movements. The robotic arm never moves in exactly the same way...
and Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....
's Out 1
Out 1
Out 1 is a 1971 film directed by Jacques Rivette, one of the major filmmakers of the French New Wave. Notorious for its unwieldy length of twelve hours and forty minutes, it is also referred to as Out 1: Noli me tangere...
.
External links
- JonathanRosenbaum.Com Official Blog
- Chicago Reader: Jonathan Rosenbaum bibliography
- Jonathan Rosenbaum's 1000 Essential Films
- Interview with Rosenbaum on Orson Welles
- CineScene interview
- Interview with: Jonathan Rosenbaum on The Oxford AmericanOxford AmericanThe Oxford American is an American quarterly literary magazine "dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South."-First publication:...
- 2007 video interview - Unseen Orson Welles - a Conversation With Jonathan Rosenbaum
- A conversation with Jonathan Rosenbaum on The Marketplace of Ideas