Regarding Film: Criticism and Comment (PAJ Books)

By Stanley Kauffmann

In this collection of his film writings, Kauffmann discusses films released after 1993, including films from major established directors, works from the iconoclastic world of independent cinema and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801865840
• ISBN13: 9780801865848
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Mostly film reviews from the 1990s

It is with reluctance and of course some pleasure that I approach a review of a book by a film critic, being a film critic myself. I am not however anywhere near as knowledgeable about film as is Stanley Kaufmann nor am I as fancy with the wordsmithing. What I do well in a haphazard way is react to film as character and story with some reasonable awareness of the politics and the culture of the production. Professor Kaufmann on the other hand is deeply learned about all things cinema. Regarding Film is a collection of reviews written mostly for The New Republic during the 1990s along with some other pieces from the Yale Review that he calls "Comments," and some movie book reviews. His acidic and sometimes pompous comments can be delightful and insightful, if one agrees with him, or dreary and dreadful and even tedious if one does not. A case in point is his critique of Oliver Stone's Nixon (1996) in which he chirps enthusiastically about Anthony Hopkins's performance while slyly denigrating what I think is one of Stone's finest works. Kaufmann writes, "...despite Stone's mercurial gifts, the film does not become an artistic whole; it remains an examination of characteristics." He adds, "What's missing is what Stone's best films have had: a subtext, a large theme evoked by the action on the screen." Without such a subtext, Kaufmann concludes, the film is "not much more than the series of events presented--thus, in any deep sense, purposeless." (p. 54) It is good for a movie critic to read a somewhat dismissive review of a film that he the critic found outstanding, because now the critic knows how some readers of his reviews might feel when he disses one of their favs. But what I found annoying here is that in an addendum written a couple of weeks later, Kaufmann tells us that "Another visit to Nixon confirmed my admiration for it as filmmaking..." Well, what is it? I guess it's a "purposeless" exercise in admirable filmmaking! Personally I thought the examination of Nixon the man as opposed to Nixon the politician or Nixon the leader of the free world, was a fine subtext, if you will, with a clear purpose, allowing us to see how Nixon's personality shaped his governance. More to my liking is Kaufmann's review of Adrian Lyne's Lolita (1998), in which he notes that Lyne's film is truer to the novel than the celebrated Kubrick film from 1962, but not necessarily a better film, and in which he does a nice job of critiquing Jeremy Irons's interesting but melancholy performance. I also liked his review of Shakespeare in Love (1998) and the peripheral knowledge he brought to the review. Also excellent, insightful and interesting to read is his review of The Truman Show (1998). Most of the reviews are in fact interesting to read regardless of how one might feel about his proclivities or analyses. The most striking disagreement I have with Kaufmann concerns his review of Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut (1999). I don't think K

This charming man

For more than four decades Stanley Kauffmann has been the film critic for the New Republic. Now after three decades of the reign of Martin Peretz over that journal he is that rarest of creatures, a truly non-ideological critic. He is consistently sensible and sane, and always worthy to be read. For those who think that Roger Ebert is too vulnerable to the slick products of Hollywood, or that the late Pauline Kael was too voluble and dogmatic, Kauffmann is always available as an alternative.This collection of reviews covers 1993-2000 and is somewhat more selective than his previous books. There is praise of Abbas Kiarostami and much enthusiasm for Emma Thompson. Michelangelo Antonioni is given a final review, there is a touching obituary for Marcello Mastroianni, and another touching, and very brief, one for James Stewart. Neil LaBute and Todd Solondz are praised for their ruthlessly unsentimental approach. Pulp Fiction is treated somewhat warrily. Forrest Gump goes completely unmentioned. Fargo and All About my Mother get very guarded praise. Eyes Wide Shut and The End of the Affair are subjected to special criticism. Among foreign films Kauffmann singles out for praise Ken Loach, Gianni Amelio, Zhang Yimou, Daniel Bergman's film of his father Ingmar's autobiography, and Erick Zonca.I find myself disagreeing more with Kauffmann in this collection. I myself do not think that Amistad is a better film than Kundun. Kundun may be excellent, it may be overly respectful, but in my view Amistad is little more than competent and worthy. It strikes me as odd that in American Beauty Kauffmann should praise Annette Bening's acting, since the script caricatures her character as a spiteful gargoyle. (Still, Kauffmann has the movie right: "at the finish of the picture, we're left feeling that Ball has had a trial run with them: now he needs to go back and really use them to some enlightening and organically whole purpose.") At one point in his praise of Schindler's List, he notes the scene of a child hiding in a latrine and says it is mememorable in the same way as the famous photograph of a child being marched away from the Warsaw ghetto. I would argue that Spielberg's shot cannot be memorable as the original photo, since it is obviously been too clearly designed to resemble it. Another weakness of the collection is that there are fewer dismissive reviews. His criticism is actually one of his strengths, as one sees in the pans he wrote last year of Moulin Rouge and The Man Who Wasn't There.Nevertheless, Kauffmann is an intelligent and literate man, and he is properly pessimistic about the future of film, as the students he tought earlier in the last decade are too impatient and spoiled to recognize the virtues of silent movies, or black and white movies or subtitled ones. They often have no sense of history, either of the movies as an art form or of the wider society. Kauffmann, who quotes Shaw and Graham Greene several times to good eff

Thoughtful essays on film and more

This collection of six years' (1993-98) of thoughtful and passionate criticism (movie reviews and film theory, and related book reviews) is a delight, and a wonderful primer - on thinking and writing about movies. An elegant and informative Foreword by Michael Wood provides biographical material on Stanley Kauffmann, a lifelong theater and film critic, film and theater professor, and essayist. Kauffmann sent his first (unsolicited) film review to The New Republic in 1958, and has been their film critic since then. Kauffmann : "The mere physical act of film-going is part of the kinesis of my life- the getting up and going out and the feeling of coming home, which is a somewhat different homecoming feeling from anything else except the theater...To have my life unpunctuated by the physical act of film going is almost like walking with a limp, out of my natural rhythm."This terrific collection has been divided into a few sections: "Reviews," "Reviewings," "Comment," and "Books." The reviews are written deceptively simply, one of Kauffmann's many subtle abilities. He draws you into his view of a film and its possibilities (realized or not) with gentleness and assuredness. He is never noisy, flippant, or condescending. When he objects to something (and he does, often) he lays it out clearly - and humanely. It's a pleasure.Kauffmann can be funny, too, and has an innate sense of what is worth re-telling. Kauffmann's wonderful review of Kevin Brownlow's biography of director David Lean starts off: "David Lean began life as a dunce. His kindergarten teacher told his mother that she was afraid he would never be able to read and write. He managed to disprove that prediction, buy otherwise there was little sparkle." Of course Lean, raised a Quaker in London, discovered movies at age 13, and everything changed.Kauffmann eagerly promotes his favorites (Emma Thompson is one, he has much respect for Warren Beatty, and pays close attention to smaller, unsung filmmakers) and is painstakingly fair to actors and filmmakers -in consistently thoughtful uses of his pulpit. He begins his review of a small Iranian film, "Through the Olive Trees," by expressing his thanks to the friend who prompted him to first have a look at its director's work, and then he thanks the director himself. Kauffmann is a man who loves the medium, and reveres its potential to provide hope and transformation - along with a lot of fun.These great pieces are definitely worth reading and rereading.