Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris (born 31 October 1928, Brooklyn, New York City) is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.
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[edit] Career
Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S. and coining the term itself in his 1962 essay, "Notes on the Auteur Theory," which was inspired by critics writing in Cahiers du Cinéma.
Sarris wrote the highly influential book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 (1968), an opinionated assessment of films of the sound era, organized by director. The book was to influence many other critics and helped raise an awareness of the role of the film director and, in particular, of the auteur theory. In The American Cinema, Sarris lists what he terms the 'pantheon' of the fourteen greatest film directors who had worked in the United States. The list includes the Americans Robert Flaherty, John Ford, D. W. Griffith, Howard Hawks, Buster Keaton, and Orson Welles; the Germans Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, F. W. Murnau, Max Ophuls, and Josef von Sternberg; the British Charles Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock; and the French Jean Renoir. He also created second and third tiers of directors, downplaying the work of some such as Billy Wilder, David Lean, and Stanley Kubrick. In his 1998 book You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet: The American Talking Film, History and Memory 1927-1949, Sarris upgraded the status of Billy Wilder to pantheon level and apologized for his earlier harsh opinion of the director in The American Cinema.
For many years he wrote for NY Film Bulletin and The Village Voice. It was during this part of his career that he was often seen as a rival to Pauline Kael, who had originally attacked the auteur theory in her essay, "Circles and Squares".
The career of Andrew Sarris is discussed at length in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, first by other critics about how he brought the auteur theory from France, and then by Sarris himself explaining how he applied the auteur theory to his original review of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Speaking of his long-time critical feuds with Kael, Sarris says that, oddly, "We made each other. We established a dialectic."[1]
He continued to write film criticism regularly until 2009 for The New York Observer, and was a professor of film at Columbia University, his alma mater, teaching courses in international film history, American cinema, and Alfred Hitchcock, until his retirement in 2011. Sarris was a co-founder of the National Society of Film Critics. Film critics such as J. Hoberman,[2] Kenneth Turan,[3] Armond White,[4] Michael Phillips, and AO Scott[5] have cited him as an influence.
Sarris is married to fellow film critic, Molly Haskell.
[edit] History and criticism
Sarris' method of ranking directors in The American Cinema has been criticized as elitist and subjective. Those who do not make the cut of the Pantheon category are dismissed under categorical headings listed in the table of contents that descend as follows: The Far Side of Paradise, Fringe Benefits, Less Than Meets The Eye, Lightly Likable, Strained Seriousness, Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers, Subjects for Further Research, Make Way for the Clowns!, and Miscellany.[6]
Criticism of the Auteur theory often stems from a misunderstanding of its "dogmatic" nature. Famously a revisionist, Sarris defends his original article "Notes on Auteur Theory" in The American Cinema stating: “the article was written in what I thought was a modest, tentative, experimental manner, it was certainly not intended as the last word on the subject” [7]). He further has stated that the Auteur theory should not be considered a theory at all but rather "a collection of facts, a reminder of movies to be resurrected, of genres to be redeemed, of directors to be rediscovered." [8]
[edit] In popular culture
In the film Galaxy Quest, Sarris' name is given to the character of an evil warlord.[9]
[edit] Bibliography
- The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968
- Confessions of a Cultist
- The Primal Screen
- Politics And Cinema
- The John Ford Movie Mystery
- You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet: The American Talking Film – History and Memory, 1927-1949
[edit] References
- ^ For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism at the TCM Movie Database
- ^ J. Hoberman (2005-10-18). "Get Reel". Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-10-18/specials/get-reel/. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
- ^ "Sight & Sound; Critics On Critics". BFI. 2010-03-25. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49480. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
- ^ "THE CRITIC- Filmmaker Magazine - Winter 2004". Filmmaker Magazine. http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/issues/winter2004/features/the_critic.php. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema. New York: Dutton, 1968.
- ^ Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema. New York: Dutton, 1968.
- ^ Sarris, Andrew. Quoted in Kent Jones “Hail the Conquering Hero: Andrew Sarris Profiled.” Film Comment Magazine Online <http://www.filmlinc.com/film-comment/article/hail-the-conquering-hero-andrew-sarris-profiled> Accessed 25 October 2011.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/trivia
