Arts
"One of the earliest film critics I ever read was Pauline Kael , who was an enormous influence on so many of us in the 70s. I would literally read all of her reviews for films as I watched them in theaters, comparing notes. I Lost It At The Movies was a late 70s favorite and I could recite whole passages of her prose from memory at that time. Yet this was only a prelude to further developments, even changes of heart. In the beginning of the early 80s I had not yet discovered the great Manny Farber, nor our guest Jonathan Rosenbaum . I think my first encounter with Rosenbaum was through a now classic book on Jacques Rivette from the 1970s but that I was to read only later, in the 1980s. (I was not that precocious as child - Kael was about my limit.) I was so hungry to read anything about Rivette that it was inevitable I would discover Rivette: Texts and Interviews (BFI, 1977). This in turn led me to realize what an unusually diverse thinker Rosenbaum truly was. Like Farber, Rosenbaum is adamant that criticism is an art form and he treats it as such, in attitude as well as in the prose style that is reflective of his whole attitude. In this sense he also follows Henry James. One of the hallmarks of a great critic, and not merely a good or competent one is if you can tolerate reading them when their opinions or verdicts are contrary to your own. For example, I certainly don't agree with Rosenbaum about Tarantino just as I strongly disagreed with Kael about Tarkovsky and Cassavetes. I think there is room, and room should be made, for both Quentin Tarantino and Kelly Reichardt. I might be unusual in this sense. I told Rosenbaum at the outset of this episode that "he really gets inside of the movie". If any of us "gets inside" of an artwork, really inside of it, we will grow and expand as people. One of the blocks to doing this is too much extraneous stuff that gets in the way. I appreciate that Rosenbaum can talk as freely and knowledgeable about McCoy Tyner and Billie Holiday as much as Jerry Lewis, Pedro Costa, or Anna Biller and Guy Maddin. He is good friends with filmmaker Mark Rappaport who was also friends of my late father, Rosenbaum has always championed the underrated or unknown, like our very first guest on this podcast, Jon Jost . Sometimes the personal and artistic commingle and this is where a culture can really develop. It was heartening to hear him say cinephilia is living and living well. As he continues to teach into the future I hope others, too, become cinephiles.” Jonathan’s Bio: Jonathan Rosenbaum was film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008. His books include CINEMATIC ENCOUNTERS 2 (2019), CINEMATIC ENCOUNTERS (2018), GOODBYE CINEMA, HELLO CINEPHILIA (2010), THE UNQUIET AMERICAN (2009), DISCOVERING ORSON WELLES (2007), ESSENTIAL CINEMA (2004), MOVIE MUTATIONS (coedited with Adrian Martin, 2003), ABBAS KIAROSTAMI (with Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, 2003, 2018), MOVIE WARS (2000), DEAD MAN (2000), MOVIES AS POLITICS (1997), PLACING MOVIES (1995), THIS IS ORSON WELLES by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich (edited, 1992), GREED (1991), MIDNIGHT MOVIES (with J. Hoberman, 1983), and MOVING PLACES (1980). He has taught at State University of New York at Stony Brook, New York University, the School of Visual Arts (in New York), the University of California branches at Berkeley, San Diego, and Santa Barbara, the University of Chicago, the University of St. Andrews (in Scotland), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, KinoKlub Split (in Croatia), and FilmFactory (in Sarajevo). He maintains a web site archiving most of his work at jonathanrosenbaum.net . Visit our show Facebook page for more extensive links to Jonathan’s beautiful work. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mitch-hampton/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mitch-hampton/support