It's Only a Movie!: Films and Critics in American Culture

Rating:
Summary: Where have all the critics gone?
Review: As a film critic for several online sites, I share with others of my
vocation a distress that while the public may be reading us, the
reviews themselves seem to be influencing only a few in their
choices of films. I like to say defensively that it is not the critic's
function to operate as a Consumer Reports guide, to send people
to the theaters or to guide them into settling back into their
couches. But the writing is on the wall; or, rather, the writing
should be there but it isn't: critics have lost much of the authority
they once had to influence the public. In a short book filled with
lush prose, Richard J. Haberski Jr. strives to tell us why critical
authority has declined albeit less rapidly than the current
NASDAQ chart, topping his tome off with a mixed conclusion.
On the one hand movies are such a joyful medium, the film world
may not really suffer for the breakdown in authority. On the other
hand, "It is sad that today movie critics appear powerless ot help
us discover the art of moviegoing."

Tracing a brief film history encompassing the impact of select
organizations like the National Board of Review on the movie
choices available to us, Haberski's book is most enlightening and
relevant (at least to critics like me) when it referees debates
among several major writers such as Pauline Kael, Andrew
Sarris, Stanley Kauffmann and Dwight MacDonald--writers who
have had often divergent viewpoints on such issues as the
importance of the director, the gap between the younger and
older audience, the relative values of elitism and democracy, and
most of all the big question of whether movies should even be
considered an art that justifies critical analysis.

Theory aside, the general public felt comfortable with the idea of
art until the dawn of the Pop era signalled by the ideas and
paintings of Andy Warhol. The book reaches a high point in its
examination of the Big Debate between the Andrew ("auteur
theory) Sarris--who believes that the director is the all-important
creator of a film, and the late Pauline ("It's Only a Movie!") Kael -
-who was known for toughness toward sugarcoated movies like
"The Sound of Music" and praised almost universally condemned
fare like "Bonnie and Clyde." Despite her staunch advocacy of
strong films, Kael amassed a large readership with her disdain
for pretension and love for good films whether or not they had
"something to say."

"It's Only a Movie!" is a must-read for critics and would make a
sure-fire addition to the library of movie buffs everywhere.

Rating:
Summary: A great work from a great writer
Review: This book rocks. I know its probably written for smart people, but even if you're not too smart, you'll like it. Very informative. This Haberski guy really knows his movies. He must have developed his love for cinema while at SUNY Albany, enjoying movies with his buddies at the campus cinema.

Scott Cooper

Rating:
Summary: A great work from a great writer
Review: This book rocks. I know its probably written for smart people, but even if you're not too smart, you'll like it. Very informative. This Haberski guy really knows his movies. He must have developed his love for cinema while at SUNY Albany, enjoying movies with his buddies at the campus cinema.

Scott Cooper

Rating:
Summary: It's Not Only A Movie
Review: Within the last century were developed different art forms based on new technology. No one had ever before heard a radio play, and television, well, let's not get into a discussion about whether that is art or not. But the same discussion about movies has been going on for a long while. It even seems to make a difference as to whether you regard them as "movies," "film," or "cinema." Let's use movie, for that is what Raymond J. Haberski, Jr., uses in _It's Only a Movie!: Films and Critics in American Culture_ (University Press of Kentucky). If you like thinking about movies, rather than just sitting for some entertainment, and are interested in the American history of film criticism, this is a book you will enjoy.

That movies are an art form is a proposition that has been long debated. It would seem to me that if one simply considers the films of theatrical productions (like, say, _Rope_ or _A Long Day's Journey Into Night_), it becomes very easy to answer the question in the affirmative, but none of the players in Haberski's volume seems to have performed this exercise. But even if we allow that such efforts are truly art, does that make _The Mummy Returns_ art, too? I would say yes, but perhaps a better answer is "Who cares?" Even so, there are lots of people who have cared about the issue, from the beginning of the movies. The first critics of film recognized that movies were taking up a space in culture somewhere between fine art and mindless amusement, and movie criticism has hovered in discussion over where they should actually go ever since. Haberski gives a fine summary of how critics looked at the silent movies, and how (when the Supreme Court decided they were products, not free speech), criticism was used in formation of censorship boards. It has an excellent chapter on Theodore Dreiser's attempt to get his novel, _An American Tragedy_, filmed in what he thought was a proper fashion. Dreiser took Paramount to court; like critics if the time, he wanted studios to "get serious" about art uncorrupted by commerce. He lost. Here is also an excellent summary of the famous Sarris / Kael feud over "auteur theory."

Haberski obviously cares for his subject. Painstaking research into this narrow field of endeavor is easily apparent in all his chapters. He has a sense of humor, and does not take these battles (or himself) with excessive seriousness, as his title indicates. There is a good deal to be enjoyed here by anyone interested in 20th century culture and film.

Rating:
Summary: It's Not Only A Movie
Review: Within the last century were developed different art forms based on new technology. No one had ever before heard a radio play, and television, well, let's not get into a discussion about whether that is art or not. But the same discussion about movies has been going on for a long while. It even seems to make a difference as to whether you regard them as "movies," "film," or "cinema." Let's use movie, for that is what Raymond J. Haberski, Jr., uses in _It's Only a Movie!: Films and Critics in American Culture_ (University Press of Kentucky). If you like thinking about movies, rather than just sitting for some entertainment, and are interested in the American history of film criticism, this is a book you will enjoy.

That movies are an art form is a proposition that has been long debated. It would seem to me that if one simply considers the films of theatrical productions (like, say, _Rope_ or _A Long Day's Journey Into Night_), it becomes very easy to answer the question in the affirmative, but none of the players in Haberski's volume seems to have performed this exercise. But even if we allow that such efforts are truly art, does that make _The Mummy Returns_ art, too? I would say yes, but perhaps a better answer is "Who cares?" Even so, there are lots of people who have cared about the issue, from the beginning of the movies. The first critics of film recognized that movies were taking up a space in culture somewhere between fine art and mindless amusement, and movie criticism has hovered in discussion over where they should actually go ever since. Haberski gives a fine summary of how critics looked at the silent movies, and how (when the Supreme Court decided they were products, not free speech), criticism was used in formation of censorship boards. It has an excellent chapter on Theodore Dreiser's attempt to get his novel, _An American Tragedy_, filmed in what he thought was a proper fashion. Dreiser took Paramount to court; like critics if the time, he wanted studios to "get serious" about art uncorrupted by commerce. He lost. Here is also an excellent summary of the famous Sarris / Kael feud over "auteur theory."

Haberski obviously cares for his subject. Painstaking research into this narrow field of endeavor is easily apparent in all his chapters. He has a sense of humor, and does not take these battles (or himself) with excessive seriousness, as his title indicates. There is a good deal to be enjoyed here by anyone interested in 20th century culture and film.