Guiltless Pleasures : A David Sterritt Film Reader

by Sterritt, David

• ISBN13: 9781578068180
• ISBN10: 1578068185
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi

Summary

David Sterritt, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor and professor of film at Long Island University, is one of the most astute, acclaimed, and thought-provoking critics in America. Sterritt's sharp eye for telling detail and deep understanding of cinema and its history make his work appealing to scholars and lay audiences. Guiltless Pleasures: A David Sterritt Film Reader collects his most incisive essays from 1970 to the present. The collection emphasizes films and filmmakers that are often overlooked or undervalued because they stray from ordinary norms of commercial cinema. While focusing on such rewarding challenges as the avant-garde masterpieces of Stan Brakhage, the unsettling videos of Robert Wilson, and the violent, disturbing films of Gaspar Noe, Sterritt writes equally well and insightfully on mainstream Hollywood films. At a time when admitting to "guilty pleasures" has become a common pastime among serious moviegoers, Sterritt argues that there's no reason to feel guilty about the alchemy of cinema. After all, he maintains, the inner journeys we take by means of movies and other cultural works are a large part of what makes life worth living.

Author Biography

David Sterritt is chairman of the National Society of Film Critics

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
INTRODUCTION	xiii
Fumbling in the Dark, or, Sorrows of a Film Critic	3	(9)
Films, Fatigue, and Why a Critic's Opinions Are Just as Iffy as Yours	12	(7)
Cinephilia, Cinemania, Cinema	19	(12)
Hollywood Players Who've Made a Difference	31	(19)
CASSAVETES, EASTWOOD, MARTIN, NICHOLSON
Defining the Situation	50	(16)
BRANDO, ROLE-PLAYING, AND THE WESTERN AS PERFORMANCE ART
Novelists and Their Movies	66	(9)
MAILER, DOCTOROW, IRVING
Allegory and Enigma	75	(7)
THE ENDURING FASCINATION OF FANTASY
Life Isn't Sweet	82	(27)
THE MOVIES OF MIKE LEIGH
Monty Python	109	(15)
LUST FOR GLORY
Creepies, Crawlies, Conundrums	124	(8)
DAVID CRONENBERG COMES OF AGE
Fargo	132	(21)
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?
Coppola, Vietnam, and the Ambivalent 1970's	153	(8)
Representing Atrocity	161	(14)
FROM THE HOLOCAUST TO SEPTEMBER 11
Thanatos ex Machina	175	(8)
GODARD CARESSES THE DEAD
Noe Stands Alone	183	(12)
AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME
Time Code	195	(23)
NARRATIVE FILM AND THE AVANT-GARDE
Renaldo & Clara Meet John Cage	218	(8)
ALEATORY CINEMA AND THE AESTHETICS OF INCOMPETENCE
Challenging the Eye	226	(13)
THREE AVANT-GARDE IMAGEMAKERS
Many Selves	239	(12)
PARADOX AND POETRY IN THE CINEMA OF WILLIE VARELA
INDEX	251