Carl Bromley

There is a bit of schizophrenia about this book. It is an attempt to collect (as the subtitle notes) “the best writing on film from The Nation”. And, in an attempt to capture the mood of writing and the change of film over the times, the editor has chosen essays from 1913 all the way to the books publication date, 2000. Accordingly, it covers everything from Fatty Arbuckle to Russian cinematography to the French auteurs to Walt Disney to Oliver Stone to D.W. Griffith to…well, you get the idea. And that is only schizophrenia part one. Part two is the ability to use separate articles to talk express diametrically opposed opinions. (In one article Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” is defended while another article pillories it for its overt racism. In one article JFK and Oliver Stone are defended; in another they are called to task for fast and looseness with facts.) Part three is that the first two-thirds of the book contains articles that sometimes only loosely speak to films, while the last third is just a collection of reviews. And part four (as will happen with any collection of essays that spans this much time) is the variable quality of the essays.

This does not bode well for the book. However, how can any book be bad when it takes entire sections to remind us of everything around the black list (5 articles) and the role of the various Hollywood unions (5 more articles)? Or gives us a full picture of what happened to Charlie Chaplin. Or speaks about films from the view of Vietnamese, Native Americans, etc. Of course, this is not surprising given the political bent of The Nation. And other articles have similar agendas.

But I would be remiss to not speak to the section of pure reviews – for my money, the best part of the book. Reviews start with such classics as King Kong, Snow White, Citizen Kane, and National Velvet. Then it moves to such varied fair as The Curse of the Cat People (again, how can you dislike a collection that includes a Val Lewton movie), Sunset Boulevard, Terms of Endearment, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Red Dawn (yes, that Red Dawn), Jurassic Park, and Eyes Wide Shut. And remember, these articles were written when the films were first released so, not only is it a quality analysis of the films, it is a historical look at how these were critically received when first viewed.

So what we have here is a collection that is really neither fish nor fowl, and is probably trying to achieve more than any one book should. As previously noted, there is much to like. However, there are also moments to dislike and (sadly) moments of boredom. The final conclusion is that the positives outweigh the negatives – but not by that much.… (mais)