Sarris American Cinema published 50 years ago

Still the best movie book. Got my first copy in a college film class in the early seventies, have worn out several copies since.

Anybody else have a copy on the shelf next to the TV?

 

Surely the most damaging film book of all time, as it did so much to popularize the ridiculous auteur theory.

 

So ... what part of it is "ridiculous"?

 

Film is a collective art form. Read Talking Pictures by Richard Corliss (a former student of Sarris).

IIRC in William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade he says that one of the Nouvelle Vague (Billy Wilder: "I don't know how nouvelle they are, but they're certainly vague") directors admitted the the entire "auteur theory" was a load of crap the Cahiers crowd dreamed up in order to draw attention to themselves.

 

No links, so I am at a disadvantage here. Certainly Sarris never argued that films are not a collective art form. Even if you don't believe that a director's participation in the project is worth serious study (a minority view, I think), you are cheating yourself out of a delicious read if you don't read the book.

 

I've read the book and I actually found it diverting

But I still believe Sarris' influence was ultimately very damaging. Instead of star worship we got director worship. Instead of actors making it up on the set as they go along (according to Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd) we now have directors improvising brilliancies on the set.

 

It's possible to consider auteurism as a useful framework for viewing films without buying into its excesses (or the excesses, both real and perceived, that have been committed in its name). Sarris was certainly guilty of such excesses at times, but that hasn't caused me to cast aside his book, which remains a fascinating read. I suspect it will always have a place on my shelf, as do Film Culture nos. 28 and 29, which contained his original "American Directors" essays which were reworked into The American Cinema several years later.

 

There is a bit of Oscar Wilde in his writing style that could be offputting to some, but
bring smiles to others.