A spirited, frequently tendentious, collection of essays and reviews dissecting some of the more notable films of the last 20 years. While most film critics tend to hide their ideological biases behind the Oz curtain of objectivity, Rosenbaum (Moving Places, 1980, etc.), a film critic at the Chicago Reader, freely confesses his numerous ideological inclinations. This can lead to a distracting emphasis on autobiography, but it also allows us to see how and why Rosenbaum arrived at some of his more iconoclastic opinions: Movies today ``are designed to splinter and isolate us from one another, not draw us together. Apparently someone figured out that more money could be made that way.'' He has a real talent for deconstructing movies, elucidating their subtler meanings, exposing the xenophobic impulses behind Star Wars, for example, or the radical, democratizing impulse behind the compositions in Jacques Tati's Playtime. Yet Rosenbaum rarely falls into the traps of shrill polemicizing or academic esotericism awaiting those who snub the mainstream. He has a buff's genuine love of movies and seems to have seen almost everything (his analysis of the seven versions of Orson Welles's Mr. Arkadin is particularly revealing). But his relentless resistance to ``pure,'' nonpolitical aesthetic values, particularly in Hollywood films, seems unnecessarily limiting. His left-leaning politique des auteurs stance anchors his criticism, it also means his aesthetics tend to echo the old Marxian preoccupation with social utility—a work of art's real worth resides in its political attitudes. Typically, he writes of forcing himself to resist his gut-level enjoyment of Forrest Gump in order to focus on its political failings. The slippery-slope danger here, of course, is that art becomes valued only as propaganda. First-rate film criticism labored by second-rate social analysis.
Pub Date: June 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-520-20614-2
Page Count: 343
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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