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View Full Version : RIP Andrew Sarris: He gave us auteurism American style



x359594
20th June 2012, 19:56
Sarris brought la politique des Auteurs to the US with his 1963 article published in Film Culture magazine that he later expanded into book length as The American Cinema published in 1968.

Just a year before the book version was published I read the original article in a copy of Film Culture that I bought in a second hand bookstore (in some ways I prefer the article to the book.) I immediately sought out all the films he highlighted as the best works of the respective directors he included at revival theaters or on commercial broadcast television (replete with 3 minute interruptions every 12 minutes.) If he did nothing else Sarris pointed me and many others in the right direction.

For once the New York Times has an accurate and fairly respectable obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/movies/andrew-sarris-film-critic-dies-at-83.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

x359594
21st June 2012, 18:14
One of Sarris's most appealing features was his willingness to re-evaluate previous judgements; for example, he dismissed Billy Wilder in 1968 but came around to appreciating Wilder a few years later. Few critics had the openess of mind to re-visit and re-assess their former positions on films and filmmakers they dismissed or over praised.

I also really like his auteurist pronouncements like "Hitchcock is the most daring avant-garde filmmaker in America today Psycho]" and “The last champions of John Ford have now gathered around 7 Women as a beacon of personal cinema.”