When Movies Mattered

Dave Kehr

Dave Kehr

When Movies Mattered

Reviews from a Transformative Decade

University of Chicago Press | 2011

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226429427

Overview
Contents

About this book

If you have ever wanted to dig around in the archives for that perfect Sunday afternoon DVD and first turned to a witty weekly column in the New York Times, then you are already familiar with one of our nation’s premier film critics. If you love movies—and the writers who engage them—and just happen to have followed two of the highest circulating daily papers in the country, then you probably recognize the name of the intellectually dazzling writer who has been penning pieces on American and foreign films for over thirty years. And if you called the City of the Big Shoulders home in the 1970s or 1980s and relied on those trenchant, incisive reviews from the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune to guide your moviegoing delight, then you know Dave Kehr.

When Movies Mattered presents a wide-ranging and illuminating selection of Kehr’s criticism from the Reader—most of which is reprinted here for the first time—including insightful discussions of film history and his controversial Top Ten lists. Long heralded by his peers for both his deep knowledge and incisive style, Kehr developed his approach to writing about film from the auteur criticism popular in the ’70s. Though Kehr’s criticism has never lost its intellectual edge, it’s still easily accessible to anyone who truly cares about movies. Never watered down and always razor sharp, it goes beyond wry observations to an acute examination of the particular stylistic qualities that define the work of individual directors and determine the meaning of individual films.

From current releases to important revivals, from classical Hollywood to foreign fare, Kehr has kept us spellbound with his insightful critical commentaries. When Movies Mattered will secure his place among our very best writers about all things cinematic.

Author information

Dave Kehr moved to the Chicago Tribune after leaving the Chicago Reader in 1986, and he was its principal film critic until late 1992, when he moved to New York. His work has appeared regularly in Film Comment,and he is a member of the National Society of Film Critics. He blogs at www.davekehr.com.

Reviews

"Dave Kehr belongs in the pantheon of film critics who have been associated in one way or another with the city of Chicago—in fact, he's one of the best writers on film the country as a whole has ever produced. This collection of his work for the Chicago Reader constitutes an important act of cultural recovery, which provides insights into a crucial period of transition in the film industry. Not only a critic but also a public intellectual, Kehr teaches us about film style, calls attention to pictures that have received too little attention, and makes us care more about an art form. When Movies Mattered is a great pleasure."

— James O. Naremore, author of More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts

"Dave Kehr is one of the most gifted film critics in America."

— Roger Ebert

"Kehr writes in a way that merges an enthusiasm for innovation with an exhaustive knowledge of film history. And it seems he's never lacked for bold opinions. . . . He might be right—which makes this collection all the more essential."

— Film Comment

"This collection of criticism and lore deserves a place on every self-respecting cineaste's bookshelf."—Powells.com

— Powells.com

"This is a cause for celebration, although the resulting party would drive other critics to drink out of jealousy rather than selflessness. [Kehr's] prose is patient and lucid, laying bare stylistic and thematic mechanisms with the graceful invisible style of one of his favored Hollywood auteurs."

— MovieMorlocks.com (the official blog for TCM)

"When Movies Mattered is long overdue. . . . Kehr's enviable strength in his chosen mold is his exceptional attention to detail and evocative power of description."—Andrew Tracy, Cinema Scope

— Andrew Tracy, Cinema Scope

"Most people now know Kehr as writer of the weekly DVD column in theNew York Times, a gig he's turned into an ongoing tutorial on film history. But that may change somewhat now that the University of Chicago (his alma mater) has anthologized 53 of his long reviews from theReader(and one ringer fromFilm Comment) in the bookWhen Movies Mattered: Reviews From a Transformative Decade. No one familiar with Kehr's writing will be surprised to learn that the pieces are informed, insightful, and eloquent. Having inherited his job at the paper, though, I probably value the book more than most people, not only for its content but for its example. If you have any interest in the embattled art of film criticism, this collection (by a writer who, incredibly, was still in his 20s or early 30s) offers many lessons quite apart from his examination of the films themselves."

— J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	vii
Introduction Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
Part 1: The Best
1974: Le Petit théâtre de Jean Renoir Jean Renoir Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	13
1976: Family Plot Alfred Hitchcock Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	16
1977: F for Fake Orson Welles Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	19
1978: Days of Heaven Terrence Malick Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	23
1979: 10 Blake Edwards Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	28
1981: Melvin and Howard Jonathan Demme Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	35
1982: The Aviator’s Wife Eric Rohmer Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	40
1983: Francisca Manoel de Oliveira Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	44
Part 2: The End of Classical Hollywood
CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD
The Man Who Would Be King John Huston Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	52
Fedora Billy Wilder Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	55
Escape From Alcatraz Don Siegel Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	58
The Human Factor Otto Preminger Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	61
NEW HOLLYWOOD
The Driver Walter Hill Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	67
Halloween John Carpenter Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	72
Reds Warren Beatty Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	75
Sudden Impact Clint Eastwood Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	79
NEW DIRECTIONS IN COMEDY
Victor/Victoria Blake Edwards Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	85
Risky Business Paul Brickman Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	91
Lost in America Albert Brooks Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	95
After Hours Martin Scorsese Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	100
MAVERICKS AND OUTSIDERS
Dawn of the Dead George Romero Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	106
The Big Red One Samuel Fuller Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	112
Love Streams John Cassavetes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	116
Trouble in Mind Alan Rudolph Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	122
Part 3: Other Visions
OLD MASTERS
Blaise Pascal Roberto Rossellini Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	130
A Piece of Pleasure Claude Chabrol Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	132
That Obscure Object of Desire Luis Buñuel Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	135
Perceval Eric Rohmer Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	139
GODARD
Numéro deux Jean - Luc Godard Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	144
Every Man for Himself Jean-Luc Godard Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	149
Passion Jean-Luc Godard Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	154
Detective Jean-Luc Godard Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	158
NEW MASTERS
Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 Alain Tanner Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	163
The Memory of Justice Marcel Ophuls Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	167
Allegro non troppo Bruno Bozzetto Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	171
The American Friend Wim Wenders Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	174
Loulou Maurice Pialat Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	178
Eijanaika Shohei Imamura Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	182
Coup de torchon Bertrand Tavernier Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	186
City of Pirates Raul Ruiz Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	190
Part 4: Revivals and Retrospectives
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums Kenji Mizoguchi Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	197
The Flowers of St. Francis Roberto Rossellini Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	201
Born in Germany, Raised in Hollywood: The Film Art of Fritz Lang Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	204
Record of a Tenement Gentleman Yasujiro Ozu Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	210
Peeping Tom Michael Powell Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	214
Othello Orson Welles Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	219
Crisis, Compulsion, and Creation: Raoul Walsh’s Cinema of the Individual Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	223
A Love That Caresses the Soul: Films by Carl Theodor Dreyer Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	228
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs Mikio Naruse Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	234
Le Silence de la mer and Bob le Flambeur Jean- Pierre Melville Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	238
The Leopard Luchino Visconti Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	242
Hitch’s Riddle: On Five Rereleased Films Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	247
Once Upon a Time in the West Sergio Leone Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	264
Sergio Leone Jean Renoir Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	269
Appendix: Top Ten Lists, 1974–86 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	275
Index of Names Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	279
Index of Titles Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	285

When Movies Mattered

Reviews from a Transformative Decade

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