Jeffrey Meyers:
Sitton, a film historian, has done justice to a fascinating and important subject. Following extensive archival research, he's told a dramatic story and ended with an incisive summary of Barry's character and achievements.
Thomas Gladysz:
[A] fascinating biography of the founder of the Museum of Modern Art's Film Library and the individual who helped institutionalize film studies.
Leonard Maltin:
A full-fledged biography of the woman who changed the course of American film culture.
Sitton's elegant, accomplished book is the first to elucidate Barry's important work... This is an indispensable account of a woman who was not only a singular pioneering personality but also a diligent, cunning creator of institutions and ways of seeing that are now taken for granted.
Richard Brody:
A terrific new biography.... Sitton brings to light an extraordinary story—or, rather, an extraordinary person, who has been languishing unjustly in the shadows.
[A] compelling biography... gracefully written, always interesting, and well researched.... Anyone interested in film history, particularly in the history of film history and film preservation, will want to read this book. Iris Barry is a key figure, and she led a fascinating life.
Philip Kemp:
Robert Sitton's biography makes for lively reading.
Henry K. Miller:
A very welcome and long overdue tribute to a fascinating figure.
An excellent on Iris Barry's important work at [Museum of Modern Art.]
Meticulously researched, lovingly written.... Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the Art of Film is a must-read biography.
The most fascinating characters tend to be the unsung heroes of their field, and there may be no greater example of this than Iris Barry.... This remarkable story is richly detailed... and is required reading for anyone interested in film, art, or museums.
Sitton exhaustively traces Barry's career from aspiring poet to playwright, biographer and film critic.... Film students will enjoy this book.
Peter Bogdanovich:
Robert Sitton's remarkably well researched and evocatively written biography of Iris Barry's hitherto largely unknown position at the forefront of film appreciation is long overdue and most welcome. She led a fascinating private and public life and had an extremely complicated female odyssey in the world of her times, which she profoundly influenced through her writings and cultural actions. That influence still reverberates today.
Kevin Brownlow, author of The Parade's Gone By
.:
I confess that I thought of Iris Barry as an English snob who had rejected many exceptional silents as products of the much-despised Hollywood, but she is so much more interesting—and maddening—than I ever suspected. Her autobiographical fragments are superb, remarkable descriptions of history as it happened—a Zeppelin raid on London in World War 1, the Depression in America making the rich richer. As she describes them, these incidents are as evocative as any film, and the book is beautifully illustrated with excellent-quality portraits. Somebody should film it.
Richard Schickel:
Iris Barry was film's first great archivist and a crucial figure in turning a curious novelty into the most significant new art form of its century. She has long deserved a biography as graceful and expert as the one Robert Sitton has delivered so handsomely. It offers a lively portrait of modernist New York when it was fresh and new and is the better for the richness of its quotations from Barry's stirring writings. It cannot be praised too highly.
Dana Polan, author of Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film, 1915–1935:
Museum of Modern Art film legend Iris Barry mattered to cinema history, and this book makes her life matter as well. Sitton's sharp biography spans Barry's life from her fascinating times among the literati of post-Victorian Britain to her famed career in the United States, which entailed her virtually founding the influential MoMA Film Library. This is a rich and captivating story.
Haidee Wasson, author of Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema:
Sitton's book is chock full of fascinating detail and tells a compelling story about an unusual character, a woman who built institutions and contributed to a way of thinking about film that we take for granted today. The result is a much larger and untold history about art, film, and culture.
