Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #349048 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

Synopsis
The auteur theory, of which film criticAndrew Sarris was the leading American proponent, holds that artistry in cinema can be largely attributed to film directors, who, while often working against the strictures of studios, producers, and scriptwriters, manage to infuse each film in their oeuvre with their personal style. Sarris's The American Cinema , the bible of auteur studies, is a history of American film in the form of a lively guide to the work of two hundred film directors, from Griffith, Chaplin, and von Sternberg to Mike Nichols, Stanley Kubrick, and Jerry Lewis. In addition, the book includes a chronology of the most important American films, an alphabetical list of over 6000 films with their directors and years of release, and the seminal essays "Toward a Theory of Film History" and "The Auteur Theory Revisited." Over twenty-five years after its initial publication, The American Cinema remains perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject.

Customer Reviews

Good even if you dislike auteur criticism
Auteur criticism is, in my opinion, a profoundly flawed theory of cinema that nonetheless was instrumental in emphasising the important role the director. Anyone not in the grip of a theory and aware of the myriad of factors that goes into the making of a good film has to realize that a vast array of factors goes into the final product. Only in rare instances can a film be said to be the expression of the will of the director and treated as such. Frequently a film can be carried not by the director, but by the cinematographer, the editor, the actors, or the screenwriter (anyone who has read the original screenplay of CITIZEN KANE can enjoy a graphic instance of the role a good screenplay can play in the production of a masterpiece).

Having pointed that out, Sarris did help America take directors more seriously than they had ever been taken before, and for that he must be applauded. That took many took the director to be the only game in town doesn't undercut the value of this book

Stepping off my soapbox, let me just say how much fun this book is. It is great fun to argue with Sarris about which directors he places in the Pantheon (the best of the best of the directors to have worked in the U.S.) and which he leaves out. It would be wonderful if he were to turn his attention to producing an updated version of the book, extending into the current decade. I would be interested to see to what extent he revised the Pantheon, to see where he placed Coppola, Scorsese, Sayles, and Spielberg.

Recommended to anyone with a more-than-casual interest in American cinema.

invaluable guide in essay form to American film
In brief, beautifully written essays, Andrew Sarris summarizes the careers of perhaps 80 to 100 American directors. Each essay is preceded by a filmography, with the films Sarris judges to be the director's most important in italics. (An appendix gives the author's lists of most important American films by year.)

Sarris groups directors into categories including "Pantheon Directors," "The Far Side of Paradise," "Lightly Likeable," "Expressive Esoterica" and "Less Than Meets the Eye." Sarris is an avowed auteurist, meaning that he considers that in the great majority of films, the director's contribution is decisive.

I have used the book as a guide for my movie and video viewing for the past 20 years, and the rewards have been vast.