The Obscurity of the Obvious: On the Films of Otto Preminger

Pass the Salt from Christian Keathley on Vimeo.

Video essay on a scene from Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder. (Also see Keathley's 'Otto Preminger and the Surface of Cinema', World Picture Journal, 2, 2008)

 Richard Brody on Preminger's Hurry Sundown (1967)

Auteurism got film studies into the academy, but it was 1970s “semiotic” theory (with its amalgam of structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and feminism) that secured film studies a position as a discrete discipline. With this critical shift, however, the obvious became obscure: for in effect, the semiotic approach rendered in need of interpretation many films that appeared transparent. But while films by directors like Ray, Sirk, and Minnelli seemed tailor-made for this method—with their implicit interrogation of the social relations of post-war life in America (bourgeois, patriarchal, heterosexual, capitalist)—Preminger’s films aren’t, due to their both narrative and stylistic approach. While Ray, Sirk, and Minnelli mounted their critique of American capitalist society indirectly, through their carefully designed mise-en-scène that communicated visually things that couldn’t then be addressed directly, Preminger took the opposite approach: addressing controversial social issues (sexual affairs, drug abuse, homosexuality) head- on, so that any “symptomatic” interpretation was rendered superfluous. The social issues under interrogation in Preminger’s films were not subtextual—they were the manifest content. Indeed, to point out that there is a subtext of incest in Anatomy of a Murder, Bonjour Tristesse, and Bunny Lake Is Missing is merely to state the obvious. As a result, since the early 1970s, Preminger has been a severely under-examined filmmaker.  [Excerpt from Christian Keathley, 'Otto Preminger and the Surface of Cinema', World Picture Journal, 2, 2008]

Film Studies For Free was so inspired by Christian Keathley's video essay on Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder, part of an impressive body of scholarship on this director's films by this US based academic, that it immediately set to work on assembling an accompanying collection of direct links to other high quality and openly accessible studies of this filmmaker's oeuvre, as well as to one or two other interesting discussions of other directors' work which mention Preminger's films.

And below you have it. That is all. 

• Deborah Allinson, 'Novelty title sequences and self-reflexivity in classical Hollywood cinema', Screening the Past, 20, 2006

• David Bordwell, 'Widescreen Aesthetics and Mise en Scene Criticism', The Velvet Light Trap, 21, 1985

• Michael Buchler, '“Laura” and the essential ninth: were they only a dream?', Em Pauta, Porto Alegre, v. 17, n. 29, julho a dezembro, 2006

• Mary Ann Doane, 'Scale and the Negotiation of “Real” and “Unreal” Space in the Cinema',NTU Studies in Language and Literature, 1, Number 20 (December 2008), 1-38

• Chris Fujiwara, 'Otto Preminger', Senses of Cinema, 2002

• Noah Isenberg, 'Script Doktor', Bookforum, Jan/Feb 2008

• Oscar Jubis, 'From Suspicion to Trust: Biegler and Manion in Anatomy of a Murder', FilmLeaf, June 2009

• Christian Keathley, 'Otto Preminger and the Surface of Cinema', World Picture Journal, 2, 2008

• Christian Keathley, 'A Whirlpool of Things [on critical commentary and Otto Preminger’s Whirlpool]', In Media Res, May 14 , 2007

• Pat McGilligan/Arthur Laurents, 'Arthur Laurents: Emotional Reality', Pat McGilligan (ed.), Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) 

• Ronny Loewy, 'Pure Flight or Exodus: Otto Preminger's film about Israel', First published in: Filmgeschichte. Newsletter der Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Nr. 13, Juni 1999

• Miguel Marías, 'The Head and Eyes of Otto Preminger, or The Thinking Gaze', Undercurrent, Issue 3, 2006

• Jakob Isak Nielsen, 'Camera Movement Revisited', 16:9, 2, 2009

• Jakob Isak Nielsen, 'The Shape of a Western- Visual Design in Winchester '73 and The Man from Laramie', P.O.V. No. 24, December 2007 

• Martha P. Nochimson, 'Betty Grable Finally Dances... (That Lady in Ermine, Otto Preminger, 1948), Senses of Cinema, 5, 2000

• John Orr, 'Otto Preminger and the End of Classical Cinema', Senses of Cinema, Issue 40, 2006

• David Ray Papke, 'From Flat to Round: Changing Portrayals of the Judge in American Popular Culture',  Journal of the Legal Profession, Vol. 31, 2006-2007

• Luca Prono, 'Whatever Happened to Nelson Algren ?: Otto Preminger’s Adaptation Of The Man with the Golden Arm', Links and Letters 6, 1999

• Dahlia Schweitzer, 'Who is missing in Bunny Lake?', Jump Cut, No. 52, Summer 2010

• Valerie Stulman, 'Femme/s, Film/s, Noir/e: Revisions', Thinking Gender Papers, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, UC Los Angeles, January 2007 

• Boris Trbic, 'Where the Sidewalk Ends', Senses of Cinema, 8, 2000

More about → The Obscurity of the Obvious: On the Films of Otto Preminger

Lots of Film Studies PhD Theses Online

Masculine 'musculinity' (almost) all grown up -  Sylvester Stallone, in The Expendables ( Stallone, 2010). (See Yvonne Tasker's PhD on masculinity and action movies)

It was time for one of Film Studies For Free's regular visits to a research repository search-engine to see which PhD theses have been made openly accessible online since this blog last took a look.

A few of the below PDF files have been linked to before by FSFF but the vast majority have not come up in earlier searches. And there are some fabulous items here: such as Yvonne Tasker's paradigm shifting thesis on gender and action cinema, and Donato Totaro on time and the long take in the cinema. And what a truly astounding variety of topics!

• SooJeong Ahn, The Pusan International Film Festival 1996-2005: South Korean cinema in local, regional, and global context, PhD Thesis,  University of Nottingham, 2008

• Steven William Allen, A pleasure in pain: contemporary mainstream cinema's fascination with the aestheticized spectacle of the controlled body, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2003

• Noor Al-Qasimi, The codes of modesty: reconfiguring the Muslim female subject, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007

• Tom Brown, From intimate pleasures to spectacular vistas: musicality and historicity in French and American 'classical' cinema of the 1930s, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007

• Felicia Chan, In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas, PhD Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2007

• Brigid S. G. Cherry, The female horror film audience : viewing pleasures and fan practices, PhD Thesis, University of Stirling, 1999

• Marisa Farrugia, The plight of women in Egyptian cinema (1940s 1960s), PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 2002

• Dongning  Feng, Text, politics and society : literature as political philosophy in post-Mao China, PhD Thesis,  University of Stirling, 1997

• Michael Flanagan, True sons of Erin: catholic/nationalist ideology and the politics of adventure in Our Boys 1914-32, PhD Thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2006

• Mary Gillan, In the shadow of the church: Irish and Quebec cinema, PhD Thesis, Dublin City University, 2009

• Leighton Grist, Authorship and context: the films of Martin Scorsese 1963-1977, PhD Thesis,      University of Warwick, 1996

• Henrik Gustafsson, Out of Site: Landscape and Cultural Reflexivity in New Hollywood Cinema 1969-1974, PhD Thesis, Stockholm University, Sweden, 2007 and errata

• Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, Early Discourses on Colour and Cinema : Origins, Functions, Meanings, PhD Thesis,  Stockholm University, Sweden, 2006

• Timothy John Hollins, The presentation of politics : the place of party publicity, broadcasting and film in British politics, 1918-1939, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1981, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

• Christopher James Homewood, From Baader to Prada The Representation of Urban Terrorism in German-Language Film, PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2008

• Claire Jenkins, Family entertainment: representations of the American family in contemporary Hollywood cinema,   PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009

• Krzysztof Jozajtis, Religion and film in American culture: the birth of a nation, PhD Thesis, University of Stirling, 2001

• Abdelrhaffar Bourkiba Larbi, Parody and ideology: The case of Othello, PhD Thesis, Universitat de València, 2005

• Barbara Lehin, Cinema and society: Thatcher's Britain and Mitterand's France, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2003

• Elaine Lennon, The screenplays of Robert Towne 1960-2000, PhD Thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2009

• Maasilta Mari, African Carmen. Transnational Cinema as an Arena for Cultural Contradictions, PhD Thesis, University of Tampere, 2007

• Laurent Marie, The French Communist Party and French cinema 1944-1999, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2000

• Sara Martin Alegre, More human than human: aspects of monstrosity in the films and novels in english of the 1980s and 1990s, PhD Thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1996, (chapters are: 1 Fascinating Bodies: The New Iconography of Monstrosity; 2 Old Monsters, New Monsters: Vision and Re-Vision From Screen Adaptation to Novelization; 3 Nostalgia for the Monster: Mythical Monsters and Freaks; 4 Evil and Monstrosity: The Moral Monster, 5 The Politics of Monstrosity: The Monsters of Power; 6: Frankenstein's Capitalist Heirs: The Uses of Making Monsters; 7 Gendered Monstrosity: The Monstrous-Feminine and the New Woman Saviour and 8 Little Monsters?: Children and Monsters)

• Anthony T.  McKenna, Joseph E. Levine: showmanship, reputation and industrial practice 1945-1977, PhD Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2008

• Christopher Meir,  Underwriting national sovereignty?: policy, the market and Scottish cinema, 1982- present, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007

• Douglas Morrey, Jean-Luc Godard and the other history of cinema, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2002

• Fabio Parasecoli, Food and men in cinema: an exploration of gender in blockbuster movies, Universität Hohenheim, 2009

• Louise Ann Parsons, An analysis of 'The Gold Diggers' (1983) by Sally Potter: feminist film, Julia Kristeva and revolutionary poetics, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1994, Vol. 1 and Vol 2

• Martin Luther Patrick, The myth of the Black male beast in postclassical American cinema: ‘Forging’ stereotypes and discovering Black masculinities, PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2009

• Anna Sofia Rossholm, Reproducing Languages, Translating Bodies : Approaches to Speech, Translation and Cultural Identity in Early European Sound Film, PhD Thesis, Stockholm University, Sweden, 2006

• Trevor Ryan, Labour and the media in Britain 1929-1939: a study of the attitudes of the Labour movement towards the new media, film and radio, and of its attempts to use them for political purposes,  PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1986, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

• Alice Stanley, Representations of sexuality in the films of Francois Ozon, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009

• Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular bodies: gender, genre and the action cinema, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 1995

• Gewain Francis Henry Tickell, Homelands and the representation of cultural and political identity in selected South-Asian texts, 1857 to the present, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 1998

• Donato Totaro, Time and the long take in The Magnificent Ambersons, Ugetsu and Stalker, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2001

• Louise Ann Williams, Masculinity on the run: history, nation and subjectivity in contemporary mainland Chinese cinema, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, 2004

• Leila Wimmer, The French reception of British cinema, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2006

More about → Lots of Film Studies PhD Theses Online

Standing Out: R.I.P. Lena Horne

Groundbreaking actress and singer Lena Horne, who died yesterday in her nineties. In the sequence above, from the movie Stormy Weather (dir. Andrew Stone, US, 1943), she sings the track for which she will always be remembered.

For more on this film, do read 'All cullud musical daily double: Stormy Weather', by Odienator at Big Media Vandalism, February 21, 2008. It is also discussed at length in a great, hour-long interview on Horne's career with Gail Buckley, the star's daughter (some other great links and video at this site).

Below are extracts from and links to a few, excellent scholarly studies of Horne's work and persona. David Hudson's round up of tributes to the actress is now online at The Auteurs Notebook

While the subject of Shane Vogel’s article “Lena Horne’s Impersona” could herself be described as a spectacular mulata musical performer, Vogel makes the case that Horne’s (in)famous “aloof” performing style has been “misunderstood . . . as a reflection of the demanding and narcissistic personality of the prima donna.” Instead, Vogel finds that, far from cultivating a Garboesque diva mask, Horne’s distant and distancing style “is a withholding of any persona at all”; its “negative affect” a “strategic mode of black [female] performance” that allowed Horne — and a number of other women—“to survive the psychic damage and physical danger of segregated cabaret performance.”
Alexander Doty, 'Introduction: The Good, the Bad, and the Fabulous; or, The Diva Issue Strikes Back', Camera Obscura 67, Volume 23, Number 1, 2008

[Lena Horne's] restraint on the cabaret stage found its cinematic counterpart in [her] film career. She appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood musicals, but primarily as what was sardonically termed a “pillar singer.” In films like Panama Hattie (dir. Norman Z. McLeod, US, 1942), I Dood It (dir. Vincente Minnelli, US, 1943), Thousands Cheer (dir. George Sidney, US, 1943), and Boogie-Woogie Dream (dir. Hans Burger, US, 1944), Horne was featured, usually propped against a marble column, in a musical number that was supplemental to the narrative of the film. This isolation from the story allowed her number to be easily deleted before distribution to southern theaters. “I looked good and I stood up against a wall and sang and sang. But I had no relationship with anybody else,” Horne recalled in 1957. “Mississippi wanted its movies without me. It was an accepted fact that any scene I did was going to be cut when the movie played the South. So no one bothered to put me in a movie where I talked to anybody, where some thread of the story might be broken if I were cut. I had no communication with anybody.” This filmic isolation contributed to Horne’s reputation for affective distance. Even in the three films in which she had starring roles—The Duke Is Tops (dir. William L. Nolte, US, 1938), Stormy Weather (dir. Andrew Stone, US, 1943), and Cabin in the Sky (dir. Vincente Minnelli, US, 1943) — her reserve and her refusal to inhabit the images available to her seemed to render her detached from the narrative. As James Haskins notes about her performance as the seductive vixen Georgia Brown in Cabin in the Sky, “Undoubtedly she infused the role with as much dignity as she could muster and managed to be the most aloof ‘bad girl’ ever seen in a film to date. She was not believable as a slut, and as such she was an enigmatic character who invited puzzled contemplation as much as sexual desire in the male members of the audience.”

Shane Vogel, 'Lena Horne’s Impersona', Camera Obscura 67, Volume 23, Number 1

• TaKeshia Brooks, 'Boogie Woogie Dreams: Early African-American Representations in Musical Short Films', Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden International Congress Centre, Dresden, Germany, 2009-05-25
• Stacy Holman Jones, 'Conversations with Scholars of American Popular Culture', Americana, Fall 2008

More about → Standing Out: R.I.P. Lena Horne

William Friedkin in conversation

A quick post, today, to give Film Studies For Free's readers something good to watch while this blog undergoes some layout changes.

The above video presents a highly entertaining, and very informative, hour-long Q & A session with film director William Friedkin. The event, facilitated by Joseph Pascal, took place on February 24, 2009 at the Hudson Union Society, New York City, and was made available online thanks to the wonderful people from FORA.tv.

Friedkin, director of The Exorcist and The French Connection, discusses his legendary film career. He describes his on-set experiences, and explores the past, present, and future of the film industry.

More about → William Friedkin in conversation

Irish cinema studies online (I gcuimhne ar Michael Dwyer)

Film Studies For Free would like to offer its condolences to the partner, family, and friends of renowned Irish film festival founder and Irish Times film correspondent Michael Dwyer, who very sadly died on Friday at the far too young age of 58. 

Dwyer (pictured above) was a very talented, and much admired, film critic, broadcaster, and programmer, 'a true star of Irish film', as a great tribute to him in the Irish Times put it. Known very much as a keen internationalist in his film tastes and championings, Dwyer did make an incalculably important contribution to Irish national film culture, as many of the personal tributes to him since his untimely death have made very clear (see, for instance, those posted here and here). Here is a link to his last column for the Irish Times with his favourite film lists for 2009 and the last decade.

Below, in his memory, FSFF has assembled its own list of links to high quality, online, and openly accessible scholarly resources on Irish cinema.

• Desmond Bell, 'Interview with Filmmaker Pat Murphy', Kinema, 2008

• Maeve Connolly, 'Excluded by the Nature of Things? Irish Cinema and Artist’s Film', CIRCA 106, winter 2003: 33-39

• Seán Crosson, 'Vanishing Point: An examination of some consequences of globalization for contemporary Irish film', e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Volume 2: 1-23

• Seán Crosson, "‘They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever pa, ‘cause we're the people' - Misrepresenting death in Jim Sheridan's In America (2003)", Estudios Irlandeses: Journal of Irish Studies, Issue 3, (2008)

• Christine Evans, 'On Genre and Semantic Quibbling: Or, there's no pleasing a genre critic', Genre and Irish Cinema Conference, University of British Columbia, March 2005
  

• Peter Flynn, 'Some Mother's Son: Postcolonial, Postnational, Posthistorical?', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 29, July 2000  

• Roddy Flynn, 'Raiders of the Lost Archive: the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Film Industry 1942', Irish Communications Review, Volume 10, 2007 (large pdf - scroll down)
  

• Debbie Ging, 'A ‘Manual on Masculinity’? The consumption and use of mediated images of masculinity among teenage boys in Ireland', Irish Journal of Sociology, Vol. 14(2) 2005, pp. 29–52

• Rosa Gonzalez Casademont, 'Ireland on Screen. A View from Spain', International Journal of English Studies, vol. 2 (2), 2002, pp. 71-82

• Brendan Kelly, 'Psychiatry in contemporary Irish cinema: a qualitative study', Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 2006; 23(2): 74-79

• Cornelis Martin Renes, 'The Quiet Man and Angela's Ashes: Hollywood Representations of Irish Emigration as Male Quest Narrative', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Brian McIlroy, 'The Repression of Communities: Visual Representations of Northern Ireland during the Thatcher Years', first published in Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism., ed. Lester Friedman. Revised edition. London: Wallflower Press, 2006: 77-90
  

• Brian McIlroy, 'Exodus, Arrival & Return: The Generic Discourse of Irish Diasporic and Exilic Narrative Films', first published in Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television, eds. Ruth Barton and Harvey O’Brien (London: Wallflower Press, 2004): 69-77
  

• Raita Merivirta-Chakrabarti, 'Between Irish National Cinema and Hollywood: Neil Jordan's Michael Collins', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Raita Merivirta, 'Like Cain and Abel: Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera in Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins', Wider Screen, 1, 2005
  

• Paula Murphy, 'The Irish Phone Home: Reflections of Ireland in Jim Sheridan’s In America', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 4, 2009
  

• Paula Murphy, 'Interrogating Intermission', Kritikos: A Journal of Postmodern Cultural Sound, Text and Image, Volume 3, 2006

• Kim Newman, 'Irish Horror Cinema', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Issue 1, October 2006

• Harvey O’Brien, The identity of an Irish cinema, 3rd edition, 2007
  

• Renée Penney, 'Bloody Sunday: Classically Unified Trauma?', Vol. 1, UBCinephile, April 2005

• Renée Penney, 'Genre and Irish Cinema Conference Review - March 2005', Center for Cinema Studies,University of British Columbia
  

• Sarah Pierce, 'The Archival Fourth Dimension', Afterall, November 23, 2009

• Marita Ryan, 'Answering the Question: “What is Intermission?” – An Exploration of Intermission as a Postmodern Film', International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Volume 5, Number 1 (January, 2008)

• Matthew Ryan, 'Ourselves Alone: Solipsism in Neil Jordan's Novels and Films', Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies, no.11, 2000, pp.187-98

• Sean Ryder, 'Representing Ireland: Literary Adaptation and Irish Cinema', Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies 9, 1998, 119-130

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television - 2005' (including Introduction Tony Tracy; Irish Film 2005: An Industry in Crisis? Roddy Flynn;Boy Eats Girl Ruth Barton; Masculinity in Contemporary Irish Cinema Debbie Ging;Adam and Paul Barry Monahan;The Trouble with Sex Emma Grealy;Pure Mule Tony Tracy;Fair City Helena Sheehan;Mickybo and Me and The Mighty CeltPádraic Whyte; Man About Dog Díóg O’Connell;Documentary Film and TelevisionHarvey O’Brien; Pavee Lackeen Seán Crosson;Adaptations: Tara Road and Breakfast on Pluto Tony Tra), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 1, 2006
  

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television – 2006' (including Introduction Tony Tracy; Industrial In/Activity Roddy Flynn; TG 4 Eithne O'Connell; The Wind that Shakes the Barley Ruth Barton; Isolation Barry Monahan; Capital Letters Debbie Ging; Once Tony Tracy; Middletown Jane Ruffino; Six Shooter Seán Crosson; Brendan Gleeson Harvey O'Brien; The Clinic Diog O Connell; The Tiger's Tail and The Pope's Children Pat Brereton) Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Tony Tracy (ed.),'Irish Film and Television – 2007 (including Introduction Tony Tracy; From Kings to Cáca Mílis: Recent Trends in Irish Film and Television as Gaeilge Seán Crosson; Cré na Cille Gearóid Denvir The Kings’ Irish: Dialogue, Dialect and Subtitle in Kings Eithne O’Connell; Altered Images: Shrooms and Irish Cinema Roddy Flynn; Small Engine Repair Ruth Barton; Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage: A Drama of Cinematic Silence Barry Monahan; Prosperity: Social Realism in the New Millennium; Díog O’Connell; The Celtic ‘Chick-flick’: How About You and PS I Love You Debbie Ging; The Brave One Maria Pramaggiore; Experimental Conversations: Ourselves Connected? Donal Foreman; Ghosts of Empire: Mitchell and Kenyon inIrelandand Saoirse? Harvey O’Brien; At Home With the Clearys Pat Brereton; Interview with Simon Perry Tony Tracy), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 3, 2008

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television – 2008',(including Irish Film and Television Review 2008 Tony Tracy; In the Beginning: Ardmore Studios Celebrates 50 Barry Monahan; Kisses Ruth Barton; Hunger Seán Crosson; Staging Space: Cinema, Image, and Text in Declan Recks’ Eden Harvey O’Brien; In Bruges Joan Dean; Entering the Dark Place: Visions of Irish Horror in SeerZélie Asava; 32A Roddy Flynn; Níl aon tinteán mar do hinteán féin: Home insecurity in recent Irish Cinema Veronica Johnson; Tom Jordan Murphy: An Appreciation Michael Patrick Gillespie; The Short Film and Irish Cinema Conn Holohan; Drawing Conclusions: Irish Animation and National CinemaLiam Burke; Meltdown makeover: TV3’s The Apprentice Gavin Titley; Fairytale of Katmandu Laura Canning; Bertie: Portrait of a Politician Under Suspicion Pat Brereton; Striapacha Tri Chead Bliain Duailcis Niamh O’Reilly), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 4, 2009
  

• Pilar Villar-Argáiz, 'Latter-day Mother Irelands: The Role of Women in Michael Collins and The Wind that Shakes the Barley', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

More about → Irish cinema studies online (I gcuimhne ar Michael Dwyer)

Crossing the Wild River: R.I.P. Robin Wood (1931-2009)

Last updated on June 4, 2010

'If I were asked to choose a film that would justify the existence of Hollywood, I think it would be Rio Bravo.' Robin Wood

Film Studies For Free briefly emerges from an enforced absence due to illness (back properly soon, it hopes), to mark the sad passing, on December 18, of Robin Wood, one of the true giants of the difficult endeavour of film criticism and also of the discipline of film studies.

FSFF's own special-favourite Wood works are the talk on 'Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic', his books on Hitchcock (especially the Vertigo chapter), the book he co-authored with Michael Walker on Claude Chabrol's films, his incredibly enlightening study of Hawk's Rio Bravo and the other BFI book on The Wings of a Dove. Each of these was paradigm-shifting in their own ways, as was much of Wood's other writing on cinema.

As online tributes to this major film writer appear in the next days they will be added to the list of online and freely accessible works by or about Wood given below.

May this hugely prolific, influential, and talented writer, film-thinker, and teacher rest in peace.

Posthumous online tributes to Robin Wood:

• Mark Asch, 'Robin Wood, Film Critic, 1931-2009', The L Magazine, December 22, 2009 
• Charles Barr, 'Robin Wood Obituary', The Guardian, January 4, 2010
  
• David Bordwell, 'Robin Wood', Observations on Film Art, December 19, 2009
• New Gregory A. Burris, 'Farewell, Robin Wood (1931-2009): The Relevance of a Radical Film Critic', MRZine [Monthly Review online], June 2, 2010
• Robert Cashill, 'RIP Robin Wood',  Between Productions,December 18, 2009
• Matthew Cheney, 'Robin Wood: 1931-2009', The Mumpsimus, December 21, 2009
• Dennis Cozzalio, 'Robin Wood and Rio Bravo', Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, January 6, 2010
  
• Jim Emerson, 'Robin Wood: He was as good as they say', Scanners, January 7, 2010
  
• William Grimes, 'Robin Wood, Film Critic Who Wrote on Hitchcock, Dies at 78', New York Times, December 22, 2009 
• Liz Helfgott, 'Robin Wood: 1931-2009', Criterion.com, December 21, 2009
  
• David Hudson, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', The Auteurs Notebook, December 19, 2009 
• Dave Kehr, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', davekehr.com, December 19, 2009 (also see the comments strand at Kehr's blog here for many more brief tributes --scroll down -- on December 18, 2009)
  
• Glenn Kenny, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', Some Came Running, December 18, 2009
  
• C. Jerry Kutner, 'Robin Wood (1931-2009)', Bright Lights After Dark, December 19, 2009
• James MacDowell, 'Robin Wood: 1931-2009', The Lesser Feat, December 20, 2009
• Janine Marchessault, 'Robin Wood - In Memoriam',  Film Studies Association of Canada, December 2009
  
• Stuart Ross, 'Robin Wood — off to the Big Screen in the Sky', Bloggamooga, December 24, 2009
  
• Girish Shambu, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', girish, December 19, 2009
• Michael Tapper, 'In Memoriam: Robin Wood', Film International, December 2009
  
• Donato Totaro, 'Robin Wood: 23 February 1931 - 18 December 2009, December 20, 2009 to March 31, 2010', Offscreen Journal, December 2009
• Keith Uhlich, 'Robin Wood: February 23, 1931 - December 18, 2009', The House Next Door, December 19, 2009
  
• David Walsh, 'Film Critic Robin Wood Dies at 78', World Socialist Web Site, December 21, 2009
• James Zborowski, 'Robin Wood', Between Sympathy and Detachment, December 31, 2009

Online works by or about Robin Wood:

• Robin Wood A descriptive, illustrated bibliography of the work of the noted film critic, Compiled by D. K. Holm and Brad Steven, October 2005 
• Armen Svadjian, 'A Life in Film Criticism: Robin Wood at 75', YOURflesh Magazine, November 9, 2006 (via Jim Emerson) 
• CineAction's 'A tribute to Robin Wood', CineAction, Summer 2007 
•  Robin Wood, 'Only (Dis)Connect; and Never Relaxez-Vous; or, "I Can’t Sleep"', Film International, Issue 11
• Robin Wood, 'Revenge is Sweet: The Bitterness of "Audition"', Film International, Issue 7
• Robin Wood, 'A BETTER TOMORROW: Lee Isaac Chung’s astonishing debut, Munyurangabo, finds life after death in the killing fields of Rwanda', Film Comment, International, Volume 44, Issue No. 2, March/April 2008
• Robin Wood, 'Fresh Meat', Film Comment, Volume 44, Issue No. 1, January - February, 2008
• Robin Wood, 'What Lies Beneath?', Senses of Cinema, Issue 15, 2001
• Robin Wood, 'Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic',  Film Comment, Issue No. 1, January - February, 1978
• Robin Wood, 'Michael Haneke: beyond compromise', CineAction, Summer 2007
  
• Joe McElhaney, 'Review of Hitchcock's Films Revisited by Robin Wood, revised edition, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)', Senses of Cinema, Issue 24, January 2003
• Frances Pheasant-Kelly, 'Review of Hitchcock’s Films Revisited: Revised Edition by Robin Wood, New York: Columba University Press, 2002', Scope, Issue 1, February 2005 
• Arthur M. Eckstein, 'Review of Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan… and Beyond by Robin Wood', Film International, Issue 7  
• Bill Krohn, 'Friedkin Out', Rouge, 3, 2004
  
• Christiane Gerblinger, '"Fiery the Angels Fell": America, Regeneration, and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner', Australasian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, July 2002

More about → Crossing the Wild River: R.I.P. Robin Wood (1931-2009)