subscribe to this page
A specialist magazine for journalists in South Africa and Africa established in 1990 and published by the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University.
Landry, Robert. “Rebel Without a Cause.” Variety, Wed., Oct. 26, 1955.
Robert Landry’s review of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) praises the performances of the actors while criticizing the film’s unrealistic treatment of the social problem of juvenile delinquency. Landry considers Rebel favorably against other films released at the time that dealt with similar subject matter, namely Blackboard Jungle (1955), and The Wild One (1951). He acknowledges that while all these films are populated by characters that engage in similar activities, fighting, racing, and other criminal behavior, Rebel is unique, and especially shocking because of the characters’ socioeconomic status. Unlike the youths of Blackboard, James Dean’s Jim Stark and his associates are suburban, middle class teenagers from what would traditionally be considered good homes which makes the film more interesting, but also less credible in Landry’s estimation. The film was released not long after the accident that took Dean’s life, and Landry acknowledges Dean as a talented young man who had an uncanny ability to portray those that were troubled. Both Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood earn kudos for their work, as the lonely and confused counterparts to Dean’s misery, and all manage to evoke some sympathy from the audience. Most problematic for Landry is the film’s reliance on family dysfunction as the source of the youth problem and what he considers to be a sensationalistic depiction of the youth’s violence, even though he was read reports of similar incidence in many newspapers.
Landry’s generally positive review of Rebel Without a Cause demonstrates that the film was not immediately viewed as a classic. Instead, Landry considers it as a good film, but one that exploits the craze surrounding delinquency, as several other films before it have already addressed. Landry does recognize Rebel’s nuanced version of delinquency, that of a moody suburban teen victimized by his family instead of by socioeconomic circumstance.
Crowther, Bosley. "Run, Bonnie and Clyde." The New York Times 03 sep 1967
Immediately following the release of Bonnie and Clyde on August 4th of 1967, the film began to receive both praise and chastisement from critics. No one was more vehemently against Bonnie and Clyde and all it stood for than Bosley Crowther. Crowther was a film critic for the New York Times from the 1940s until the 1960s, when he reviewed the film in 1967. Critics across the nation were torn by the revolutionary use of violence and glorification of criminality, but Crowther achieved prominence among them as the chief advocate that the film was mere fodder.
Crowther acknowledged the social and political context that the film was meant to play on, but states, “Bonnie and Clyde does not impress me as a contribution to the thinking of our times or as wholesome entertainment”. Crowther’s main complaint seems to be the films departure from historical accuracy. Arthur Penn’s use of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to portray the two criminals transforms them from ugly, murderous scoundrels into beautiful, exciting heroes, which upsets Crowther. “The performance that Beatty gives of a light-hearted, show offish fellow with a talent for stealing cars and holding up banks at gunpoint is mannered playacting of a hick that bears no more resemblance to Barrow than it does to Jesse James”. Crowther believes that by straying from historical accuracy, Penn is “cheating” and “spitting noise and sparks without much truth”.
Crowther admits the technical and cinematic success of the film, but fails to see its social or artistic importance. This review, and the following writings and statements of Crowther came to headline the critics that disliked the 1967 classic. While many other critics agreed with Crowther in the recent months following the film’s release, opinions started to change, and the film slowly climbed down from the fence and settled on the positive side as a masterpiece and social icon. Crowther’s contemporary, Richard Schickel of Time magazine agreed with Crowther at first, but eventually reversed his opinion and admitted that the film was both important and brilliant. Crowther, however, never came around to agreeing with the film and was subsequently fired from The New York Times because of the public criticism he faced because of his criticism of the film.
Pauline Kael article not only represented the positive side of the debate surrounding Bonnie and Clyde, but was her most famous essay and catapulted her to journalistic relevance. Indeed, Kael made her entire career, and quite a good one at that, by covering Bonnie and Clyde. Her original positive review is what established her as the critical face of the film, but she continued to write about and defend the film for years to come, developing a relationship with both Beatty and the writers of the film, Benton and Newman.
Her review was the exact opposite of Crowther’s, extolling the virtues of youth rebellion as part of her generation. The two critics dueled over the subject of the film, which eventually led to the rise of her career and the demise of Crowther’s. The effect of the move can be seen simply by the success of the critics that covered it. Kael, representing the positive, acceptance of the film and all it represented became a prominent film critic. While Crowter rejected it and the youth counterculture it represented and was subsequently removed as the head of the New York Times film review section.
This review is very important to understand the timeline, context, and ultimate consequences of Hollywood’s blaxploitation movement, started by the independent film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. The Hollywood films that followed, like 1971's Superfly and Shaft, portrayed a black urban fantasy. In the case of Superfly, it is a heroic cocaine dealer who ends up using his “ghetto smarts” to outsmart “the Man” while confiding his despair in accepting that the only way for him to “make it” is to sell coke. As his partner says, “it’s the hand ‘the Man’ dealt us.” In the case of Shaft, there is the idea of an in-your-face sexual, cocky, hip black private detective that is embraced by white culture as the new black "answer." Comical to white viewers but dangerously desireable to black viewers. Both films – and the blaxploitation genre in general – exploit the black fantasy that with the “ghetto smarts” and current culture of drug dealing and other criminal activity at their disposal, they can outsmart and ultimately defeat “the Man.” Sweetback helped create and perpetuate this myth with a black folk hero that kills two cops who were beating up a young Black Panther that eventually emerges victorious when he escapes to Mexico. Are we supposed to cheer? The exploitation of this black fantasy – blaxploitation – has created this myth that ultimately holds down black urban culture. When violence against authority and drug dealing are glorified with a sense of pride, the actual impact on the community takes a back seat to the fantasy of the ghetto revolution. Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City ironically shows the damage on the black community from his father’s ghetto lifestyle glorification. It shows how the liberating feeling of making a blaxploitation film paradoxically imprisoned millions of urban youths in a fantasy that has no bearing or practical use in the real world.
Bosley Crowther was a film critic for the New York Times. He is one of the first critics to call Citizen Kane the best movie of all time.
Crowther wrote a glowing review of Citizen Kane on May 2nd, 1941, the day after the premiere in New York. He was so impressed with the film that four days after the premiere, he wrote in this article that Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane could be the greatest movie of all time. He conceded that he might have been going out on a limb and that the felt slightly uneasy about this bold declaration, but that he knew that the film was vastly superior to average film of the day. He wrote that because the film maker was so young – only 25 –he was not sure how the future would fare for Welles. He commented about the movie’s hyped-up release and stated that at the premiere, the film was “riding the crest of the most provocative publicity wave ever to float a motion picture.” This wave of publicity was caused by Hearst’s insistence that the film be taken off of the market before it was even released. Crowther wrote about the viewers reactions to the portrayal of the media tycoon. Even though not a single “black mark” is made against the character, the audience still walked away with a vague idea of the rash techniques used by ruthless publishers. This juxtaposes the films portrayal of Kane as an honest publisher. Crowther then wrote about the ending of the film and how he felt that it increased the complexity of the film because the ending didn’t explain itself. He was of the opinion that Welles was a brilliant filmmaker, but because he was so young, he would need more experience in the discipline.
This article is groundbreaking with respect to the fact that it is one of the first to hail Welles’s movie as a masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made. In the years after the film, its popularity waned at first but then began to increase with time. When one looks today at various organization’s rankings of the best movies of all time (eg Time, AFI, IMDB), usually Citizen Kane tops the list. One might think that Crowther’s positive reviews of the film would inspire more viewership, however the film was not a blockbuster and it seems that Hearst’s attempts at suppressing it were effective.
Kauffman, Stanley. "A Passion in the Desert." Rev. of Lawrence of Arabia, dir. David Lean. The New Republic 148.2 (1963): 26-28.
Stanley Kauffman’s review of Lawrence of Arabia, written shortly after the film’s release, provides an excellent example of the immediate critical reception of the work. In this piece, the author covers a rather wide range of topics. He analyzes the originality and depth of the scriptwriting by A Man for All Seasons’ Robert Bolt, the incredible impact of the photographic imagery of the desert, and the accuracy of the storyline to T. E. Lawrence’s real life. Furthermore, he writes of the scope of the film’s plot, the potency of the musical score, and even scrutinizes the various acting talents of the diverse cast full of veteran actors like Alec Guinness and Claude Rains, and fledgling thespians like Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. Through his study of the various elements that make up the film, he provides a balanced account of both its positive and negative aspects.
It is particularly intriguing for a modern-day reader of this review to see Lawrence of Arabia being evaluated so critically, as this film has become such a well-respected and frequently-cited classic. Kauffman’s analysis provides a much-needed dose of the skeptical, particularly when dealing with a film spectacle that, like works such as Citizen Kane (1941), may become lost in the overwhelming and somewhat blinding awe that comes with age. Overall, Stanley Kauffman’s review serves as a good foundational piece for a paper discussing the impact of Lawrence of Arabia to film history, and its influence on later films and directors.
Seelye, John. “A Hard Day’s Night.” Rev. of A Hard Day’s Night, by Richard Lester. Film Quarterly Autumn, 1964: 51-54.
In this film review of A Hard Day’s Night from the Film Quarterly’s autumn of 1964 issue, John Seelye both summarizes and critiques the story of what he calls “A Day in the Life of the Beatles.” Although he admits to watching the film twice (and enjoying it more the second time) Seelye seems to have a hard time admitting that he liked the overall film. He deems the plot as “simple and obvious” and he reduces the entire purpose of the film to making money and paying to see “The Beatles singing your favorite songs.” Despite these occasionally harsh critiques, Seelye does make some points that are redeeming. For example, he claims that “the camera is very much alive: it runs, it jumps, it seldom is caught standing still, unlike the bland flatness of the Elvis movies.”
By making references to the Elvis movies, and particularly how A Hard Day’s Night is different than those films, this article supports my thesis that this 1964 film was the first to successfully unite the pop cultures of film and music. Though often critical, Seelye admits to the fact that this jovial comedy is in some ways innovative. Although it may have similar themes to the Elvis movies, for example the theme of the generational gap between the fun youth and the rigid adults, A Hard Day’s Night does in fact also have cinematic qualities that differentiate it from any other pop music films previously made, such as its camera work, camera angles, and depth to its shots. But perhaps Seelye’s critique is missing the point of the film. Rather than being about story and plot, this film is about The Beatles, which is what makes it reach equally to both the mediums of music and film in a way that no movie had previously done (including the Elvis movies). Consequently, A Hard Day’s Night, may indeed best be thought of as the first true rock and roll film.
Curb Job
By PETE HAMILL
Taxi drivers are the most enduring oppressed minority in New York City history. Race, ethnicity and religion are not sources of the oppression. It lies entirely in the nature of the work. Trapped for about 12 hours each day in the worst traffic in the United States, taxi drivers must suffer the savage frustrations of jammed streets, double-parked cars, immense trucks, drivers from New Jersey - and they can't succumb to the explosive therapy of road rage. Their living depends on self-control.
At the same time, they face many other hazards: drunks behind them in the cab, fare beaters, stickup men, Knicks fans filled with biblical despair, out-of-town conventioneers who think the drivers are mobile pimps. Some seal themselves off from the back seat with the radio, an iPod or a cellphone. All pray that the next passenger doesn't want to go from Midtown to the far reaches of Brooklyn or Queens. They hope for a decent tip. They hope to stay alive until the next fare waves from under a midnight streetlamp.
In this informative, solid history, Graham Russell Gao Hodges traces the story of the cabdrivers from 1907, when the first metered taxis appeared on New York streets, to the present. He writes with obvious sympathy, having driven a hack himself before moving on to academic labors as a historian at Peking University and Colgate. Loneliness is a running theme in "Taxi!": if the title were not already taken, Hodges could have called his compact history "One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The story he tells is relevant to all metropolitan areas struggling with multiple jurisdictions, federal constraints, and a shrinking economy.
There were a number of alternatives to a rail system in the 1950s, when Metro was first proposed. Ideas ranged from imposing strict land-use and fuel-consumption controls, to tolerating or encouraging decentralization, to building many more freeways, or (D.C.'s choice) building both freeways and rail. A brief comparison to Atlanta, which at first chose something more like the third option, suggests that Washington is not worse off.
To be sure, Metro does not guarantee transit-oriented development. This is the main message of Schrag's key eighth chapter, "The District." Suburban Arlington and Montgomery County managed to encourage transit-oriented development near Metro stations; Fairfax County did not. TOD, he concludes, "is a human cultivar, demanding care, foresight, and political will."
Even a transit line needs planning help to make a livable city.
Published by H-Urban@h-net.msu.edu
Peter Whitfield. _Cities of the World. A History in Maps_.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005.
208 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $39.95 (cloth),
ISBN 0-520-24725-6.
Reviewed for H-Urban by Richard Harris,
School of Geography and Earth Sciences,
McMaster University The City in History in Maps.
Gerald Peary of the Arizona provides an example of one of Benigni’s harsher critics calling his review of the film, “an angry Jewish column.” Indeed, Peary’s highly sarcastic analysis of the film is more visceral and passion-infused than it is a fair and effective critique, but it provides a telling example of the immense opposition that erupted in reaction to the film.
For example, the first of his list of disapproving commentary on the film is based on his personal and general dislike of Roberto Benigni as a comedian. He believes he is merely an insecure and vain ham, unworthy of his National acclaim in Italy. Next, he belittles Benigni’s motivations for the film by, in true Journalistic fashion, skewing his words. He suggests that Benigni’s “solipsistic reasoning” for the portion of the film that depicts the Holocaust was in order to put his character in an extreme situation, a claim that sheds a harsh and unsympathetic light on Benigni as the film’s creator. He then proceeds to describe the plot of the film but with a tone that is doubtful of the film’s realism and critical of its illogical unfolding.
Peary’s main argument, however, is that the film casts an optimistic, feel-good light on the Holocaust. He acknowledges that the film was never intended to be a documentary, but yet still candy-coats the harsh reality of the Holocaust by focusing only on the survivors and ignoring the horrors of death all together. Moreover, Peary’s final few sentiments twist his critique into a personal Jewish objection as he scoffs at the Jewish fans of the film. In sum, his review furiously rejects every aspect of the film, providing a concrete example of why the film created such a controversy upon its release.