Title: It's only a movie! : films and critics in American culture /
Authors: Haberski, Raymond J., 1968-
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky,
Year: 2001
Subjects: Film criticism United States.; Motion pictures Social aspects United States; Culture in motion pictures.
Abstract: "What happened to the movies? Elevated from their origins as nickelodeon amusements to the pantheon of the arts by critics in the 1950s and 60s, they are often derided today as senseless entertainment. Even Roger Ebert has lamented, "An art form will forever be in a separate category if you can attend it while eating Twizzlers." In It's Only a Movie! Raymond J. Haberski traces the rise and fall of film as art, from its early twentieth-century beginnings to the modern age of the financial blockbusters."--Jacket.
Contents: Amusement or art? -- Menace or art? -- Forging a mainstream movie aesthetic -- Dreiser versus Hollywood -- Movies into art -- A certain tendency in film criticism -- Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, and the duel for the soul of criticism -- The first New York Film Festival and the heroic age of moviegoing -- The film generation goes to school -- Whither criticism?