Film Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine now published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, Film Comment began publishing on a bi-monthly basis with the Nov/Dec issue of 1972. In 2007, the magazine was awarded the Utne Independent Press Award for Best Arts Coverage. The magazine's editorial team also hosts the annual Film Comment Selects at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
History
Origins
Film Comment was founded during the boom years of the international art-house circuit and the so-called New American Cinema, an umbrella term for the era's independently produced documentaries and narrative features as well experimental and underground works. By way of a mission statement, founder publisher Joseph Blanco wrote in the inaugural issue: "With the increasing interest in the motion picture as an art form, and with the rise of the New American cinema, takes its place as a publication for the independent film maker and those who share a sincere interest in the unlimited scope of the motion picture."Gordon Hitchens, 1962–1970
- The magazine's earliest publishers were Clara Hoover and Austin Lamont. By the third issue, the magazine had switched ownership to Lorien Productions, a corporation that Hoover "formed to cover investments in artistic enterprises".
- Predisposition towards low-budget narrative features and cinéma vérité-style documentaries. Hitchens’ dual rejection of Hollywood and the avant-garde.
[Richard Corliss], 1970–1982
- In sharp contrast to comparable film journals like Cahiers du cinéma and Sight & Sound, which were turning towards a more theoretically inflected and academic style of film criticism, corresponding to the contemporary vogue for Althusserian Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, the writing in Film Comment remained relatively prosaic and broadly accessible.
- Corliss' later work, particularly Talking Pictures , mounted a persuasive critique of auteurism through critical emphasis on the creative contribution of screenwriters. He deeply admired Sarris' historical erudition and penetrating formalist insights, and he more generally shared the auteurists' strongly aesthetic sensibilities as well as their love for classical Hollywood cinema.
- Under Corliss' guidance, Film Comment began in earnest an archeological excavation of Hollywood's past, focusing on classical-era directors like Frank Capra, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Max Ophüls, Nicholas Ray, and Orson Welles
- In September–October 1972, the magazine began publishing bimonthly instead of quarterly in order to generate more revenue. Eventually, Lamont had to find someone else to publish the magazine as it sank into a deficit. As a selection committee member on the New York Film Festival, Corliss sparked interest at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in assuming the rights and assets of a publication that could offer it "year-round exposure for its activities".
- Publishing responsibilities were assumed by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 1972.
[Harlan Jacobson], 1982–1990
- The magazine continued to arrange every issue around a midsection that tackled multifaceted issues of film aesthetics, historiography, and various phenomena in film culture. It also maintained a strong commitment to exploring classical Hollywood, even as it broadened the international scope of its criticism with features on Iranian and "Far Eastern" cinema.
- The magazine began to chronicle the technological changes that were shaping film spectatorship. It grappled with "The Video Revolution" in the early 1980s in a midsection devoted to the subject. J. Hoberman wrote: "If Television gave every American home its own personal rep house, the VCR has the potential to equip every viewer with the equivalent of a Movieola or Steebeck. The appreciation thus engendered for fragmented bits of 'Film' will likely have as profound an effect on the film culture of the Eighties as TV had on that of the Fifties and Sixties." This phenomenon was further explored in David Chute's article "Zapper Power".
- Music videos emerged as a point of interest.
- In the February 1984 issue, Film Comment's midsection chronicled its own history from its beginnings as Vision to the financial and editorial challenges that lay before it in the ’80s. "Whatever its level of profitability… Film Comment for the first time in its existence has finally been provided with a steady source of financing and a rock-solid publishing foundation. With Corliss as its editor, the society as its publisher, and a handful of quality writers as its key contributors, Film Comment now seems assured of continued survival and success."
- The midsection in April 1986 commented on the emergence of gay] and lesbian representation in contemporary cinema, closeted homosexuals in Hollywood, and gay cinema in the decade of AIDS.
Richard Jameson, 1990–2000
- A series of think-pieces on the state of film criticism included Richard Corliss' article lamenting the shallowness of TV film reviewing, the star system, and Siskel & Ebert's thumbs-up/thumbs-down approach ; a back-and-forth between Roger Ebert and Corliss; and an article by Andrew Sarris on auteurism, in which he cautions his younger colleagues on being overly despairing or flippantly humorous about the state of contemporary cinema.
- The inclusion of a midsection on a specific topic in every issue was discontinued.
- A new focus on assessing the careers of international auteurs. The magazine also publishes several lengthy assessments of major contemporary filmmakers, including a two-part essay on Steven Spielberg spread across two issues, and a sixty-page collection of articles on Martin Scorsese. Other special sections on individual directors include a Robert Bresson symposium and, under the Gavin Smith editorship, a two-issue assessment of Chris Marker.
- The annual "Year in Review" feature was extended to include a "Moments Out of Time" section compiled by Jameson and contributing editor Kathleen Murphy, consisting of a long list of memorable scenes and images from the previous year. This feature, which was discontinued during Gavin Smith's editorship, has been reprised at .
Gavin Smith, 2000–2015
- Renewed emphasis on contemporary relevance.
- Punchier visual design.
- Standardization of editorial format, and the addition of several departments:
- * Annual Reader's Poll ;
- * Sound and Vision ;
- * Site Specifics
- * Encore ;
- Regular columns assigned to Alex Cox, Guy Maddin, Paul Arthur, and Olaf Möller ;
- One of the lengthiest and most controversial articles Film Comment has printed appeared in September/October 2006. "Canon Fodder", by Paul Schrader, asserted the value of and laid the parameters for a film canon, and criticized what it deemed "Nonjudgmentals", who had devised schemes by which art could be closely studied and analyzed without prejudice—the prejudice, that is, of having to determine if the art work is good or bad vis-à-vis another work of art…"
- In 2004, New York Times film critic A. O. Scott described the magazine as, "a stronghold of feisty, intelligent opinion that pushes no particular party line. Its tone of plain-spoken braininess—sophistication without snobbery, erudition with a minimum of jargon—reflects the vitality and variety of international film culture today."
Nicolas Rapold, 2016–present
- Complete print redesign with expanded editorial, new departments and features, cultivation of new critics, focus on the art and craft of film, and high-profile recognition of filmmakers.
- * First-time cover honorees include Ryan Coogler, Agnès Varda, Spike Lee, Joanna Hogg, Bong Joon-ho, Greta Gerwig, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
- Established as a regular weekly feature, including special serial editions from Cannes, Sundance, and other festivals, and filmmaker interviews.
- Expansion of web editorial into daily publication, with regular news roundups, new columnists, authoritative festival critiques, and in-depth interviews
- * Regular columns dedicated to personal and topical perspectives, genre, nonfiction, classic Hollywood, and intersections between film and other arts.
- Established The Film Comment Talks, regular events accompanying editorial coverage through onstage conversations with filmmakers and critics, including annual Best Films of the Year discussion.
- Emphasis as magazine of ideas engaged with the art and craft of filmmaking and with film history, and grounded in original writing and depth of knowledge.
Notable contributors
Critics
- Melissa Anderson
- Paul Arthur
- David Bordwell
- Stuart Byron
- Chris Chang
- David Chute
- Richard Combs
- Manohla Dargis
- Raymond Durgnat
- Roger Ebert
- Manny Farber
- Scott Foundas
- Howard Hampton
- Molly Haskell
- Stephen Harvey
- J. Hoberman
- Harlan Jacobson
- Richard T. Jameson
- Kent Jones
- Dave Kehr
- Laura Kern
- Nathan Lee
- Dennis Lim
- Todd McCarthy
- James McCourt
- Chris Norris
- Sheila O'Malley
- Patricia Patterson
- Nicolas Rapold
- Tony Rayns
- Frank Rich
- Jonathan Romney
- Jonathan Rosenbaum
- Andrew Sarris
- Richard Schickel
- Michael Sragow
- Elliott Stein
- Chuck Stephens
- Amy Taubin
- Anne Thompson
- David Thomson
- Amos Vogel
- Armond White
- Robin Wood
Others
- Woody Allen
- Olivier Assayas
- Ari Aster
- Ingmar Bergman
- Alex Cox
- Alan Dershowitz
- Jodie Foster
- John Kenneth Galbraith
- Haden Guest
- Matt Groening
- Agnieszka Holland
- Barry Jenkins
- Stephen King
- Phillip Lopate
- Guy Maddin
- David Mamet
- Geoffrey O'Brien
- Michael Ondaatje
- Oliver Sacks
- Paul Schrader
- Martin Scorsese
- Susan Sontag
- Steven Spielberg
- Quentin Tarantino
- John Waters