In his astute and deeply informed film reviews and essays, Jonathan
Rosenbaum regularly provides new and brilliant insights into the cinema
as art, entertainment, and commerce. Guided by a personal canon of great
films, Rosenbaum sees, in the ongoing hostility toward the idea of a
canon shared by many within the field of film studies, a missed
opportunity both to shape the discussion about cinema and to help inform
and guide casual and serious filmgoers alike.
In Essential Cinema, Rosenbaum forcefully argues that canons of great
films are more necessary than ever, given that film culture today is
dominated by advertising executives, sixty-second film reviewers, and
other players in the Hollywood publicity machine who champion mediocre
films at the expense of genuinely imaginative and challenging works. He
proposes specific definitions of excellence in film art through the
creation a personal canon of both well-known and obscure movies from
around the world and suggests ways in which other canons might be
similarly constructed.
Essential Cinema offers in-depth assessments of an astonishing range
of films: established classics such as Rear Window, M, and Greed;
ambitious but flawed works like The Thin Red Line and Breaking the
Waves; eccentric masterpieces from around the world, including Irma
Vep and Archangel; and recent films that have bitterly divided
critics and viewers, among them Eyes Wide Shut and A.I. He also
explores the careers of such diverse filmmakers as Robert Altman, Raúl
Ruiz, Frank Tashlin, Elaine May, Sam Fuller, Terrence Davies, Edward
Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Orson Welles. In conclusion, Rosenbaum offers
his own film canon of 1,000 key works from the beginning of cinema to
the present day. A cogent and provocative argument about the art of
film, Essential Cinema is also a fiercely independent reference book
of must-see movies for film lovers everywhere.
