Fundamental Film Books/Writers

The American Cinema

Agee on Film
I Lost It At the Movies
The Great Movies
Midnight Movies
Negative Space
What is Cinema?
Making Movies
The Taste for Beauty
From Vietnam to Reagan
The Devil Finds Work
Hitchcock/Truffaut
From Caligari to Hitler
Film Art
On Filmmaking
Blink of an Eye
Allegories of Cinema
Theory of Film Practice
Mise-en-Scene and Film Style
From Reverence to Rape
Identity and Memory
The Devil Finds Work
The Material Ghost
The Genius of the System
Cassavetes on Cassavetes
Narration in Fiction Film
Genius of System
Film Theory/Criticism
Narrative Apparatus Cinema
Early Cinema Space Frame Narrative
Theory of Film
Star Image
Hitchcock’s Films Revisited
Movie-Made America
The Genius of the System
Hollywood Babylon
Vulgar Modernism
Films and Feelings
Film Form
Film Sense

Rosenbaum
Farber
Agee
Bazin
Haskell
Robin Wood
Bordwell & Thompson
Donald Richie
James Harvey
Dwight Macdonald
Eisenstein
Kael
McBride
Mulvey
Hoberman
Panofsky
Steve Neale
Steven Shaviro

Another Ballot

Best Picture: SILENCE A fairly impressive crop of nominees, especially since no fewer than four of my favorite films of the near landed on this list. It is, of course, a mixed bag: JACKIE is a faint stab at being “visceral” with no attention paid to psychology or coherent stylistics, LA LA LAND only intermittently approaches interest or genuine emotion, THE WITCH’s sense of atmosphere is more suffocating than creepy, and ARRIVAL’s sense of self-proclaimed brilliance both waxes and wanes each time I think about it. But the rest of the nominees are utterly fantastic, and while I wish I could sing the praises of each and every deserving entry in this list, I will just say that SILENCE is the grand artistic achievement I saw in 2016, a wholly uncompromising work that feels both validating and troubling to me, executed with finesse and grace without equal. Best Director: Park Chan-wook, THE HANDMAIDEN Again, there were so many worthy choices here, and I was especially happy to see the understated and underrated stylistics of Maren Ade and Kenneth Lonergan thrown into the mix. But I have to go with the gonzo, immaculate work of Park Chan-wook, who melded his sense of the extreme with a beautifully tasteful idealization of the period in order to create a simply rapturous vision. Best Actress: Isabelle Huppert, ELLE So wonderful to see a wide array of actresses here, including the worthy inclusion of Anya Taylor-Joy who was stunning in THE WITCH even though I didn’t particularly enjoy the film as a whole. Steinfeld, Bening, and Beckinsale were all extraordinary in their perfectly mannered comedic performances, and Hüller was just splendid. I don’t love to go along with the consensus pick (ironic, given previous and future selections) but of the nominees here, Huppert in ELLE is the logical and the correct choice, an exquisite, high-wire balancing act. Best Actor: Casey Affleck, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA More well-deserved love for understated but key performances such as Peter Simonischeck and Andrew Garfield, and there isn’t really a nominee that I would dismiss (which says as much about the relatively poor state of male lead roles in 2016 as it does the strength of every nominee). But Casey Affleck gives a simply titanic performance. Best Supporting Actress: Lily Gladstone, CERTAIN WOMEN Radiating such kindness, such loneliness is a special kind of gift. Every one of the four featured women in this beautiful film has it, but Lily Gladstone has it most of all. Best Supporting Actor: Lucas Hedges, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Going toe-to-toe with one of the great performances of the century while creating a wholly lived life as lucid as the lead’s is no small feat. Best Original Screenplay: MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Kenneth Lonergan. Best Adapted Screenplay: SILENCE For the continually deft juggling of the complexities of religion, faith, the human condition, etc. Best Scene: Flashback at the lawyer’s office The two best scenes of the year, this and the violence montage in CAMERAPERSON, are two of the best examples of montage tied inextricably to emotions I’ve ever seen. The latter isn’t nominated, so.