Redirecting the Canon

From the Chicago Reader (August 9, 1996). — J.R.

Red Hollywood

Rating *** A must see

Directed and written by Thom Andersen and Noël Burch

Narrated by Billy Woodberry.

By Jonathan Rosenbaum

When Peter Wollen wrote about canon formation in the English film magazine Sight and Sound three years ago, he conceptualized “a motley set of cultural gate-keepers and taste-makers.” Archivists come first, determining which films to acquire, preserve, and screen; then come the academics and critics, singling out the touchstones and masterpieces; they’re followed by filmmakers and, finally, the audience. As Wollen notes, “The process of cultural negotiation among these many gate-keepers of taste results not only in the surface phenomena of lists and programs, but also in the crystallization of an implicit aesthetic paradigm at a deeper level.”

I can think of several sources critical to the formation of my own canon. When I was in my early teens, the only sources I could find were library books like Arthur Knight’s The Liveliest Art, which is useful as a beginner’s survey, and Agee on Film, which is hampered by its limited coverage. During my freshman year in college I purchased my first film magazine: the Winter 1961-’62 issue of Sight and Sound, which contained the results of an international poll of critics about the ten best movies ever made; I resolved to see as many movies on the composite and individual lists as possible. Read more

High Noon

From the October 13, 1988 Chicago Reader. — J.R.

After many years of being vastly overrated, this liberal adult western of 1952 may be underrated in some quarters today. While the film angered Howard Hawks into making one of his masterpieces (Rio Bravo) as a kind of rebuttal, it got smothered in Oscars; still, it’s not entirely devoid of virtues. Gary Cooper is a sheriff who’s about to retire (so he can marry Grace Kelly) but has to face a final gunfight alone when all of the townspeople refuse to help him. Carl Foreman wrote the script and planned to direct until the Hollywood blacklist made this impossible; Fred Zinnemann took over and did a fairly good job of milking suspense out of the situation — the film’s 84 minutes are meant to correspond to the actual time in which the plot unfolds — with his usual somewhat mechanical polish. Some of the results ring false, but the memorable theme song and some equally memorable character acting (by Thomas Mitchell and Lon Chaney Jr. more than Lloyd Bridges and Katy Jurado) help things along. (JR) Read more