Agee on Film

I still have my first edition copy of Agee on Film. A production on the stage is seen once and then is gone forever. Curiously, despite the fact that a film can be viewed repeatedly, once upon a time revivals were rare, and most audiences saw a film once, talked about it, then forgot about it. Even the film studios only half-heartedly treated their products as permanent, allowing many of them to deteriorate irretrievably and others nearly so (eventually giving rise to an entire industry devoted to film restoration). Films were given a new life with the advent of television. Growing up on old movies on the tube in the 1950s, I found that repeated viewing of the same film could be a rich experience, and nothing enhanced this experience more than the appearance in the early 1960s of Agee on Film. Agee took film seriously as a cultural experience, a molder of public opinion, a tool that might be useful or dangerous. Just how much he differs from mainstream reviewers who regarded the movies primarily as entertainment can be seen in the two different sets of reviews in this book. His reviews in the liberal The Nation are extended analyses of the films and the sensibilities of the filmmakers, withering critiques of the limitations of the studio system, and manifestos on how good films could have been made better. Agee interpolates in his reviews his opinions about everything: The War (WWII, of course), politics, race, education, religion, psychology, philosophy ... the list goes on. In contrast, his reviews for Time, constrained by that magazine's conservatism, are truncated and absent the depth and bite that distinguishes Agee from all other critics. His beautiful use of language keeps him afloat, but were it not for The Nation, I doubt Agee would have the reputation of Greatest Film Critic of All Time. Agee on Film was originally in two volumes. The first was the current book. The second was a collection of Agee's own screenplays, including the classic The Night of the Hunter; Noa Noa, a fascinating teleplay about Gaugin (very different from Maughams' The Moon and Sixpence); and his magnificent adaptation of the The African Queen. Thus, he was able, unlike most critics, and with admirable results, to put his pen where his critique was. James Agee almost single-handedly popularized the appreciation of film as an art form. The writing in this book is how he did it.

Ever wonder what causes a movie reviewer to *become* a movie reviewer? When I was a ten-year-old kid just getting into classic movie comedies, I went to the library and checked out the book AGEE ON FILM solely because it had references to Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields. Thus was my introduction to high-quality film criticism.James Agee made his reputation writing sterling movie reviews for Time and The Nation magazines in the 1940's. Among other glories, he wrote a much-heralded essay titled "Comedy's Greatest Era" that helped to bring silent-comedy icons (most notably Harry Langdon) out of mothballs and caused them to be re-viewed and discussed seriously among film historians. He later went on to work on the screenplays of a couple of gems titled The African Queen and Night of the Hunter.Unfortunately, many people who regard the critics Pauline Kael and Stanley Kauffmann have either forgotten Agee's work entirely or have assigned his own work to mothballs. But among the faithful are film director Martin Scorsese, who serves as editor of the "Modern Library: The Movies" series of film books. The series has recently reissued the AGEE ON FILM book, and re-reading Agee's work (or reading it for the first time, if you're lucky enough) proves that film criticism can make for reading material as compelling as any fictional novel.Agee passes the acid test for any film critic: Even if you don't agree with him, his writing is so lively that you can't help enjoying it. His work ranges from three separate columns (three weeks' worth, in print terms) to Chaplin's much-maligned (at the time) MONSIEUR VERDOUX, to the most concise, funniest review ever: Reviewing a musical potboiler titled YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME, Agee replied in four simple words, "That's what *you* think."If you want to see what high-caliber movie criticism meant in the pre-Siskel & Ebert days, engross yourself in this sprawling book. It'll make you appreciate the decades before every newspaper, newsletter, and Internet site had its own minor-league deconstructionist of Hollywood blockbusters.

James Agee wrote film criticism in America at a time when the American film industry hardly deserved his attention. His celebrations of silent film comedy, of Preston Sturges, of John Huston [for whom he later wrote the script for The African Queen], and of the handful of worthy foreign films that he managed to see are what make this volume worth reading. Besides Agee's beautiful prose and above all his compassion. Interestingly, Agee was a fan of Frank Capra's comedies (It Happened One Night) and bemoaned the director's decent into serious social films (Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe). His negative review of It's a Wonderful Life, which has never been in print since it appeared in 1946, reveals the extent to which Agee was perhaps too far ahead of his time, and even of ours.

James Agee was our greatest film critic. And I am so grateful that Martin Scorsese--who has come to be an excellent spokesperson for the art of film as well as a central figure among American directors of the past few decades--chose to reprint his truly classic book Agee On Film as Series Editor of the newly inaugurated Modern Library: The Movies series. I have a battered copy of the earlier edition (title: Agee On Film, Volume I; Volume II was comprised of his original film scripts, such as The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter); it is one of my favorite books. I'm glad to put the new one next to the old one on my shelf. It isn't necessary to replace it. The core of the book is Agee's reviews as a film critic for Time and The Nation (best of all) during the years 1941-1948 (Agee died in 1955). It's magnificent work. And his writing doesn't seem dated at all. Not just on account of his considerable powers and charm. But also because it was Agee not Pauline Kael who first introduced the notion of the movie critic as a person with discerning, contradictory, and sometimes even blatantly opinionated, viewpoints. And who really managed to reach the audience because he seemed to be talking to (rather than down to) them. Some highlights: On Lauren Bacall in her screen debut, To Have and Have Not: "Whether or not you like the movie will depend I believe almost entirely on whether you like Miss Bacall. I am no judge. I can hardly look at her, much less listen to her--she has a voice like a chorus by Kid Ory--without getting caught in a dilemma between a low whistle and a bellylaugh." And Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls "seems never to have dreamed that a young girl who has seen death and suffered gang rape cannot in all reason bounce into her role looking like a Palmolive ad. But in many moments of the early love stuff--in flashes of shy candor and in the pleasures of playing femme esclave--she does very pretty things, and later on she does some very powerful ones." It's fun (and rather stupefying) that Agee was rightfully in a position to say, in 1947:"In Ivan the Terrible, Part I, Eisenstein has deprived himself even of the speed, flow, and shape which helped give Nevsky grace, and most of his peculiar energy has become cold, muscle-bound, and somber. Yet Ivan is a bolder, more adventurous, more interesting film; for a while I felt even more admiration for it than grief over it." And later in the same review, he famously remarks, "it may not be accidental that(Eisenstein) makes (Cherkassov) up with a chin and cranium which becomes ever more pointed, like John Barrymore as Mr. Hyde." Agee worshipped the Old Masters. His appreciation of the great Russian film poet Alexander Dovzhenko ("combining something of the bard and the seer") surpasses my own. And he is peerlessly eloquent on the subject of D.W. Griffith. In his September 4, 1948 essay for The Nation: "The most beautiful single shot I have se

Agee on Film, part of Martin Scorsese's wonderful new series of great film books from the past, is a really enjoyable read. It contains a lot of interesting reviews of classic Hollywood films by an articulate, witty writer, who himself wrote the screenplays to some great films, like Night of the Hunter. I love the way that the essays in this book are both thoughtful and direct. He has important things to say about what some films suggest about human nature and society, but at other times he's quick and to the point. Agee writes at the beginning that he thinks everyone is an "amateur" when it comes to films, because what matters the most is not what you know but how a movie affects you; I like that quality in him. He isn't so pretentious that he can't admit when a movie just doesn't move him. He writes in a really down-to-earth way, but his reviews aren't simplistic or rushed, like many of the reviews I read today. Some of my favorite parts of this book are the essays where he quickly gives his take on a bunch of films, writing funny though sometimes harsh one-line quips (for example: "several tons of dynamite were set off in this movie, none of it under the right people"). This book is especially informative and entertaining for movie fans, but also would be useful as instruction on writing about art. Really, though, it should be fun to read for just about anyone.