Andrew Sarris -- dean of American film critics, leading proponent of the auteur theory in America, author of the essential The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968 (and equally praiseworthy review and essay collections such as Confessions of a Cultist: On the Cinema, 1955-1969, Politics and Cinema and The Primal Screen), senior critic of the Village Voice for decades, co-founder of the National Society of Film Critics -- has reportedly been let go by cut from the staff of The New York Observer.
UPDATE: Dave Kehr has a clarification from Sarris's wife, critic Molly Haskell: "Andrew, along with a dozen other writers at the rapidly sinking weekly, was taken off staff on Monday, but he will continue to write on a freelance basis, exactly as Rex Reed does currently. Not great news, but -- particularly in the current context -- not a catastrophe. Andrew's day job, teaching at Columbia University, is not in danger."
Sarris, who turned 80 last October, was along with Pauline Kael the most influential film critic of the 1960s and 1970s. He was also the titular target of Kael's infamous attack on auteurism, "Circles and Squares: Joys and Sarris" (1963) -- ironic, since Kael was patently an auteurist through-and-through, even if she failed to recognize herself as such. No one has done more than Sarris to make the case that "Hollywood movies" were worthy of serious critical attention, every bit as much as "art films," no matter where they're made.
If you do not have a copy of The American Cinema -- from which, coincidentally, I just quoted a few indelible paragraphs a couple days ago -- do yourself a favor and buy it now. It's the best guide to approaching American movies that there is, beginning with Sarris's celebrated "pantheon" directors (some of whom were not, strictly speaking, "American" -- though they all worked in the US at some point): Charles Chaplin, Robert Flaherty, John Ford, D. W. Griffith, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, F.W. Murnau, Max Ophuls, Josef von Sternberg, Jean Renoir and Orson Welles. (Later he added Billy Wilder to the pantheon.)
Glenn Kenny simply quoted Jean-Luc Godard on Orson Welles: "All of us will always owe him everything."
Simply disgusting.
This is such a shame. To paraphrase Marge Gunderson; and for what, to save a little bit of money.
To soothe the burn of not having his observer reviews to read anymore, I think I'm gonna take your advice and get me that book.
Done. Also picked up a copy of Kael's For Keeps.
Jim Emersonon? Apparently your blog has a stutter!
Anyway, it's a real bummer about Sarris. It seems like one more bad omen heralding the death of printed film criticism and print journalism in general.
There's another "Dean" that I wouldn't mind getting permanantly canned from every publication he's currently writing his "criticism" for. I know you're a fan Jim but Christgau is a mean spirited blowhard who managed to convince everyone that he actually knows what he's talking about. The guy is a total fraud who believes his own hype.
Took your advice, bought Sarris' book, got the last copy at Amazon. Your recommendation evidently sold a bunch of books.
Yeah, I sure picked a fantastic time to strike out on a career as a paid (HA!) film critic.
I'll admit that I haven't read Sarris as much lately and as much as I agreed with him about films from the 60s (his review of "Blowup" is one I remember well) and 70s, I've parted ways with him on more recent material.
But he's certainly one of the more influential critics in my life. I'm sure some enlightened soul will talk about how it's silly to take sides but let's face it, you had to take sides in the Sarris-Kael debate or you just didn't care enough. Not that you couldn't appreciate both, of course. And I certainly found Sarris' work more persuasive and invigorating. He was one of the first mainstream American critics to make formal analysis popular as opposed to simply talking about character and story and even if he did muddy the waters by calling it the auteur THEORY when he imported the politique des auteurs, his influence is immeasurable.
I'll also always admire him for his willingness to re-consider and revise his opinions whether because of reflection or repeated viewings. His turn-about on "2001" when he returned to see "under the influence" is priceless.
So what is the observer supposed to do? If they are going out of buisness, Sarris clearly didn't help them.
Sarris is a treasure whose work is rightfully the cornerstone of modern film studies. I think David Bordwell best sums up his enduring importance: "Sarris made it possible for us to argue that, say, Meet Me in St. Louis was a better film than L’Eclisse or Winter Light."
I, for one, am hoping that he'll follow in his wife's footsteps and co-host TCM's The Essentials, if for no other reason than that we need some serious critical firepower after the long darkness of Carrie Fisher, Rose McGowan, and Alec Baldwin.
What a shame! Sarris has always been the best critic in America. I spent my high school years toting "The American Cinema" in my bag so I could read it whenever I had down time. No one writes with as much knowledge and passion about cinema as Andrew Sarris.
In this era of film critics being downsized, fired, and otherwise obliterated, I've always had kind of a stupid thought in the back burner: Most people who go to see films rely on their local film critics to tell them what's good and what's not. The film industry, like the newspaper industry, has not been in great shape. So the newspapers go in the crapper and cut their critics, which means ordinary people don't know what movies to see and so don't go, and the film industry goes in the crapper.
Maybe that's a silly thought, but every time a film critic gets fired, I wonder what the little old couple who relied on that critic to tell them what movie to see on a Saturday night does.
When I read The American Cinema in late sixties, many times, I compiled a list of directors Andrew Sarris did not include: Dmytryk, Farrow, Fregonese, George Marshall, Mayo, Ritt, Robson, Russell Rouse, Seaton, Charles Vidor, Sam Wood, and more than fifty others. He probably did not regard them as auteurs, but it would be a treat to read his opinions on them. He should really do a new edition with some additions (and many corrections: he writes about Bernard Girard but is not aware of Girard's films before 1966). Interestingly, the longest entry in the book is about Jerry Lewis. The second longest is on John Ford, with Hitchcock, Preston Sturges and Preminger coming up next.