If Pauline Kael popularized “movie love,” Roger Ebert is the eloquent Valentino of cinephiles. This invaluable volume gathers 100 of the Pulitzer winner's mini-essays composed since 1997, revised and updated, to form a love letter that could only spring from decades of devotion. A feat of superlative analysis, historical reflection, personal diary, and journalistic odyssey, The Great Movies combines an accessible style with an academic’s precision. Accompanied by photos perfectly chosen by Museum of Modern Art film stills archivist Mary Corliss, the 100 films are irrefutably worthy of inclusion, allowing room for debate (John Ford’s My Darling Clementine is in, The Searchers is not--arguably a wise decision) while placing each film into its own undeniable context of superiority. Admirably, Ebert recognizes that no critic writes in a vacuum; he dedicates the book to eight master critics hailed as “teachers,” quotes many of his contemporaries, and carries on the debate with Kael’s lingering spirit (Ebert counters her on Body Heat, praises her on Nashville). His appreciation of E.T. is written as a letter to beloved children in his life, and the entire book breathes with an awareness of legacy--the cinema’s and Ebert’s own--that underlies the sobering theme of his introduction. We need these movies (and this book) to remind us that movies can be so much better than they typically are. --Jeff Shannon
From Library Journal
Culled from essays famed film critic Ebert has been writing biweekly for the last two years, the 100 pieces here tell us what's so great about Casablanca, The Seventh Seal, The Wizard of Oz, and more. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This book presents a Roger Ebert quite different from the TV personality who offers undemanding moviegoers consumer tips on the latest Hollywood releases. Here he chooses 100 great films--not, he stresses, the 100 best films--and explains why they, not this week's batch of mall movies, are the ones that matter. Rising to the level of his subjects, he writes with an eloquence and a conviction he seldom expresses on TV or in his daily newspaper reviews. Unlike contemporary reviews, these assessments are informed by the passage of time and repeated viewings as well as by Ebert's vast general viewing experience. His selections constitute a nice mixture of American and foreign films and of sound and silent films, including inescapable classics (Citizen Kane, Casablanca), modern masterworks (The Godfather, The Decalogue), and even a few documentaries (Hoop Dreams, the generation-tracking British -Up films). In his introduction, Ebert chides younger viewers--even film students--who lack any knowledge of the medium's greatest works. If his TV fame leads any of them to pick up this book and subsequently investigate his recommendations, it will go a long way toward making up for his years of simplistic "thumbs up-thumbs down" appraisals. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"This is a wonderful book, an appreciation of the greatest movies by the greatest movie enthusiast--and also the shrewdest, the most humane and clear-sighted. I read this book with pleasure, enlightenment, and a desire to see many of the movies again, because I had missed what Roger saw." -- Paul Theroux
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
"This is a wonderful book, an appreciation of the greatest movies by the greatest movie enthusiast--and also the shrewdest, the most humane and clear-sighted. I read this book with pleasure, enlightenment, and a desire to see many of the movies again, because I had missed what Roger saw." -- Paul Theroux
From the Hardcover edition.
Great Movies FROM OUR EDITORS
Roger Ebert is probably the most famous film commentator in history. The only film critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize, the affable Ebert is known not only through his Chicago Sun-Times column and his weekly television show, Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, but also through Roger Ebertﾽs Book of Film and his movie yearbooks. The Great Movies answers that perennial question: What are the greatest films in history? Ebertﾽs 100 choices, each elucidated in a short essay, range from serious masterpieces such as Citizen Kane and La Dolce Vita to slapstick classics like Duck Soup and This Is Spinal Tap. His nominations include silent films, family favorites such as E.T. and Itﾽs a Wonderful Life, and more recent films such as Fargo, Hoop Dreams, and The Shawshank Redemption. Every DVD enthusiast should own a copy.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
For the past seven years, Roger Ebert has been writing biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offers a fresh and fervent appreciation of a great film. The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to that film with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm -- or perhaps to an avid first-time viewing. Wonderfully enhanced by stills selected by Mary Corliss, former assistant film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, The Great Movies is a treasure trove for film lovers of all persuasions, an unrivaled guide for viewers, and a book to return to again and again.
SYNOPSIS
From America’s most trusted and best-known film critic, one hundred brilliant essays on the films that define for him cinematic greatness.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Culled from essays famed film critic Ebert has been writing biweekly for the last two years, the 100 pieces here tell us what's so great about Casablanca, The Seventh Seal, The Wizard of Oz, and more. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
Reprints 100 essays published in the between 1996 and 2001. Revisiting classic films that have been largely forgotten as well as more recent masterpieces, Ebert breaks down each film's plot, its directorial style, and its place in film history. Black and white stills. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
Longtime TV and newspaper reviewer Ebert (Roger Ebert's Book of Film, 1996, etc.) hosts a genial, dutiful Cook's Tour of 100 film masterpieces. The selections themselves-two-thirds Hollywood product, the rest mostly from Europe-are hard to quarrel with: Metropolis, Gone with the Wind, The Bicycle Thief, The Seven Samurai, Pulp Fiction. About the most offbeat choice is the very last alphabetical entry, Written on the Wind, and here Ebert's tone is largely apologetic, as if he were afraid to get caught with an original opinion. Generally eschewing interpretation, each entry-balancing appreciation, plot summary, and a lightly sketched overview of the director's other work-is a feast of the obvious; readers will probably enjoy these revelations in direct proportion to how little they already know about movies. Ebert never misses a chance to bolster his authority by pointing out that he was the only reviewer to hail Bonnie and Clyde when it first opened or by recalling all the films he's analyzed frame-by-frame on college campuses. But he never establishes his authority in the obvious way, by writing with the wit, economy, or passion of a reviewer like Pauline Kael (whom he often quotes, and who always sounds more savvy and unafraid than him). For every zinger Ebert gets off-"Louise Brooks regards us from the screen as if the screen were not there; she casts away the artifice of film and invites us to play with her"-there are pounds of blandly recycled filler: "Stanley Kubrick was a perfectionist who went to obsessive lengths in order to get everything in his films to work just right." Nor does it help when Ebert gets his facts wrong, as when he upgrades Eva Marie Saint's Best SupportingActress Oscar for On the Waterfront to Best Actress. A sad reminder of the current vacuum in American film reviewing. (100 b&w photos)
Art & Photography
Book Info
