About the Book
This is a collection of film criticism by the late Stanley Kauffmann (1916-2013). Kauffmann's creative life spanned seven decades: starting in 1958 and continuing until 2013, he was a film and drama critic for The New Republic, The New York Times, and Saturday Review, among other publications. He was also an actor, stage manager, playwright, novelist, professor, and editor. Along with Dwight Macdonald, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, and John Simon, Kauffmann was one of the potent, influential critics included in the New York school of twentieth-century American criticism. The Los Angeles Times once called him "the Dean Swift of our country's criticism," and Susan Sontag proclaimed him "one of our national treasures." With style and erudition Kauffmann discusses films from the following countries in Final Credits: France, England, Mexico, Germany, Israel, Sweden, Austria, United States, Netherlands, Argentina, Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Peru, Italy, Iran, Canada, Tunisia, Australia, Japan, Belgium, South Korea, China, Lebanon, Russia, Ireland, India, Greece, Chile, Romania, Columbia, Turkey, Spain, and Hungary.
Among the films reviewed are Michael Haneke's White Ribbon; Jiri Menzel's I Served the King of England; Martin Scorsese's The Aviator; Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds; the Dardenne brothers' Silence of Lorna; Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code; Woody Allen's Match Point; Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain; Emanuele Crialese's Respiro; Barbet Schroeder's Our Lady of the Assassins; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia; and Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. Also included are several reconsiderations of classic films (Band of Outsiders, A Hard Day's Night, and The Hired Hand, among others); remembrances of late, distinguished actors such as Wendy Hiller and Philippe Noiret; and reviews of important books like Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age, by George Stevens, Jr., and On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business, by David Mamet.
The precision, wit, and wisdom of Kauffmann's writing chime in Final Credits, as, once again, he reveals his sense of cultural mission-and love of all the arts-by applying to film the same high standards he applied during his long career to fiction (he discovered Walker Percy), poetry, music, and theater.
About the Author :
Robert Cardullo was Professor of Media and Communication at the Izmir University of Economics in Izmir, Turkey, where he taught courses in film history, theory, and criticism as well as popular culture. He was formerly on the faculty of the University of Michigan, USA. The author of over 250 articles, notes, and reviews, he is also the author, editor, or translator of more than thirty books, among them A Critical Edition of Two Modern Plays on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff; Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1890-1950: A Critical Anthology; The Theater of Fernand Crommelynck: Eight Plays; and German-Language Comedy: A Critical Anthology, Antigone Adapted (2011). Dr. Cardullo is currently doing research work in Finland.
