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Physical Evidence
Selected Film Criticism
Wesleyan Film
Sales Date: 2007-09-28
248 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in
The first collection from this distinguished American movie critic
An expert writer and thinker on movie history and directorial style, Kent Jones is among the most notable film critics of his generation. His sharp, informed analyses and cogent assessments of cinema and its practitioners have made him a significant voice both in America and internationally. Jones' inaugural collection brings together the best of his reviews (on films including In the Mood for Love, A History of Violence, and The New World), evaluations of specific filmmakers (Wes Anderson, John Cassavetes, and the Coen brothers), polemics (on summer blockbusters, digital cinema, and Hollywood politics), and appreciations of other film critics. Several of these pieces are published here in English for the first time, having previously appeared only in the French journals Cahiers du Cinéma and Trafic. Physical Evidence is a penetrating and personal examination of contemporary and classic cinema, one that values nothing so much as seeing on the screen the proof—the physical evidence—of the filmmaker's own personal quest.
Introduction
SECTION 1: DIRECTORS
Assayas
Hou
Wes Anderson
Jia
Coen Brothers
Green
Martel
Carpenter
Cassavetes
SECTION 2: FILMS
"In the Mood for Love"
"Beau Travail"
"In Praise of Love"
"The Wind Will Carry Us"
"Waking Life"
"Sunshine State"
"Magnolia"
"Some American Comedies"
"A History of Violence"
"The New World"
SECTION 3: "THINK PIECES"
Summer Blockbusters
Digital Cinema
Documentary-Fiction Hybrids
Cannes 2005
Leftist Hollywood
SECTION 4: OUT OF THE FOG
Allan Dwan's Comedies
Orson Welles
"The Glass Web"
"Big Wednesday"
"The Driver"
"Sorcerer"
"A Perfect World"
"The Big Red One"
SECTION 5: TWO CRITICS
Andrew Sarris
Manny Farber
KENT JONES is editor-at-large of Film Comment and the American correspondent for Cahiers du Cinéma. He is a frequent contributor to Bookforum and Cinemascope, associate director of programming at The Film Society of Lincoln Center, and a permanent member of the selection committee for the New York Film Festival. He is also the co-writer of My Voyage to Italy and other documentaries by Martin Scorsese.
"Whether it's an appreciation for B-movie auteur John Carpenter, a love letter to fellow critic Manny Farber or a dismantling put-down of the Coen brothers, Jones communicates the kind of genuine enthusiasm and insight that inspire giddy desires to revisit—and rethink your opinions on—whatever he's tackling. ...Jones has the enviable ability to write in a manner that's intellectually rigorous without being inaccessible."
~David Fear, Time Out New York
"Kent Jones is singular and irreplaceable: the film critic who is most alive to this moment. He is the critic of now, for now. This collection is sophisticated, fresh, unpredictable—fully attuned to the contemporary moment while displaying a marvelous historical grasp."
~Phillip Lopate, essayist and critic
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