Review by Choice Review
This is an odd book, to say the least--one that seems to want to reinvent the wheel. Gillett (an independent film critic) examines a series of canonical film classics--Battleship Potemkin, The 39 Steps, Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, 2001, and so on--then uses this cursory examination of the films as the basis for his own (often negative) comments. Thus 2001 "never add[s] up to a coherent whole"; The Godfather "needs to proclaim its vision if it is to lodge in the mind" and it "fails by this criterion"; and the dialogue in Lawrence of Arabia "soon degenerates into cliche." Citizen Kane comes in for a particularly thorough pummeling. In addition, the text has a number of errors of fact--for example, Freddie Francis did not photograph Lawrence of Arabia (Freddie Young was the cinematographer). Gillett devotes a lot of space to citing older, more conservative critics. He of course has every right to buttress his opinions with those of whomever he pleases, but the result is a text marked by dated critical commentary and narrow, reductive discussions of "cultural context." Summing Up: Not recommended. W. W. Dixon University of Nebraska--Lincoln
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
