Jonathan Rosenbaum | |
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 Rosenbaum in 2013 | |
| Born | (1943-02-27)February 27, 1943 (age 82) Florence, Alabama, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Alma mater | Bard College |
| Period | 1969–present |
| Website | |
| jonathanrosenbaum | |
Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an Americanfilm critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic forThe Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008.[1] He has published and edited numerous books about cinema[2] and has contributed to such notable film publications asCahiers du cinéma andFilm Comment.
Regarding Rosenbaum,French New Wave directorJean-Luc Godard said, "I think there is a very good film critic in the United States today, a successor ofJames Agee, and that is Jonathan Rosenbaum. He's one of the best; we don't have writers like him in France today. He's likeAndré Bazin."[3]
Rosenbaum grew up inFlorence,Alabama, where his grandfather had owned a small chain of movie theaters. He lived with his father Stanley (a professor) and mother Mildred in theRosenbaum House, designed by notable architectFrank Lloyd Wright. Rosenbaum's uncle was rabbiArthur Lelyveld, who was married to his mother's sister Toby, and he was a first cousin ofNew York Times executive editorJoseph Lelyveld.[4][5][6][7]
Rosenbaum developed a lifelong interest injazz as a teenager. He frequently refers to it in his film criticism. He attendedThe Putney School inPutney, Vermont, where his classmates included actorWallace Shawn. He graduated from Putney in 1961. He attendedBard College, where he played piano in an amateur jazz ensemble that included future actorsChevy Chase as a drummer andBlythe Danner as a vocalist.[8] He studiedliterature at Bard with the intention of becoming a writer.
After graduate school, Rosenbaum moved toNew York and was hired to edit a collection offilm criticism, which marked his first foray into the field. He moved toParis, France, in 1969, working briefly as an assistant to directorJacques Tati and appearing as an extra inRobert Bresson'sFour Nights of a Dreamer. While living there, Rosenbaum began writing film and literary criticism forThe Village Voice, based in Greenwich Village in New York City,Film Comment, andSight & Sound.[8] In 1974, he moved from Paris toLondon, England, remaining there until March 1977, when he was offered a two-semester teaching position at theUniversity of California, San Diego byManny Farber.
In 1987, Rosenbaum was hired to succeedDave Kehr as the film critic forThe Chicago Reader; he retired from that position in 2008.[9]
In addition, he has written many books on film and its criticism, includingFilm: The Front Line 1983,Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995),Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980; reprint 1995),Movies as Politics (1997), andEssential Cinema (2004). His most popular work isMovie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (2002). He wrote an analysis ofJim Jarmusch's filmDead Man (2000); the book includes recorded interviews with Jarmusch.
Rosenbaum editedThis Is Orson Welles (1992), by Welles andPeter Bogdanovich, a collection of interviews and other materials relating to Welles. Rosenbaum consulted on both the 1998 re-editing of Welles'sTouch of Evil (which was based on a lengthy memo written by Welles toUniversal Pictures in the 1950s) and the 2018 posthumous completion of Welles'sThe Other Side of the Wind, produced byPeter Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall.
In August 2007, Rosenbaum marked the passing of Swedish directorIngmar Bergman with an op-ed piece inThe New York Times, titled "Scenes from an Overrated Career".[10]
He was a frequent contributor to the DVDBeaver website,[11] where he offered his alternative lists of genre films. He writes the "Global Discovery Column" in the film journalCinema Scope, where he reviews international DVD releases of films that are not widely available. He also writes a column calledEn Movimiento for the Spanish magazineCaimán Cuadernos De Cine.
Rosenbaum was a visiting professor of film atVirginia Commonwealth University's art history department inRichmond, Virginia from 2010 to 2011.
Rosenbaum participated in the2012Sight & Sound critics' poll.[12]
Rosenbaum appears in the 2009 documentaryFor the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, where he discusses the film criticism ofManny Farber.
In response to theAFI list of 100 greatest American movies published in 1998, Rosenbaum published his own list, focusing on less well-established, more diverse films.[13] It also includes works by important independent American directors (such asJohn Cassavetes andJim Jarmusch) who were absent from the AFI list. Asecond list by the AFI incorporated five titles from Rosenbaum's list.
InEssential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons (2004), he appended a more general list of his 1,000 favorite films from all nations; slightly more than half were American. He starred his 100 favorite films on the list, marking both traditionally canonical films such asGreed (silent -) andCitizen Kane, and harder-to-find films such asMichael Snow'sLa Région Centrale andJacques Rivette'sOut 1 (both from 1971).
