Left in the Dark: Film Reviews and Essays 1988-2001 (Nation Books)

Here is the best of funny, sharp, and revelatory film writing for The Nation, brought together with new pieces written especially for this book and a selection of reviews and essays for the New York Times, the Village Voice, Film Comment, and other journals. A friend of independent filmmaking (but not of its pretensions), an enemy of big-budget productions (except when they're entertaining), Klawans writes under his own version of the banner "From Each According to His Abilities, to Each According to His Needs." Klawans explains how to approach a masterpiece by Abbas Kiarostami as if it were a strange dog; why David Lynch would disappoint a visiting Martian; and what The Rage: Carrie 2 tells us about rage and Carrie. All this, plus insight into the quieter refinements of Moulin Rouge, the correct Talmudic interpretation of Natural Born Killers, and the reasons why they were never wrong, the Old Masters (Renoir, Dreyer, Sembene, and early 1930s Warner Brothers). At a time when too many film writers encourage cynicism and despair, Klawans finds vitality in the movies—especially those that record brute fact while aspiring toward a heaven of personal expression. Read him, and discover the fun of being Left in the Dark. "Mr. Klawans is one of the most incisive, provocative and best-informed film critics in America."—Vincent Canby "The genuine heir to James Agee and Manny Farber...dazzling to read."—Phillip Lopate