Artists in the Audience: Cults, Camp, and American Film Criticism.

Gone with the Wind an inspiration for the American avant-garde? Mickey Mouse a crucial source for the development of cutting-edge intellectual and aesthetic ideas? As Greg Taylor shows in this witty and provocative book, the idea is not so far-fetched. One of the first-ever studies of American film criticism, Artists in the Audience shows that film critics, beginning in the 1940s, turned to the movies as raw material to be molded into a more radical modernism than that offered by any other contemporary artists or thinkers. In doing so, they offered readers a vanguard alternative that reshaped postwar American culture: nonaesthetic mass culture reconceived and refashioned into rich, personally relevant art by the attuned, creative spectator.

greg Taylor's artists In The Audience Is One Of The More Innovative Works Of Cinema Studies That I Have Read In Some Time. It's Essential Reading For Anyone Interested In The History And Theory Of Film Criticism, And It Touches As Well On Important Issues In Art History And Cultural Studies.--robert Sklar, Author Of movie-made America

since World War Ii, Cinema Has Challenged American Intellectuals To Define Their Relation To Popular Culture. In This Incisive History, Greg Taylor Traces Many Attitudes Dominant Today-the Search For Momentary Pleasures In Mass Entertainment, The Ironic Celebration Of Movies' Wilder Side, The Phenomena Of Camp And Cult Films-back To The Work Of Manny Farber, Parker Tyler, And A Series Of Avant-garde Filmmakers. He Shows How Critics Of Great Ingenuity And Panache Managed To Revolutionize Tastes, Convincing Guardians Of Middlebrow Culture That Hollywood Movies Came Alive As Art Only When Treated With A Mixture Of Offhand Respect, Humor, And Bravado. This Is A Witty, Thoughtful Account Of A Crucial Period In Intellectual Tastemaking.--david Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor Of Film Studies, University Of Wisconsin-madison

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in A Mass Market Dominated By Oversold, Largely Disposable Films Tailored To Middlebrow Tastes, Discerning Critics And Audiences Often Find Themselves Pushed To The Margins, Searching For Fresh Ways To Wrest Themselves From The Studio Machinery. As The Title Of Greg Taylor's Invaluable artists In The Audience suggests, This Is A Creative Response, Led By "vanguard" Cultists And Camp Aficionados Driven To Find The Art In Junk Or Turn The Junk Into Art. Taylor Traces The Vanguard Tradition Back To Oscar Wilde's Assertion That An Artist's Work Is Merely "a Starting-point For A New Creation," And Leaps Forward To Discover Postwar American Tastemakers From Manny Farber To Pauline Kael Filtering Popular Movies Through Their Own Distinct, Iconoclastic Perspectives. A Convincing And Accessible Marriage Of Film Theory And Sweeping Cultural Commentary, artists In The Audience Nails The Cineaste's Impulse To Champion Neglected Work While Reveling In The Unabashed Crumminess Of Cynical Hollywood Product. For Those Whose Film Education Is Supplemented By Forays Into Danny Peary's Cult Movies Series Or Episodes Of Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Book Offers A Generous Dose Of Creative Empowerment. But Taylor Warns That "artistic Criticism" Has Its Limitations--in Particular, The Question Of How To React When A Charlie Chaplin Comes Along And Merges Popular Entertainment With High Art. Is It Possible To Mine The Trash And Still Remain Open To More Serious Endeavors? While Taylor Admires Critics Who Search For Gems In A Medium Seized By Consumerism, These Troubling Questions Temper His Enthusiasm. artists In The Audience Worries For A Future In Which Aesthetic Values Are Ignored And All The Creativity And Art Comes Solely From The Viewer.

fm_i......Page 2 ff......Page 1 ch1_1......Page 12 ch2_19......Page 30 ch3_30......Page 41 ch4_49......Page 60 ch5_73......Page 84 ch6_98......Page 109 ch7_122......Page 133 conc_150......Page 161 note_159......Page 170 bib_179......Page 190 indx_193......Page 204 How have popular American films influenced film criticism and intellectual thinking. This book shows that critics, beginning in the 1940s, turned to the movies as raw material to be moulded into a more radical modernism