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V. F. Perkins on Movies: Collected Shorter Film Criticism (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series)
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About V. F. Perkins On Movies: Collected Shorter Film
Product Description Victor Perkins (1936-2016) was a foundational figure for the study of film both as a writer and as an educationalist and teacher who played a key role in establishing film within British higher education. Best known for his 1972 book Film as Film, Perkins has a worldwide reputation within film studies that has been enhanced in recent years by the interest among emerging scholars in the practices of detailed film criticism. His extensive writing in journals and edited collections, spanning sixty years, is less well known, despite its importance and quality, partly because much of it was published in small magazines with limited distribution. V. F. Perkins on Movies: Collected Shorter Film Criticism, edited by Douglas Pye, makes it possible to see his writing as a coherent body of work, developed over a long career, and to appreciate its great historical and cultural significance.Part 1 of the book covers Perkins's early articles from 1960 to 1972, showing the emergence of ways of thinking about criticism and movies that remained constant throughout his career. Perkins was one of a small group of British writers who pioneered the serious and systematic discussion of Hollywood cinema. Beginning at the University of Oxford in the pages of Oxford Opinion, and then in Movie, the journal they established in 1962, these writers mounted a sustained critique of established writing on film, arguing for a criticism rooted in the detailed decisions that make up the complex texture of a film. The work Perkins published in the 1980s and beyond, which makes up part 2 of this volume, was resolute in upholding his critical values. It elaborated his approach in studies of individual movies and their makers and also reflected on major critical and conceptual issues, while maintaining his lifelong commitment to writing accessibly in ordinary language.V. F. Perkins on Movies gives unimpeded access to one of the most distinctive and distinguished of critical voices and will be widely welcomed by academics, students of film, and informed film enthusiasts. Review Victor Perkins carved a unique path as a film critic. He was neither a reviewer nor a reporter; neither a polemical iconoclast nor a follower of academic fashion. His aim was clear, true, and steadfastly maintained: to understand the art of film, and the work of its finest artists, better. -- Adrian Martin ― film critic Published On: 2020-06-25 The idea of gathering all of Perkins's shorter pieces into one volume is excellent. In my judgment, he is one of the absolutely indispensable critics of film. He was a legendary teacher, and all his criticism has the capacity to educate even sophisticated filmgoers in how to think more cogently about movie art as moral and emotional experience, and how to read films with greater precision and discrimination. Douglas Pye has provided a valuable overview of the phases of Perkins's career and offers a first-rate assessment of his major preoccupations and strengths. -- George Toles ― University of Manitoba Published On: 2020-06-25 Since film studies became an academic field, no one has attended to movies with more care and insight than Victor Perkins, and no one has so inspiringly and effectively taught several generations of students and readers to attempt the same. The full range of his achievement is on view in V.F. Perkins on Movies, from his theoretical work to his critical studies. Anyone with any sort of interest in film owes a great debt of gratitude to Douglas Pye for making these powerful essays accessible. -- Robert B. Pippin ― The University of Chicago Published On: 2020-06-25 Douglas Pye has performed a great service by putting together this indispensable collection of V. F. Perkins's writings and introducing it so eloquently. The tyrannical reign of theoretical systematizing, which for decades led academic film studies to subordinate criticism to what the field called 'theory,' has ended. But to move forward, the
