Book Review: "Have You Seen...?"

I waited with as much anticipation as a depressive 56yo can muster for my Amazon order of film critic David Thomson's book, "Have You Seen...?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films (2008). The reviews and blurbs are glowing: "a prodigious, seductive, and addictive achievement" said Richard Schickel and a "brilliant commentary" wrote Molly Haskell. Greil Marcus and Andrew Sarris offer similar praise. On receiving the book, I was sadly disappointed. Thomson allocates a page for each movie giving him 600-800 words to play with. There are no images. The films are presented alphabetically and cover a wide range, with a strong bias for Hollywood product. The dustcover describes the contents as "including masterpieces, oddities, guilty pleasures, and classics (with just a few disasters)". The marketing hype tells me the book is "a sweeping collection [presenting] films that Thomson offers in response to the question... 'What should I see?' ". Sadly, the reviews are too self-consciously quirky and overly striving for knowing irony to be of any real assistance in their stated aim. I suppose you can put it down to dry English wit for it own sake. The short essays are full of arcane references for those cineastes who live for such trivia, and there is nothing wrong with that! But when you only have a page at your disposal, such indulgence costs. And the cost is high. After reading a review, if you have not seen the film, there is at bottom very little to inform your decision of whether to pursue it. If you have seen the movie, more often than not, you are left perplexed by the flippant tone and neglect of important elements. For an old geezer, Thomson, who is in his sixties, strives to be hip by mixing obscenities with irony. Words such as, f*ck, f*ckability, and pr*ck, are often used where more elegant language would serve his purpose better. As his bias is obvious I suppose it is to a degree acceptable. Though to my mind, this makes his survey rather limiting. For example, he writes-off the Marx Bros as mere vaudeville, refers to film noir as a "style looking for content", and barely tolerates Billy Wilder. Better to spend your money on The Time Out Film Guide and 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (though I do resent having to pick up a book that has to always remind me of my mortality).

Reading the Movies

The Dancing Cinema film blog has asked film bloggers to list the film books that have enriched their passion. This is my list after excluding my latest disappointing purchase - "Have You Seen...?" by David Thomson, which I review here.

Landmark Films William Wolf A selection of films that Wolf saw as representing their time: from Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) to Wertmuller's Seven Beauties (1975)

Film Noir Andrew Spicer Essential introduction to film noir.

Film As Film: Understanding and Judging Movies V. F. Perkins A critique of film theory and criticism.

A Panorama of American Film Noir, 1941-1953 Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton THE seminal survey of film noir.

More Than Night: Film Noir In its Contexts James Naremore A deeply insightful review of the the meaning of noir.

American Movie Critics ed. by Phillip Lopate A compendium of American film criticism from the silent era to the present.

The Art of the Film Ernest Lindgren How movies are made and the aesthetics of film-making.

The Contemporary Cinema: 1945-1963 Penelope Houston A survey of post-war cinema.

The Story of Film Mark Cousins A complete reference endorsed by Bernardo Bertolucci.

The Philosophy of Film Noir ed. by Mark T. Conrad Anthology of the philosophy of noir from Plato and Nietzsche to Sartre.

The Film Handbook (1989) Geoff Andrew A reference of major world directors with an introduction by Martin Scorsese.

1001 Movies (2005) ed. by Steven Jay Schneider Film reviews of top 1001 films by selected major international critics