When Robin Wood passed away last December, an era passed with him. He was a film critic of astonishing power at a time when film critics wielded power and influence and were avidly read and consumed both by cinephiles and the public. In the 1960s it was impossible to ignore Robin's writings: they seemed to be everywhere, and set new standards of scholarship, marked by rich insights and close textual readings. They were models of a new seriousness beginning to appear in the study and examination of film in the English-speaking world. His groundbreaking 1964 book Hitchcock's Films began with the question "Why should we take Hitchcock's films seriously?" and then proceeded with a dazzling examination of the key American work, from Strangers on a Train to Torn Curtain, in a succession of chapters that made a compelling argument for a director who had hitherto been viewed solely as a commercial filmmaker (except by the French). In an outpouring of writing, Robin next wrote books on Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman, Arthur Penn and Satyajit Ray; co-authored monographs on Michelangelo Antonioni and Claude Chabrol; and contributed articles on Jean-Luc Godard and Dusan Makavejev to other publications-all within a six-year period. And yet, at the moment of his greatest prominence, he suddenly found himself out of fashion, a victim of new theoretical trends in film criticism which radically altered his world, forcing him to reconsider and re-evaluate his role as a film critic.

Featured Works:

Wrong Again (Leo McCarey, 1929); Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948); Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954); Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959); Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock , 1964); The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966, pictured); Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray, 1969); Day of the Dead (George Romero, 1985); Loyalties (Anne Wheeler, 1986); Life Classes (William MacGillivray, 1989); Code Inconnu (Michael Haneke, 2000)

Program information:

Personal Views: A Tribute to Robin Wood

Related Articles:
Reinterpreting the Gods by Tom McCormack posted Jun. 16, 2010
Wood's Dilemma by Tom McCormack posted Jun. 17, 2010