John Simon was a New York theatre,film and music critic,who wrote for a range of publications from the early 1960s until the millennium.As a critic he was witty,erudite and often harsh on the works he commented on.This is a collection of his commentary of several hundred American films of the 1970s.Along with being criticised for his harshness he was accused of misogyny in his remarks about the physical appearance of the actresses he appraises in the films.While this might be at least partly true,this does not prevent. him commenting on misogyny he perceives in the films he views here.
Some people find him hard to take as he does not condescend to his readers,as he assumes we can all understand his allusive remarks cited in French or German, and get the jokes without them being translated.This might be considered pretentious ,but it could be argued that unless a critic does not have a superiority in his linguistic skills,he has no business evaluating the quality of other people’s artistic endeavours,particularly those artists in whatever field, that insist they are important and must be taken seriously.
In that regard Simon cuts a large number of films with big reputations down to size. He does the same with a number of famous directors. He comments on the decline of directors like Peckingpah and Hitchcock as well as being dismissive of the quality of Spielbergs early films.
He distinguishes between films that are successful entertainment,and those with pretensions to art.I would guess that would bother a number of people who might have trouble making this distinction.It bothers me that I have a DVD collection with a number of films whose ‘art’ he trashes here.
His reviews are often lengthy, commenting on the quality of music,cinematography,direction, script,acting in detail,something that most film reviewers don’t do. He comments at length on the positive features in some films before disclosing that he actually hates it his conclusion.he is sometimes