A Galaxy of Writers

The principal glory of Film Quarterly has been its contributors. Some journals have proceeded with more or less the same group of writers, with only occasional replenishment by others over the years. In each of its main time periods, Film Quarterly has had a far greater diversity among both regular and occasional contributors.

From 1958 to 1965, a number of writers who were well known—either then or later, or both—wrote for Film Quarterly . These included Arlene Croce,

Parker Tyler, Vernon Young, Eugene Archer, and Gavin Lambert, among others. What these superb writers contributed to the journal were almost exclusively film reviews. (Noël Burch wrote articles as well as reviews during this period.) There was also, beginning in 1961, a regular feature called "Films of the Quarter," in which a group of professional film critics—Dwight Macdonald, Stanley Kauffmann, Pauline Kael, Jonas Mekas, and Gavin Lambert—discussed what they regarded as the best films of the preceding three months. It was when Andrew Sarris (Mekas's fellow writer on the Village Voice ) joined the group that sparks began to fly. In the Spring 1963 issue Pauline Kael attacked Sarris and auteurism in an article called "Circles and Squares." In the Summer 1963 issue Sarris responded in his article "The Auteur Theory and the Perils of Pauline." For a short while "Films of the Quarter" continued alongside these heated exchanges. In the Fall 1963 issue, Dwight Macdonald resigned:

I've been wondering, for various reasons, whether to keep on contributing to "Films of the Quarter," but now that Andrew Sarris has been added to the stable, I feel the decision has been made for me. I am not willing to appear under the same rubric as a "critic" who thinks The Birds "finds Hitchcock at the summit of his artistic powers." His simplistic coarsening of Truffaut's auteur theory has produced a dogma so alien to the forms of reasoning and sensibility I respect as to eliminate any basis of discussion.

Not long after, "Films of the Quarter" quietly disappeared. Pauline Kael, who had contributed articles, film reviews, and other material to the journal between 1961 and 1965, reprinted a great deal of that material in her first book, I Lost It at the Movies (1965).

The later sixties and early seventies introduced a number of new writers to Film Quarterly , each of whom was to contribute to the journal over a long period. These include Stephen Farber, who first wrote for Film Quarterly in 1965; James Roy MacBean (1968); Leo Braudy (1968); Joan Mellen (1971); Michael Dempsey (1971); Brian Henderson (1971); and Marsha Kinder and Beverle Houston (1973). This group brought to the journal a new seriousness about film criticism and scholarship and took a longer-range view of commentary on film than did the "Films of the Quarter" group, whose polemics and turf wars, moreover, did not interest the newcomers. Not least, it was members of this group who introduced to Film Quarterly an abiding interest in film theory and theoretically inflected criticism. This interest quickly became and has remained one of the distinctive features and commitments of the journal. Those who wrote for the journal between other assignments included Estelle Changas,

Claire Clouzot, Richard Corliss, David Denby, Peter Harcourt, Richard T. Jameson, Richard Kozarski, Max Kozloff, Joseph McBride, Harriet Polt, Paul Schrader, and Paul Warshow.

Film Quarterly writers who have emerged since those early days include long-time contributors Jonathan Rosenbaum, Karen Jaehne, Tania Modleski, William F. Van Wert, Peter Brunette, and James Naremore, as well as the journal's Rome editor, Gideon Bachmann, and its New York editor, William Johnson. The journal's outstanding book reviewers, including Tom Gunning, Dana Polan, and others too numerous to name here, should also be acknowledged.

A few words about this book are in order. It is not, sadly, a representative selection of Film Quarterly and its writers over forty years and 160 issues. It contains one interview (out of well over a hundred), no film reviews (out of many hundreds), and no book reviews (out of perhaps thousands). Its organization and selections were determined at two extraordinary meetings of the editorial board, in which a much-too-large proposed book was whittled down and merged with a composite of other choices and categories. This most stimulating process went through many stages and hours before resulting in a conclusion acceptable to all. The editors of this volume wish to thank the editorial board—Leo Braudy, Ernest Callenbach, Albert Johnson, Marsha Kinder, and Linda Williams—for its labors and unceasing perspicacity. Thanks also to the expert advice of experienced page counters at our planning meeting for telling us, to paraphrase Cocteau, how far we could go too far. They kept all of us firmly under the rule of the reality principle. No one emerges from such a regimen without fantasies, however; each of us had at least several pieces, and—these failing—one last one that we still wished were included.

Over forty years, the pages of Film Quarterly have reflected not only many interests, but also many kinds of interests. These are reflected in the section headings of this book: Theory, Genre, Documentary, Technologies, Historical Revisions, and, under the heading of Group Texts, the avant-garde on the one hand, and feminism and the narrative film tradition on the other. In the necessarily compressed dimensions of this book we have tended toward articles that in one way or another combine two or more of these categories. To compare Film Quarterly to other journals, there are certainly others that specialize in feminism or in the avant-garde, and hence perhaps treat them more extensively than we do. In documentary coverage, and especially in documentary theory—although other journals have articles and features in this field—the position of Film Quarterly is especially strong. Superb as they are, the articles and interview in this book only sample the abiding commitments of the journal over forty years. But what is unique about Film Quarterly is not any one of these specialty areas, but all of them. No other film journal has embraced and kept up with all of these fields as Film Quarterly has.

Two topics not yet dealt with are theory and Film Quarterly 's annual book review issue. The massive annual review coverage of the year's film books is unique; no other film journal in the United States or elsewhere offers anything like this systematic coverage. (The genesis and development of the book issue are discussed in the introduction to Part One, "Early Days.")

As for theory, it is a more complex question—of course! What else would it be? Film Quarterly has published theoretical work by André Bazin, Umberto Eco, and Jean-Louis Baudry, among other Europeans, and a very considerable body of indigenous work as well. Theory has included narrative theory and, as mentioned, feminist, documentary, and avant-garde theory. Film Quarterly remains open to—indeed is hoping for—both articles on general theory and theoretical work addressing particular fields. Recently, under the rubric "anti-theory," some have proposed the end of theory. At Film Quarterly , we are waiting for the theoretical and other kinds of work that will frame the course of film and television studies in the new century. And one last minor note: although the essays in each section are listed chronologically in the table of contents, the introductions to four of the sections—Theory, Genre, Technologies, and Historical Revisions—depart from temporal order to develop thematic points among the pieces included.

BRIAN HENDERSON