This book is filled with film-related essays that range from the very beginnings of film to the early 70's. These essays were chosen because they are intelligent and memorable in one way or another. Many of them provide valuable insight on the American society of the time of the writing (conclusion: we haven't changed much). There is also a bit of dramatic irony when reading initial critical reactions of films now considered to be masterpieces. In other words, every essay is either insightful or amusing or both.

This is definitely a book to save as the local library is trying to throw it away. I don't know how much it will cost using an Out-of-print service, but it is a great book for cineastes, film critics, and other people that live in the past.

James Agee was short for this world, having died in his mid 40s. In that span of time he wrote a famous book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and a couple of classic screenplays, AFRICAN QUEEN and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. This collection of magazine film reviews and essays is in many ways the leftover part of his work, and yet it feels like enough to make a reputation on. His reviews span just one decade, the 1940s. Many of them tackle foreign films that may be unavailable for all I know.

Interesting to me is that he spends three weeks discussing Chaplin's MONSIEUR VERDOUX, which is a most unusual movie and mostly forgotten today. This might be because he saw it as his only chance to write a poignant piece on the greatest living film artist, or it may be because he identified with the plight of mankind theme that Chaplin was reaching for. You can pick another reason, yourself, but it was a bold decision, because most critics panned the film (according to him) and most readers probably couldn't even see the movie in their small towns. It was as if he knew he would be writing for posterity. Like all critics, he cultivated his darlings. He saw much in the work of John Huston and was very skillful in his sizing up of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. I was impressed that he predicted the all-time classic nature of the film, but also understood the studio system gimmicks that took away from the genius.

You don't have to be literary minded like W. H. Auden to enjoy this book. You'll like it, if you like movies.

Ever wonder what causes a movie reviewer to *become* a movie reviewer? When I was a ten-year-old kid just getting into classic movie comedies, I went to the library and checked out the book AGEE ON FILM solely because it had references to Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields. Thus was my introduction to high-quality film criticism.

James Agee made his reputation writing sterling movie reviews for Time and The Nation magazines in the 1940's. Among other glories, he wrote a much-heralded essay titled "Comedy's Greatest Era" that helped to bring silent-comedy icons (most notably Harry Langdon) out of mothballs and caused them to be re-viewed and discussed seriously among film historians. He later went on to work on the screenplays of a couple of gems titled The African Queen and Night of the Hunter.

Unfortunately, many people who regard the critics Pauline Kael and Stanley Kauffmann have either forgotten Agee's work entirely or have assigned his own work to mothballs. But among the faithful are film director Martin Scorsese, who serves as editor of the "Modern Library: The Movies" series of film books. The series has recently reissued the AGEE ON FILM book, and re-reading Agee's work (or reading it for the first time, if you're lucky enough) proves that film criticism can make for reading material as compelling as any fictional novel.

Agee passes the acid test for any film critic: Even if you don't agree with him, his writing is so lively that you can't help enjoying it. His work ranges from three separate columns (three weeks' worth, in print terms) to Chaplin's much-maligned (at the time) MONSIEUR VERDOUX, to the most concise, funniest review ever: Reviewing a musical potboiler titled YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME, Agee replied in four simple words, "That's what *you* think."

If you want to see what high-caliber movie criticism meant in the pre-Siskel & Ebert days, engross yourself in this sprawling book. It'll make you appreciate the decades before every newspaper, newsletter, and Internet site had its own minor-league deconstructionist of Hollywood blockbusters.

James Agee wrote film criticism in America at a time when the American film industry hardly deserved his attention. His celebrations of silent film comedy, of Preston Sturges, of John Huston [for whom he later wrote the script for The African Queen], and of the handful of worthy foreign films that he managed to see are what make this volume worth reading. Besides Agee's beautiful prose and above all his compassion. Interestingly, Agee was a fan of Frank Capra's comedies (It Happened One Night) and bemoaned the director's decent into serious social films (Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe). His negative review of It's a Wonderful Life, which has never been in print since it appeared in 1946, reveals the extent to which Agee was perhaps too far ahead of his time, and even of ours.

I'm not a casual reader. I have voraciously studied literature extensively during my life and I'm the only person I know that has read The Canterbury Tales for fun. I have been trying for a month now to read this little volume and I'm having a very difficult time maintaining interest. I wish I had read it during a college class to have the guidance of a professor enamored with Ms. Woolfe and the discussion of an interested class to give the novel perspective. I have enjoyed many of Ms. Woolfe's works long before the recent film notoriety, Orlando being a favorite, but I can't seem to immerse myself in the world of Jacob Flanders and have it make any sense at all.

This is the first Virginia Woolf book I've read and I can see why she is ranked as a great writer. Her writing is very dense and the prose reads like poetry. She writes Jacob's Room in the stream of consciousness style, like Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. The stream tends to meander all over the lot, so just go with the flow. The reader hears snippets of conversation and characters come and go. We learn about Jacob Flanders, but in little bits, here and there, the way you learn about people in real life. The reader never knows what's going on inside Jacob's head. You observe Jacob the way you would in real life: from the outside. Size him up for yourself.

The novel is set around World War I and Jacob Flanders (FLANDERS, as in Flanders' Field--World War I's killing field) is one of that Lost Generation. The novel is dark, questioning the futility of life, but the language is beautiful and the emotion is stabbingly true. Definitely read it, but have something more chipper around to read afterward, lest you brood too much.

Some say that as we grow up,
we become different people at different ages.
but I don¡¯t believe this.
I think we remain the same throughout,
merely passing in these years from one room to another,
but always in the same house.
If we unlock the rooms of the far past,
We can look in and see ourselves
Beginning to become you and me.
Do you know where you were born? Yes, most probably in a room. Do you remember where you were brought up? Uh-huh, in most cases, in a room. Do you have any idea where you are going to die? Of course, most people would wish to be in a room. Dust we are, to dust we shall return (Gen. 3.19). Once dusty us get the passport of landing on this planet, the majority of our fellow earth citizens march to our another biological inevitability under the shelter of different rooms, like the snails. Fortunately, most of us will not realize this human bondage; besides, we take it for granted that freedom is something tangible like the apples in a tree. We can get it as long as we try and retry. Unfortunately, some of us are sensible enough to feel the invisible bars, so they resort to literature and presume that they could be set free in another world. Most unfortunately, they merely step from one cage to another. I am not saying the authors are evil-intentioned. Far from it. They just unconsciously lead us to a special room of their own.
Here are two examples to give the readers a vague idea what these rooms are like. Entering Dicken¡¯s room, one would be at once fascinated by the kaleidoscopic scenes in it. The tiniest turn would present the readers with a fabulous show on our life stage. Here we see happy smiles, weeping faces, regretful looks and clenching fists. No matter how dark the room might be sometimes, we would always see four big letters on the walls---HOPE. Isn¡¯t that what we live on and live for?
Then, in a hopeful mood, we gracefully knock open Woolf¡¯ Jacob¡¯s Room. All of a sudden, we find ourselves in the strangest place we have ever stepped in. EMPTY. That is the impression we get at the first sight. Where is Woolf? She has disappeared from the door silently. When our eyes get used to the light in the room, we only figure out some dim stuff on the walls. ¡°Listless is the air in an empty room¡±(Woolf 37). Some people leave the room at once in a rage: ¡°What is it all about!¡± Some of them linger for a while. Finally they shout exultantly: ¡° I see, I see. There IS a portrait of a gentleman on the wall. Some women surround him. Wow! What a romantic painting!!¡± Satisfied, they go out. Only a few left at this moment. They have been standing there for a long time in the same pose as if they had been frozen. Their eyes are glued on the walls and their gaze conveys a shocked and frightened meaning. What do they see? A monster? An accident? Or a turbulence? No, but more than that. They see life---AS WHAT IT IS. Where is Woolf? She is silently smiling behind the door.
What should they do? Run out of this room to another? No use. The next-door room is similar. Keep running? No way. This sort of room design is a fashion on this floor. A moment later, someone hear a terrible cry from the rooftop. Someone has chosen to meet his dusty ending earlier. Is ignorance really a bliss? Should we ignore what is real just because it is cruel and painful? Is that an escapist¡¯s motive? Not really. In one of Harry Potter¡¯s adventures---The Socerer¡¯s Stone, there is a magic tree. Once one falls in its tangled branches, no matter how hard he struggles, he will never be able to get out. The only way of getting rid of its hold is to---relax. If one relaxes his whole body as if nothing were around him, he will be set free at once. Those who did not go in Jacob¡¯s room do not need to regret for what they have lost, because they might regret more if they had. Those who went but saw nothing special are lucky, because they have spared themselves a later sting. As for those who did see what Woolf intended to show, frankly speaking, they have fallen into those messy branches then and there. To relax or not to relax? That is the question. Relaxation seems impossible and ridiculous at such a confusing, painful and struggling moment. How can we possible forget what we have seen and felt? However, the harder we fight with the branches, the faster we will sink. Therefore, better stop thinking further before being devoured. The human bondage is merely invisible. If we spare the trouble of reminding ourselves of its existence 365 times a year, we will be as happy as one could possible be. Down with those rooms! After all, there is only one room we wish to guard and cherish with our life---the chamber of our hearts.
Where is Woolf now? She has gone back to a room or her own, leaving us a room with a view.

What makes some literature great ? Great literature is inspiring and life-changing, taking us to new places and leading us to think in new ways. It brings you not only into the author's mind but into their whole cultural millieu, to a time and place that we wouldn't have otherwise experienced or understood. Western culture is of course just part of the world's vast storehouse of ideas and stories, but it is one of the deepest and profoundest parts. In "Great Books," film critic David Denby unapologetically focuses on his experience at Columbia with some of the classics of Western literature.

Denby regales us with his enviable experience of being re-introduced to great literature as an adult, engaging the classics as an enthusiastic and willing observer instead of a bored and cynical youth obsessed with carving their own niche. Unlike his classmates, Denby has the luxury known mostly only to the mature, to actually enjoy the trip rather than using the readings as a springboard to show his own cleverness and garner good grades. His honest enthusiasm shows through as we experience a taste of great literature through his eyes.

While this book is somewhat a summary of some of the classics, it would fail on that basis alone, paling in comparison to the Cliff and Monarch notes, just as those notes pale in comparison to the original works. This is not a book to read to understand the classics of Western literature, nor to help with any scholarly pursuit of knowledge. This is a very pleasant and enjoyable excursion through great literature along with someone in the unique position to be an experienced critic, a skilled writer, and an enthusiastic student viewing the subjects as if for the first time. If reading this book and sharing the author's enthusiasm encourages you to read the classics, it has done a wonderful thing. If you read this book to get a condensed version of the originals, a vicarious education through Denby's interpretation, you will be sadly cheated.

This is a fun book for lovers of great books, but it is not itself a great book. I hope it inspires more people to understand why some of us love great books.

Would that we all could embark on such a journey; to revisit our college days and relive the lively discussions, the passionate arguments, and the idealistic strivings toward objective, unencumbered learning. However, while the journey was undertaken with only the purest of motives, the discovery itself will leave anyone determined to live a life of the mind not only cold, but full of sorrow and disgust. Instead of discovering the best that humans have to offer, he stumbled upon a virtual breeding ground of hostility. The students of today, rather than embracing the great books of the past, have been instilled with the unfortunate idea that all works of long ago are to be held in contempt; under suspicion and accused of racism, sexism, exclusion, and deliberate oppression. The philosophers, novelists, and social theorists have become tools of what appears to be (if one believes the P.C. crowd) a patriarchal, Eurocentric, slave-holding, jingoistic elite bent on crushing all minority opinion. Denby's book, which should be read side by side with Harold Bloom, presents the college students of the world for what they are: whining, self-righteous brats with little in mind but an egalitarian revolution where all literature, regardless of merit or talent, is equal; all thoughts, even the most lamebrained and esoteric, are valid and above challenge; and the free exchange of ideas, vital on a college campus, is discarded in favor of a guiding ideology of "bottom-up" virtue. We may have rejected the great books of our Western heritage, but we need them more than ever. Reason, not political grandstanding, must make a comeback.

My new year's resolution a few years ago was to strive to be well read. Basically, I would browse the classics section or look through the Cliffnotes rack until I found something that piqued my interest. Though I found some great literature this way (hey, they call 'em classics for a reason), I also got bogged down with some heavy, tedious, social commentary-type books that just weren't fun to read; especially since I was looking for a good story first, deeper meaning second (in my opinion, this makes for better commentary anyway).

When I stumbled onto Great Books, this changed. Denby's observations on some books I had also read were similar to my own -though not always (To the Lighthouse bored me to tears). He led me to other books that I would have otherwise never read: Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Conrad, et al.

This is not the greatest book ever, nor is it profound and earth shattering. It is, however, insightful, amusing, and entertaining to read. And as a result, I have become more a little more selective in what I read.

If you love books, especially "the classics", you should like this one.