A book-length renunciation of his career would be quite the ave, but Thomson can’t commit to that. He pleads his case like a brilliant drunk representing himself at night court ... You don’t read Thomson for sympathy, or necessarily for consecutive thoughts. Let him brood. I feel almost cheap pointing out that he’s still plenty fond of cinema, and that the revisionism promised in his subtitle is often MIA ... Works best when Thomson’s running on autopilot and forgets that the movies confound him now ... For good reason, he’s been writing progressively more pessimistic versions of the same book; it’s a long walk out of the movie palace. In his next history (and I do hope there’s another), he may finally set fire to the place.
I can’t recall such a bleak appraisal of an art form since Tipper Gore went after Twisted Sister in the 1980s ... Thomson’s book, coming late in his career, is more successful as a provocation than as a persuasive indictment of cinema ... Thomson sprinkles critique throughout his book like seasoning unevenly applied to a gamey piece of meat. He concedes that his argument jumps around confusingly, and he writes with an obscure style that makes his precise views difficult to pin down ... Movies aren’t bad for us. Some days I think they keep my heart from slowing to a stop. It will take a great deal more than this sour book to convince me otherwise.
So much film criticism is clichéd or unadventurous — he tackles it with a bullwhip, a magnifying glass and a sardonic grin ... Is this really his last book? There’s certainly an air of finality and futility in the way he ties things up at the end, or rather unravels them ... He still cares and after reading this you will you will too.
He’s well positioned to comment on the matter ... Hurtles around conceptual corners, pinballing between genres and eras inside a single chapter. The phrasing is arch and self-aware, full of sharp cuts – but he’s also excellent on condensed, full-colour biographies, especially of those refugees who escaped persecution in Europe by going to Hollywood and creating an entertainment revolution.
At times, I found Thomson’s argument hard to follow. He is as prone to digression as the most self-indulgent auteur. The conventions of book reviewing require that I should chide Thomson’s editor for sparing the blue pencil. But that would be to deprive us of the terrific tales and insights that Thomson’s admirers expect ... Thomson has written a spirited jeremiad against the influence of the movies on us and on politics — or, as it’s sometimes known, show business for ugly people.
Thoughtful, insightful, and rather haunting ... I enjoyed this book so much that I came close to missing the deadline for the review. I kept having to break off to see if a movie Thomson had wonderfully evoked was, as it ought to be, on the streaming services.
