John Huston Triple-Feature: Beat the Devil (1953), Wise Blood (1979), and Under the Volcano (1984)

Introduction 

“[John] Huston is still coasting on his reputation as a wronged individualist with an alibi for every bad movie … Huston has confused indifference with integrity for such a long time that he is no longer the competent craftsman of The Asphalt Jungle, The Maltese Falcon, and The African Queen, films that owe more to casting coups than to directorial acumen.” — Andrew Sarris, “John Huston: Less than Meets the Eye” in The American Cinema (1968).

“People often ask if I have any regrets over my rankings of directors in The American Cinema. Actually, there have been shifts and slides, rises and falls, all along the line. Film history is always in the process of revision, and some of our earliest masters are still alive. The American Cinema was a very tentative probe designed mainly to establish the existence of a subject worthy of study. The rest is refinement and elaboration.”— Andrew Sarris, “Billy Wilder Reconsidered” in You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet (1998).

Why I Care About the Ethics of Film Criticism

Watching movies for twenty years - not to mention being a cinema and media studies academic for almost a decade now - has impacted my life in several ways.  Most of these symptoms have been beneficial to me (socially, my gratuitous popular culture references don't always fly).  My love of movies resulted in a life in academia that requires historical research and critical analysis of film form, ideology, and the industry.  This, when I look back to the early reviews I wrote for my high school newspaper The Pirate, has made my writing on the arts more refined and thoughtful.  I am careful to avoid sweeping generalizations or hyperbolic value judgments that plagued my early material.  More importantly, these critical thinking and research skills extend beyond film.  This is not intended to be a rallying cry for a humanities education;  I fundamentally feel, as both a product of America's higher educational system and as an occasional instructor, that these skills have made me a more informed citizen, a more thoughtful and empathetic person, and I feel like I've made better life decisions - that better fit my lifestyle and personality at least - than I would have if I had stopped at high school or even with a Bachelor's Degree.