Artists in the Audience: Cults, Camp, and American Film Criticism

"Greg Taylor's "Artists in the Audience" is one of the more innovative works of cinema studies that I have read in some time. It's essential reading for anyone interested in the history and theory of film criticism, and it touches as well on important issues in art history and cultural studies."--Robert Sklar, author of "Movie-Made America""Since World War II, cinema has challenged American intellectuals to define their relation to popular culture. In this incisive history, Greg Taylor traces many attitudes dominant today-the search for momentary pleasures in mass entertainment, the ironic celebration of movies' wilder side, the phenomena of camp and cult films-back to the work of Manny Farber, Parker Tyler, and a series of avant-garde filmmakers. He shows how critics of great ingenuity and panache managed to revolutionize tastes, convincing guardians of middlebrow culture that Hollywood movies came alive as art only when treated with a mixture of offhand respect, humor, and bravado. This is a witty, thoughtful account of a crucial period in intellectual tastemaking."--David Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison