I’m lumping together PLACING MOVIES and MOVIES AS POLITICS from Jonathan Rosenbaum because they’re two sides of the same coin.
If you were of a certain age in Chicago, you read the weekly alt-print Chicago Reader and if you were a film nerd? You ate up Jonathan Rosenbaum’s words. While he was not the only film critic at the Reader, he was certainly the most prestigious.
Rosenbaum was extremely prolific and one hell of a Francophile and not only did he take the dumbest films seriously — MOVIES AS POLITICS even scrutinizes the absolutely puerile ACE VENTURA — but he also framed films within their cultural impact and also what the filmmakers were attempting to do, and also how they were influenced by the world around them.
My copies of these works are so dog-eared and dotted with so many asterisks and notes. In a world when so many folks were solely talking about the entertainment value of projected works, he respected what film was capable of, of how the flicker brings us together, of how these collective works speak to everyone, but also have so much more to say than most folks perceive.
He was also instrumental in the absolutely gorgeous restoration of Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL, which is quite the accomplishment! (He does go into detail about the restoration if you take the time to buy it on physical media.)
I will note that he has since retired, but he still haunts screenings! Also, I did meet him once at FACETS, a Chicago theater that is actively uncommercial and I do not understand how they’re able to pay the rent.
Anyway! He barely gave me the time of day which … fair, I know how I present … but goddamn, I’m not gonna lie: that hurt, but doesn’t diminish from his critical contributions.