Table of Contents

CoverTitleCopyrightDedicationContentsIntroduction: In Defense of Polemical Criticism1. Chantal Akerman2. James L. Brooks3. Luis Buñuel4. Pedro Costa5. André Delvaux6. Jacques Demy7. Carl Dreyer8. John Gianvito9. Jim Jarmusch10. Jia Zhangke11. Jerry Lewis12. Richard Linklater13. Guy Maddin14. Elaine May15. Manoel de Oliveira16. Ermanno Olmi17. Yasujiro Ozu18. Sally Potter19. Mark Rappaport20. Alain Resnais21. Jacques Rivette22. Béla Tarr23. Tsai Ming-liang24. Orson WellesIndex

About the Author

Jonathan Rosenbaum was the film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008. He is the coauthor of Abbas Kiarostami, Expanded Second Edition and the author of Cinematic Encounters: Interviews and Dialogues and Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia. He archives his work at jonathanrosenbaum.net.

Reviews

"Challenging, probing, illuminating, Jonathan Rosenbaum's work is a beacon for other cinephiles. His new collection shows him engaging with an exhilaratingly wide range of films and filmmakers throughout the world and causing us to think about them in fresh ways."--Joseph McBride, author of How Did Lubitsch Do It?
"Like a well-composed musical score, Rosenbaum's magnificent Portraits and Polemics erupts with fresh, incisive, and dynamic sketches of essential cineastes and their works, interlacing tales, energetic rhythmic effects, and vibrant poetic matches: bold, impassioned, cadenced, dialectical, always surprising."--Tami Williams, coeditor of Global Cinema Networks
 
"An excellent collection. Highly recommended." --Choice