Jonathan Rosenbaum facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jonathan Rosenbaum
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Rosenbaum in 2013
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| Born | February 27, 1943 Florence, Alabama, U.S. |
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| Alma mater | Bard College |
| Period | 1969–present |
Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. He is well-known for writing about movies. From 1987 to 2008, he was the main film critic for The Chicago Reader.
Jonathan Rosenbaum has written and edited many books about movies. He has also written for famous film magazines. These include Cahiers du cinéma and Film Comment.
The famous French director Jean-Luc Godard once praised Rosenbaum. Godard said he was a very good film critic. He compared him to other great writers like James Agee and André Bazin.
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Early Life and Interests
Jonathan Rosenbaum grew up in Florence, Alabama. His family had a special connection to movies. His grandfather owned a small group of movie theaters.
Jonathan lived with his parents, Stanley and Mildred. His father was a professor. Their home, the Rosenbaum House, was designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
A Love for Jazz
As a teenager, Rosenbaum became very interested in jazz music. This love for jazz stayed with him his whole life. He often mentions jazz in his movie reviews.
He went to The Putney School in Putney, Vermont. One of his classmates there was the actor Wallace Shawn. Jonathan graduated from Putney in 1961.
College Days
After high school, he attended Bard College. There, he played piano in a jazz band. Future actors Chevy Chase played drums, and Blythe Danner was a singer in the band. Jonathan studied literature at Bard. He planned to become a writer.
Jonathan Rosenbaum's Career
After college, Jonathan Rosenbaum moved to New York City. He got a job editing a collection of movie reviews. This was his first step into the world of film criticism.
In 1969, he moved to Paris, France. He worked for a short time with director Jacques Tati. He even appeared as an extra in a movie called Four Nights of a Dreamer. While in Paris, he started writing movie and book reviews. He wrote for magazines like The Village Voice, Film Comment, and Sight & Sound.
In 1974, he moved to London, England. He stayed there until 1977. Then, he was offered a teaching job at the University of California, San Diego.
Main Film Critic
In 1987, Rosenbaum became the main film critic for The Chicago Reader. He held this important job until he retired from it in 2008.
Books About Movies
Jonathan Rosenbaum has written many books about movies and how to review them. Some of his books include:
- Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995)
- Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980)
- Movies as Politics (1997)
- Essential Cinema (2004)
His most popular book is Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (2002). He also wrote a book about Jim Jarmusch's film Dead Man. This book included interviews with the director.
Working with Orson Welles' Films
Rosenbaum also helped with projects related to the famous director Orson Welles. He edited a book called This Is Orson Welles (1992). This book was a collection of interviews and other materials about Welles.
He also helped with the 1998 re-editing of Welles's film Touch of Evil. This re-editing was based on notes Welles had written in the 1950s. In 2018, he helped finish Welles's film The Other Side of the Wind after Welles had passed away.
Other Contributions
In 2007, Rosenbaum wrote an article for The New York Times. It was about the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.
He also wrote for the DVDBeaver website. He shared his own lists of favorite genre films there. He writes a column called "Global Discovery Column" for Cinema Scope magazine. In this column, he reviews international movies released on DVD that are hard to find. He also writes a column called En Movimiento for a Spanish magazine.
From 2010 to 2011, Rosenbaum was a visiting professor. He taught film at Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2012, he took part in the Sight & Sound critics' poll. This poll asks critics to name the greatest films of all time.
Jonathan Rosenbaum appeared in the 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. In the film, he talked about the work of film critic Manny Farber.
Film Lists and Preferences
Jonathan Rosenbaum is known for creating his own lists of favorite films. These lists often highlight movies that might not be as famous.
Alternative Top 100 Films
In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) published a list of the 100 greatest American movies. In response, Rosenbaum made his own list. His list included more diverse films. It also featured movies by important independent American directors. These directors, like John Cassavetes and Jim Jarmusch, were not on the AFI list. Later, a second AFI list included five titles from Rosenbaum's suggestions.
In his 2004 book Essential Cinema, he added a longer list. This list included his 1,000 favorite films from all over the world. About half of these films were American. He marked his top 100 favorites on this list. These included classic films like Greed and Citizen Kane. He also included harder-to-find films like Michael Snow's La Région Centrale.
Best Films of the Year
Rosenbaum has also created "best of the year" movie lists. He made these lists from 1972 to 1976. He then continued them from 1987 all the way to 2022. These lists help show what kind of movies he enjoyed most as a critic.
See also
In Spanish: Jonathan Rosenbaum para niños
