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Anthony Lane | |
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| Education | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, film critic |
| Partner | Allison Pearson |
| Children | 2 |
Anthony Lane is a British journalist who was a film critic for The New Yorker magazine from 1993 to 2024. [1]
|
Anthony Lane | |
|---|---|
| Education | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, film critic |
| Partner | Allison Pearson |
| Children | 2 |
Anthony Lane is a British journalist who was a film critic for The New Yorker magazine from 1993 to 2024. [1]
Lane attended Sherborne School, graduating with a degree in English from Trinity College, Cambridge where he also did graduate work on T.S. Eliot. After graduation, he worked as a freelance writer and book reviewer for The Independent , where he was appointed deputy literary editor in 1989. In 1991, Lane was appointed film critic for The Independent on Sunday . [2]
In 1993, Lane was asked by The New Yorker's then-editor, Tina Brown, to join the magazine as a film critic. [3] He has written profiles of actors and directors (Alfred Hitchcock, [4] Buster Keaton, [5] Grace Kelly [6] ) and authors (Ian Fleming and Patrick Leigh Fermor) and Hergé's Tintin books. [7] Lane has also reviewed books, such as The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov and The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh, two authors he reveres. In 2022, he wrote an essay on the legacy of Eliot's The Waste Land for its centenary. [8] He contributes to the magazine's "Critic at Large" section; in 1999, he wrote about "The Endurance": Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition at the American Museum of Natural History, and in 2000 he wrote about Full Moon, a collection of lunar photographs at the Rose Center For Earth and Space. [9]
A collection of 140 of his The New Yorker reviews, essays, and profiles was published in 2002 under the title Nobody's Perfect — a reference to the final line of the 1959 film Some Like It Hot . A profile of the film's director, Billy Wilder, ends the book.
In his introduction to Nobody's Perfect: Writings from The New Yorker, Lane mentions five maxims that "should be obeyed by anyone who, having tried and failed to gain respectable employment, has decided to throw in the sponge and become a movie critic instead":
The explanation for the fifth maxim is a good example of Lane's style:
Lane varies his style based on his subject. His review of The Prince of Egypt begins with the movie's slogan: "The power is real. The story is forever. The time is now." and continues in a parody of its clipped style: "The time is then. The place is Egypt. The boy is born. The prognostication is dodgy. The answer is bulrushes. The boy is launched. The boy is found. The adoption process is unimpeded by interference from government agencies. The dad is Pharaoh. The brother is Rameses. The stage is set." He goes on: "The picture is O. K. The picture is fine. Look. The thing is this. The cutting-edge computer-generated imagery is white-hot new. The movie is old-fashioned. The story is forever. The movie is for the holidays. The choice is yours." [10] His review of Emma and Kingpin imagines the characters from the former movie discussing the latter: "The company was far from disinclined to hear more; and Mr. Elton, whose refinement of expression was complemented by a most unsullied cordiality, spoke to them of bowling with ten pins; of the misfortune that was visited upon Mr. Harrelson in the losing of his arm; and of the ardent and uncouth intentions on the part of Mr. William Murray to impede the happiness that was both prized and merited by the heroes of the piece." [11] Referring to the poor use of archaisms in Roland Joffé's The Scarlet Letter, he writes "Thou hast to be kidding." [12] His review of The Phantom Menace mentions that "the worst marketing ploy I have seen so far is the Star Wars Learning Fun Book, for kids of kindergarten age. ('What is this? It is a Hutt. Say it out loud: Hutt.') The Phantom Menace raises the spectre of an industry where the parasitic arts of buildup and spinoff will outgrow and choke the product itself." Lane concludes: "What is this? Crap. Say it loud: Crap." [13]
Lane recounts episodes from his life as a filmgoer; he writes that film "has revivified the Proustian principle that memory is not ours to command", adding: "It is generally agreed, for example, that the last Golden Age of cinema occurred in the mid-seventies—the epoch of The Godfather , Chinatown and McCabe and Ms. Miller . I feel privileged to have been there; unfortunately, I spent my pocket money on tickets for Zeppelin , Earthquake, and Rollercoaster (in Sensuround.) I realize that Chinatown is a great picture and that The Towering Inferno is dreck; but the sight of a weary, begrimed Steve McQueen is burned into my mind with a fierceness that Jack Nicholson, with his nicked nostril, can never match. I missed the Golden Age; catching up later was an education, but nothing I can do can bring it back." [14]
Lane's style is often allusive; in a profile of Luis Buñuel, Lane writes that "The great filmmakers, however rare their own appearances in front of the camera, almost always come to resemble their collected works. No one could sit through a Hitchcock season, for example, and imagine that its creator was a carefree and sexually contented beanpole. Godard is the mad professor, beloved of his students and nobody else; Howard Hawks is the sly jock with money and girls to burn; Billy Wilder grins like a miniature devil from the margins of a gilded manuscript—the imp who knows to much. Buñuel beats them hollow: that square sawed-off head, the ripe, amusable mouth, the martial breadth of brow and chin. And, most of all, there are the eyes. Hooded above and pinched below, they shimmer with the virtues, or vices in disguise, of the Buñuelian gaze: dignity, lubricity, and doubt. You can easily picture yourself being hypnotized by this man; sit through a sample of his movies, and you will think you have been." [15]
In a piece reviewing recent bestsellers, Lane, paraphrasing Kingsley Amis, writes that "the ideal literary diet consists of trash and classics: all that has survived, and all that has no reason to survive—books you can read without thinking, and books you have to read if you want to think at all." [16]
Anthony Lane was awarded the 2001 National Magazine Award for Reviews & Criticism, for three of his New Yorker articles:
Lane has also been nominated for National Magazine Awards on a number of other occasions, but has never won one. The nominations include:
Nicholas Lezard, reviewing Lane's collection Nobody's Perfect, wrote that "If the film is good art, or a delight, Lane will communicate precisely, concisely and illuminatingly the relevant merits; if the film sucks, he has some fun." [23] Laura Miller, reviewing that collection in The New York Times , wrote that "Lane writes prose the way Fred Astaire danced; his sentences and paragraphs are a sublime, rhythmic concoction of glide and snap, lightness and sting. Like his beloved Jane Austen, his style is infernally contagious." However, she expressed reservations about his use of puns. [24] In 2008, Lane was named one of the top 30 critics in the world by More Intelligent Life, the web version of the lifestyle publication from The Economist . [25] As of 2010, the movie review aggregation website Metacritic weighted Lane's movie reviews higher than any other critic's. [26]
Lane lives in Cambridge, England with his wife, Allison Pearson, a British writer and columnist. [27]
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", Hitchcock became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo appearances in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director, despite five nominations.
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for work in the suspense, crime and psychological thriller genres. His films include mainstream box office hits such as Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987), and Mission: Impossible (1996), as well as cult favorites such as Sisters (1972), Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), Casualties of War (1989), and Carlito's Way (1993).
Psycho is a 1960 American horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh) and shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftermath, in which a private investigator (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Loomis (Gavin), and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate her disappearance.
Billy Wilder was an Austrian-born filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He received seven Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and two Golden Globe Awards.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas in his first directorial effort since 1977. The film stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Pernilla August, and Frank Oz. It is the fourth film in the Star Wars film series, the first film of the prequel trilogy and the first chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga". Set 32 years before the original trilogy, during the era of the Galactic Republic, the plot follows Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi as they try to protect Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo in hopes of securing a peaceful end to an interplanetary trade dispute. Joined by Anakin Skywalker—a young slave with unusually strong natural powers of the Force—they simultaneously contend with the mysterious return of the Sith. The film was produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Andrew Sarris was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism.
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Buñuel's works were known for their avant-garde surrealism which were also infused with political commentary.
Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy film directed by Roger Michell. The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis, and the film was produced by Duncan Kenworthy. It stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, with Rhys Ifans, Emma Chambers, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, and Hugh Bonneville in supporting roles. The story is of a romance between a British bookseller (Grant) and a famous American actress (Roberts) who happens to walk into his shop in London's Notting Hill district.
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions often ran contrary to those of her contemporaries.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a 1972 French-language surrealist black comedy film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-written by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière. The narrative concerns a group of French bourgeoisie and the fictional South American country of Miranda's ambassador to France attempting—despite continual interruptions—to dine together. The film stars Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Bulle Ogier, Julien Bertheau, and Milena Vukotic.
Frenzy is a 1972 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was based on the 1966 novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern. The film stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen and Barry Foster and features Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Vivien Merchant. The original music score was composed by Ron Goodwin.
Sisters is a 1972 American psychological horror film directed by Brian De Palma and starring Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, and Charles Durning. It follows a French Canadian model's separated conjoined twin who is suspected of having committed a brutal murder witnessed by a newspaper reporter in Staten Island, New York City.
The Wrong Man is a 1956 American docudrama film noir directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Henry Fonda and Vera Miles. The film was drawn from the true story of an innocent man charged with a crime, as described in the book The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero by Maxwell Anderson and in the magazine article "A Case of Identity", which was published in Life magazine in June 1953 by Herbert Brean.
Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 American rock musical comedy horror film written and directed by Brian De Palma and scored by and starring Paul Williams.
Jean-Claude Carrière was a French novelist, screenwriter and actor. He received an Academy Award for best short film for co-writing Heureux Anniversaire (1963), and was later conferred an Honorary Oscar in 2014. He was nominated for the Academy Award three other times for his work in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). He also won a César Award for Best Original Screenplay in The Return of Martin Guerre (1983).
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is a 1999 action-adventure video game developed by Big Ape Productions and published by LucasArts for Windows and the PlayStation. An adaptation of the film of the same title, players take on the role of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi and several other characters in a near-identical retelling of the film. Each playable character has a unique weapon and ability.
Penelope Gilliatt was an English novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and film critic. As one of the main film critics for The New Yorker magazine in the 1960s and 1970s, Gilliatt was known for her detailed descriptions and evocative reviews. A writer of short stories, novels, non-fiction books, and screenplays, Gilliatt was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).
Rope is a 1948 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the 1929 play of the same name by Patrick Hamilton. The film was adapted by Hume Cronyn with a screenplay by Arthur Laurents.
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish filmmaker who worked in Spain, Mexico and France. Buñuel is noted for his distinctive use of mise-en scene, distinctive sound editing, and original use of music in his films. Often Buñuel applies the techniques of mise-en-scène to combine multiple single scenes within a film directed by him to represent more encompassing aspects of the film when viewed as a whole.
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