Agee On Film: Criticism And Comment On The Movies

"In my opinion, [Agee's] column is the most remarkable regular event in American journalism today."--W. H. Auden
James Agee was passionately involved with the movies throughout his life. A master of both fiction and nonfiction, he wrote about film in clean, smart prose as the reviewer for Time magazine and as a columnist for The Nation. Agee was particularly perceptive about the work of his friend John Huston and recognized the artistic merit of certain B films such as The Curse of the Cat People and other movies produced by Val Lewton.

A master of both fiction and non-fiction, James Agee wrote about film in the clean, smart prose for which he is known. From 1941 to 1948 he was the movie reviewer for Time magazine and from 1942 to 1948 he wrote the film column for The Nation. While at The Nation, he was free to write about anything he pleased and in any form he chose, and the result is a free-wheeling body of work, most of which is reprinted here. About Agee's column W.H. Auden wrote, "I do not care for movies very much and I rarely see them ... I am all the more surprised, therefore, to find myself not only reading Mr. Agee before I read anyone else in The Nation but also consciously looking forward all week to reading him again."

Agee's writing has an almost cinematic quality, a lens-like precision and immediacy; his perception in all his work was notably visual. Agee considered the movies as valid an art form as any other, and his interpretive writing on them is central to understanding and enjoying them as art and entertainment.