Richard Schickel, Contributor
Richard Schickel, whose celebrated and prolific career spans 50 years, has been the film critic for Time and Life magazines, has written more than 20 books and has produced, written and directed numerous documentaries.
In addition to his new book, “Clint Eastwood, A Retrospective,” Richard Schickel is the author of definitive biographies of Elia Kazan, D.W. Griffith and Walt Disney. All told, he has written, co-written or edited 37 books. He has produced, written and directed an equal number of documentaries. His most recent film is “The Eastwood Factor,” premiering on Turner Classic Movies in May. His five hour history of Warner Bros, “You Must Remember This” premiered on “American Masters” in Sept, 2008, and his film about director Ron Howard ran on TCM later that year.
Among his other recent titles are “Spielberg on Spielberg,” “Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin,” “Scorsese on Scorsese,” “Woody Allen: A Life in Film” “Watch the Skies,” a history of 1950s Science Fiction. His reconstruction of Samuel Fuller’s “The Big Red One” won several awards in 2004. He reviewed movies for “Time” from 1972 through 2008.
He holds an honorary doctorate from the American Film Institute and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the British Film Insitute Book Prize, the Maurice Bessy prize for film criticism, thee National Board of Review’s William K. Everson award and the Telluride Film Festival’s Silver Medal for his contributions to film history.
Truthdig Columns
2013
01/04 Seven Movies I Liked in 2012 (and One I Didn’t)
2012
12/26 ‘Miserables’? More Like ‘Les Middling’
12/20 A Simple, Excellent and Surprising Film
12/15 Hollywood’s Raid on Convention
12/05 Bill Murray Captures FDR’s Pain and Wit in ‘Hyde Park’
11/26 This ‘Hitchcock’ Is Frightfully Off
11/09 Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ Is Honestly Good
11/05 Interminable ‘Flight’ Is Good, but Save Your Miles
10/15 Let ‘Argo’ Take You Hostage
09/17 Paul Thomas Anderson’s Cult of Personality
07/23 The ‘Dark Knight’: 3 Hours of Apathy
06/30 Woody’s Latest Riff
05/20 The Good-Natured Dictator
04/13 ‘Monsieur Lazhar’: Tragedy and Humanity
04/01 ‘Bully’: Zooming In on Childhood Demons
03/26 ‘The Deep Blue Sea’: A Forgettable Affair
03/06 Filmmaker, Incarcerated
02/09 ‘Crazy Horse’: A Study in Erotic Abstraction
01/06 The Best (and the Rest) of 2011
2011
12/24 A ‘War Horse’ and His Boy
12/20 The ‘Girl’ Is Good, but Why Bother?
12/09 ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ … Clunker
12/05 ‘Hugo’: Resistance Is Futile
11/25 Movies About the Movies: ‘Marilyn’ Charms, ‘The Artist’ Bombs
11/18 ‘The Descendants’: Clooney Goes Down Easy
11/09 ‘J. Edgar’: Hoover’s Hubris Writ Large
10/10 Missing From ‘March’
10/02 The Sad, Secret Life of a Spy
09/26 ‘Moneyball’ Isn’t a Home Run
08/28 A Graham Greene Classic Better Left Alone
08/14 Reconciling ‘The Help’ With the History
08/07 Sex Slavery and Impotent Outrage
07/15 ‘Tabloid’: Errol Morris’ Lunatic Love Story
07/11 Animal Harm
07/01 Hanks Falls Flat in Languid ‘Larry Crowne’
06/18 Revisiting the Horror of Nanking
05/29 ‘The Tree of Life’: Terrence Malick Syndrome Strikes Again
05/20 ‘Midnight in Paris’: Tripping the City of Light Fantastic
05/13 Haute Love, High Fashion
05/03 Herzog Lights Up ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’
04/23 ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold’
04/17 ‘Meek’s Cutoff’: 104 Minutes You Can’t Get Back
04/01 ‘In a Better World’: Oscar Bait Without Much Bite
03/26 Their ‘Perestroika’
03/19 A Smooth Ride in This ‘Lincoln’
03/11 Two Ways to Make a Bad Movie
03/11 Schickel on Scorsese
03/04 ‘The Adjustment Bureau’: Fate Accompli
02/21 Columbus, Marx and Zinn Go to Bolivia
01/28 2010: The Year of Staggering Irrelevance in Oscarland
2010
12/30 2010: Best of the Big Screen
12/27 ‘Another Year’: The Tragedy of Everyday Life
12/17 ‘How Do You Know’: Resistance Is Futile
12/10 Three ‘Company Men’ and a Pink Slip
11/25 Speak, Royalty
11/19 ‘White Material’: Portrait of the Colonist in a Post-Colonial Land
11/08 ‘Fair Game’: Spying in the Suburbs
11/06 ‘Client 9’: The Rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer
10/17 ‘Carlos’: A Different Kind of Terrorism
10/08 A Glimpse Into the Heart of a Rotten System
09/24 Wall Street Revisited: Greed Is Good and Dull
08/19 ‘The Tillman Story’: Myth, Mystery and Celebrity
07/29 ‘Countdown to Zero’—or Apocalypse, Whichever Comes First
06/24 Into the Valley of Death Rode the ... 15?
06/18 The Hack: Reflections on a Nazi-Era Filmmaker
Publications
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