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The film argues that their rivalry wasn't petty. It was existential. They were fighting over how we should talk about art. Do we judge a movie by its intentions? Its craft? Or just the way it makes our stomach drop?
In the earliest days of American cinema, criticism was largely a function of moral guardianship. Newspapers sent society columnists—not artists—to review moving pictures. The question was rarely "Is this good art?" but rather "Is this proper entertainment?" This era was defined by the Hays Code and a paternalistic fear of cinema’s power over the immigrant working classes.
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism for the love of movies the story of american film criticism
Focuses on the era "when criticism mattered," specifically the intellectual battles over Auteur Theory .
The relationship between American audiences and the silver screen has always been mediated by a specific group of observers: the film critics. From the early 1900s to the digital age, these writers have served as cultural gatekeepers, passionate advocates, and sometimes, the industry's most vocal adversaries. This history is famously chronicled in the 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism , which dramatizes over a century of reviewing. The Silent Era: Birth of the Profession The film argues that their rivalry wasn't petty
Agee was a novelist and a poet, and he brought a lyrical, soulful intensity to the pages of the magazine. He didn't just review movies; he experienced them. He wrote about the emotional resonance of a scene, the texture of a performance. Agee proved that writing about movies could be as creative and beautiful as the movies themselves.
Meanwhile, a new generation— of The Boston Globe and The New York Times , Manohla Dargis of the L.A. Times , A.O. Scott of the New York Times —brought a sophisticated, intersectional lens to criticism. They asked not just "Is it good?" but "What does it say about race, gender, and power?" For the love of movies, they argued, one must also critique them. Do we judge a movie by its intentions
: Sarris championed the idea that the director is the "author" of a film, a concept that fundamentally changed how Americans viewed cinema.
Writing for The Village Voice , Sarris applied a rigid, structuralist approach to Hollywood directors. He elevated the status of filmmakers like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Ford, arguing that their genre films contained deep personal visions. This was a radical notion: that a B-movie Western could be as artistically significant as a play by Arthur Miller.
