Andrew Sarris

Andrew Sarris
Name	Andrew Sarris
Birth date	1928-10-31
Birth place	New York City, New York, United States
Death date	2012-06-20
Death place	Manhattan, New York, United States
Occupation	Film critic, writer, professor
Notable works	The American Cinema, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions

Andrew Sarris (October 31, 1928 – June 20, 2012) was an American film critic, historian, and essayist noted for championing the auteur theory in the United States. He wrote for major publications, taught at universities, and shaped debates about film authorship, influence, and criticism through books, reviews, and public controversies.

Early life and education

Sarris was born in New York City, raised in a milieu influenced by Harlem, Brooklyn, and the cultural institutions of Manhattan. He attended schools that situated him within networks tied to Columbia University, where he later studied under scholars connected to Ballets Russes patrons and the intellectual circles around New York Public Library. Sarris pursued advanced study in film history influenced by European film movements and figures such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, and Orson Welles, and he completed graduate work at institutions linked with film scholarship traditions in the United States and dialogues with critics from France and Britain.

Career and film criticism

Sarris began publishing criticism in outlets associated with the postwar period and the rise of film journals, writing for magazines and newspapers with connections to editors from The Village Voice, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time, and Harper's Magazine. Influenced by the writings of Cahiers du Cinéma critics including André Bazin, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette, he advocated for auteurist readings of directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Billy Wilder, and Elia Kazan. His reviews engaged with films by Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Satyajit Ray, Luis Buñuel, Jean Renoir, and Robert Bresson, often comparing American studio practices represented by Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to independent production exemplified by Orson Welles and John Cassavetes.

Sarris also participated in academic and festival circuits, lecturing at universities such as New York University, Columbia University, Princeton University, and Yale University and appearing at festivals like the Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. He engaged with contemporaries and rivals including Bosley Crowther, Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, Vincent Canby, and Andrew O'Hehir, contributing to debates published alongside pieces by Giacomo Puccini scholars and retrospectives organized by institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the British Film Institute.

Auteur theory and influence

Sarris is best known for popularizing the auteur theory in American criticism, a formulation he adapted from Cahiers du Cinéma and theorists such as André Bazin and François Truffaut. He developed hierarchies of directors that placed figures like Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder, and Jean Renoir in the upper tiers, framing studio-era auteurs at Warner Bros. and RKO Pictures as bearing distinctive authorial signatures. His ideas provoked exchanges with critics including Pauline Kael and scholars at Harvard University and UCLA, influencing filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Spike Lee who cited auteurist frameworks in interviews and retrospectives. Institutions such as the American Film Institute and archives like the Library of Congress recognized his role in shaping film historiography, and his work contributed to curricula across film schools like USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Cinema Studies Program at New York University.

Major works and publications

Sarris's most influential book, The American Cinema, offered surveys and director profiles that became a touchstone for film studies programs and critics. He edited and contributed to collections, wrote freestanding monographs, and produced programs for archival releases and DVD collections curated with institutions including the Criterion Collection and the Museum of Modern Art Film Library. His essays and reviews appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time, Esquire, and anthologies published by presses associated with Cambridge University Press and Columbia University Press. He also compiled interviews and critical appreciations of directors such as Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, D. W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, Walt Disney, John Huston, and Robert Altman.

Controversies and criticism

Sarris's promotion of auteurism sparked robust critique from figures like Pauline Kael and prompted public debates on television programs and in print, intersecting with disputes involving Roger Ebert, Bosley Crowther, and editors at The New Republic and The New York Review of Books. Critics accused his hierarchies of imposing monolithic readings on collaborative studio contexts including Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, and scholars in film history and cultural studies at Columbia University and UCLA challenged his methods. Debates about taste, canon formation, and the evaluation of genres such as film noir, musical film, western film, and documentary film often featured Sarris's positions, and controversies over his choices influenced subsequent discussions about diversity, authorship, and the role of critics in shaping institutional recognition at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and national film registries.

Personal life and legacy

Sarris lived in Manhattan and engaged with cultural institutions including the New York Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art, and various film societies. His teaching and writing influenced generations of critics, historians, and filmmakers at film schools such as NYU Tisch School of the Arts, USC School of Cinematic Arts, and UCLA Film School, and his papers and correspondence were of interest to archives like the Library of Congress and university special collections. Posthumously, retrospectives at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the British Film Institute reassessed his impact, and his role in shaping American film criticism is discussed alongside other major critics and scholars such as Pauline Kael, André Bazin, Roger Ebert, Vincente Minnelli, and Stanley Cavell.

Category:1928 births Category:2012 deaths Category:American film critics Category:Film historians