Molly Haskell

Molly Haskell is an American film critic, essayist, and historian known for feminist film criticism and cultural commentary. She rose to prominence through reviews and essays blending analysis of film form with examinations of gender in cinema, contributing to major publications and authoring influential books that intersect with film studies, feminist theory, and media criticism.

Early life and education

Haskell was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in a Southern context that linked to cultural centers such as New York City and Nashville, Tennessee. She studied in academic environments connected to institutions like Smith College and engaged with literary scenes around figures associated with The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and communities shaped by editors from Esquire and Harper's Magazine. Her formative years overlapped with movements including the Second-wave feminism and social debates following the Civil Rights Movement, which informed her critical perspective and connections to scholars active in departments at universities like Columbia University and New York University.

Career

Haskell's career spans roles as a reviewer for publications such as The Village Voice, The New York Times Book Review, and Vogue, and contributions to outlets including The New Yorker, Esquire, and Sight & Sound. She worked alongside critics and writers connected to the networks around Roger Ebert, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, Stanley Kauffmann, and editors from The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her career engaged with film festivals and institutions including the Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and archives like the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the British Film Institute. Haskell lectured in contexts affiliated with programs at Yale University, Harvard University, and film studies centers tied to University of California, Los Angeles and University of Southern California.

Major works and critical reception

Her best-known book examines cinematic representations of women and is often discussed alongside works by theorists and critics such as Laura Mulvey, bell hooks, Judith Butler, Susan Sontag, and Camille Paglia. Reviewers in publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times debated her analyses in dialogues with commentators from Film Comment, Cahiers du Cinéma, Film Quarterly, and Sight & Sound. Haskell's essays engage directors and films linked to names such as Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, John Ford, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodóvar, Agnes Varda, Satyajit Ray, Akira Kurosawa, Agnès Varda, Howard Hawks, Greta Gerwig, Kathryn Bigelow, and Chantal Akerman. Critics compared her to contemporaries and predecessors including Ernest Hemingway-era critics, postwar commentators like Bosley Crowther, and feminist scholars tied to journals such as Camera Obscura and differences. Academic responses appeared in venues linked to Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and university presses at Princeton University and Yale University.

Awards and honors

Throughout her career Haskell received recognition from organizations and institutions connected to film and journalism, including awards associated with bodies like the National Society of Film Critics, the Online Film Critics Society, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Her honors were noted alongside laureates from festivals and institutions such as the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or recipients, lifetime achievement lists from the American Film Institute, and fellowships affiliated with foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. Professional associations including the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and museum programs at MoMA acknowledged her contributions to criticism and film history.

Personal life and legacy

Haskell's personal life intersected with creative and intellectual circles tied to filmmakers, writers, and academics including collaborations and friendships with figures from the worlds of journalism, cinema, and the humanities; contemporaries included critics like Pauline Kael and scholars active at Columbia University and NYU. Her legacy endures in curricula at film schools such as UCLA Film School and USC School of Cinematic Arts and in anthologies published by presses like Penguin Books and Knopf. She continues to be cited in scholarship and popular writing alongside names such as Laura Mulvey, bell hooks, Pam Cook, Miriam Hansen, and Linda Williams for shaping conversations about gender and cinema.

Category:American film critics Category:1939 births Category:Living people