David Sterritt

David Sterritt (born September 11, 1944) is a film critic, author and scholar. He is most notable for his work on Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, and his many years as the Film Critic for The Christian Science Monitor, where, from 1968 until his retirement in 2005, he championed avant garde cinema, theater and music. He has a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University and is the Chairman of the National Society of Film Critics.[1] Sterritt is known for his intelligent discussions of controversial films and his lively, accessible style. He is particularly well known for his careful considerations of films with a spiritual connection, such as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004).

David Sterritt
David Sterritt interviews Werner Herzog at the 49th San Francisco Film Festival, 2006
Born (1944-09-11) September 11, 1944
United States
OccupationFilm critic, author, scholar
Partner(s)Mikita Brottman

His writings on film and film culture appear regularly in various publications, including The New York Times, MovieMaker,[2] The Huffington Post,[3] Senses of Cinema,[4] Cineaste,[5] Film Comment,[6] Film Quarterly,[7] Beliefnet,[8] CounterPunch,[9] and elsewhere. Sterritt has appeared as a guest on CBS Morning News, Nightline, Charlie Rose, Geraldo at Large, Catherine Crier Live, CNN Live Today, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The O'Reilly Factor, among many other television and radio shows.

Sterritt has written influentially on the film and culture of the 1950s, the Beat Generation, French New Wave cinema, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Spike Lee and Terry Gilliam, and the TV series, The Honeymooners.

Sterritt participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, where he listed his ten favorite films as follows: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Antonio das Mortes, Au Hasard Balthazar, The Crowd, Out 1: Spectre, A Page of Madness, Vagabond, Vertigo, Wavelength, and A Woman Under the Influence.[10]

Jean-Luc Godard, interviews

Biography

Sterritt began his career at Boston After Dark (now the Boston Phoenix), where he was Chief Editor. He then moved to The Christian Science Monitor, where he worked as the newspaper's Film Critic and Special Correspondent. During his tenure at the Monitor, Sterritt held a number of additional appointments. From 1978-1980 he was the Film Critic for All Things Considered, on National Public Radio. From 1969 to 1973, he was the Boston Theater Critic for Variety, and he sat on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival from 1988 to 1992. Between 1994 and 2002 he was Senior Critic at the National Critics Institute of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and he served as the video critic for Islands magazine from 2000-2003. From 2005-2007 he was Programming Associate at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y. He is a member of the National Editorial Advisory Group of Tikkun, is the Editor in Chief of Quarterly Review of Film and Video, is a Contributing Writer to MovieMaker magazine, and the Chief Book Critic for Film Quarterly. Sterritt has also held a number of significant academic appointments. From 1999-2015 he was the Co-Chair, with William Luhr, of the Columbia University Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation. He is currently on the Film Studies Faculty at Columbia University's Graduate Film Division, and Adjunct Faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the Department of Language, Literature and Culture and the Department of Art History. He is also Distinguished Visiting Faculty in the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and Professor Emeritus of Theater and Film at Long Island University, where he taught from 1993 to 2005, obtaining tenure in 1998.

Sterritt is the partner of psychoanalyst, author and cultural critic Mikita Brottman.

Books
  • Guiltless Pleasures: A David Sterritt Film Reader
  • Mad to Be Saved: The Beats, the 50s, and Film
  • Screening the Beats: Media Culture and the Beat Sensibility
  • The Honeymooners (TV Milestones)
  • The Films of Alfred Hitchcock (Cambridge Film Classics)
  • The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible (Cambridge Film Classics)

References
  1. National Society of Film Critics Announcement, September 23, 2009
  2. "Sterritt, Moviemaker Year of the Indie, January 15, 2006". Archived from the original on October 18, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2009.
  3. Sterritt, Faith! Family! Films! Huffington Post, January 12, 2009
  4. Sterritt, Senses of Cinema, Taste of Kierostami Archived 2007-02-08 at the Wayback Machine
  5. "Sterritt, Cineaste, Four Alain Renais Films on DVD". Archived from the original on 2009-09-28. Retrieved 2009-09-25.
  6. Best of 2000 Film Comment
  7. Sterritt and Brottman, Review: Irreversible Archived 2009-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
  8. David Sterritt, Beliefnet, Playing with our Fears 07/05
  9. Sterritt, Counterpunch, Screening the Politics out of the Iraq War, July 2009
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