Above what you're looking for but Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film has a beautiful fervor and reverence for the medium of film in every word. On the lighter side, I consider Ebert the best film critic and also just a great American writer.

Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema and Ebert 's Great Movies compilations

Pauline Kael, even when she seems incredibly wrong, has a way of bullying the reader into agreeing with her that I find charmingly fuck-you.

Sculpting in Time by Tarkovsky, it's less of an introductory text but imo it's really important for understand cinema and filmmaking, especially more abstract ones and even if it isn't that helpful for you you still get a great insight into all of Tarkovsky's major movies. https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Tarkovsky_Andrey_Sculpting_in_Time_Reflections_on_the_Cinema.pdf

anaisnin

1 month ago

I've heard of this! I've enjoyed the ones I've seen, so I'll check it out thanks

0Reply

Reading film critics opinions can't hurt either. There's a ton of letterboxed accounts that take old reviewers and bring them on to the platform which I get a lot out of. https://letterboxd.com/notpaulinekael/

anaisnin

1 month ago

Wait this is such a cool concept

1Reply

It isn't a novel, but a Youtube video that I think perfectly encapsulates what criticism is and is for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPrNWuppMcc

I think Closely Watched Films by Marilyn Fabe is basically as good an introduction as you can get and it's very commonly assigned to undergrads. Also What is Cinema? by Andre Bazin pretty much invented the genre of film studies outside of the Soviet Union.

anaisnin

1 month ago

That first one seems up my alley, thanks

1Reply