Britton on Film: The Complete Film Criticism of Andrew Britton

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, About the Author

00 Britton FM.indd 1 1/17/12 10:33 AM Contemporary Approaches to Film and Television Series A complete listing of the books in this series can be found online at wsupress.wayne.edu General Editor Barry Keith Grant Brock University Advisory Editors Patricia B. Erens School of the Art Institute of Chicago Lucy Fischer University of Pittsburgh Caren J. Deming University of Arizona Robert J. Burgoyne Wayne State University Tom Gunning University of Chicago Anna McCarthy New York University Peter X. Feng University of Delaware Lisa Parks University of California–Santa Barbara Jeffrey Sconce Northwestern University 00 Britton FM.indd 2 1/17/12 10:33 AM B R I T T O N O N F I L M THE COMPLETE FILM CRITICISM OF ANDREW BRITTON edited by Barry Keith Grant with an Introduction by Robin Wood W A Y N E S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S D E T R O I T 00 Britton FM.indd 3 1/17/12 10:33 AM © 2009 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Britton,Andrew, 1952–1994. Britton on film : the complete film criticism of Andrew Britton / edited by Barry Keith Grant ; with an introduction by Robin Wood. p. cm. — (Contemporary approaches to film and television series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8143-33 63-1 (p bk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8143-3550-5 (e-book) 1.Motion pictures. I. Grant, Barry Keith, 1947– II.Title. PN1994.B68 2008 791.43—dc22 2008019046 00 Britton FM.indd 4 1/30/12 10:47 AM To Art Efron, a mentor who taught me so much about criticism, and Robin Wood, who first showed me how to be a critic of cinema 00 Britton FM.indd 5 1/17/12 10:33 AM Andrew Britton was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom in April 1952.He graduated in 1974 with a first-class degree in English and American Literature from King’s College, London, and went on to study as a postgraduate at the University of Warwick with noted film critic Robin Wood. Britton’s career as a lecturer in Film Studies began at the same university in 1978,and he went on to teach at Essex University (1979–85), Trent University, Ontario, Canada (1985–88), York University, Ontario, Canada (1988–89), and Reading University, England (1992–93). He was also a guest lecturer at other universities in Britain, Canada, and the United States, including a term as a visiting professor at Queens University, Ontario, Canada in 1983. Britton was a member of the editorial boards of the film magazines Framework and Movie and of the editorial collective of the Canadian magazine CineAction. In 1989–90, he was involved in program research at the National Film Theatre in London, and in 1991, he was editor of the official program of the London Film Festival. Britton was also a joint contributor to The American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film (1979) and the editor of Talking Films (1991). His book Katharine Hepburn: The Thirties and After (released in the United States as Katharine Hepburn: Star as Feminist) was nominated for the British Film Institute’s Book of the Year Award in 1985. Britton died of complications from AIDS in April 1994. 00 Britton FM.indd 6 1/17/12 10:33 AM ...