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Richard Corliss

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Richard Corliss
Born
Richard Nelson Corliss

(1944-03-06)March 6, 1944
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedApril 23, 2015(2015-04-23) (aged 71)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materSt. Joseph's College
Columbia University
New York University
OccupationsEditor, writer, critic
Years active1966–2015
Employers
Notable work
  • Talking Pictures: Screenwriters in American Cinema[1]
  • Greta Garbo (A Pyramid illustrated history of the movies)[2]
  • 1980 cover story on Dallas's "Who Shot J.R.?"[3]
Spouse
Mary Elizabeth Yushak
​
​
(m. 1969)​

Richard Nelson Corliss (March 6, 1944 – April 23, 2015) was an American film critic and editor for Time.[4]

He was the editor-in-chief of Film Comment and authored several books. In Talking Pictures,[5] he challenged the auteur theory, popularized by his teacher Andrew Sarris. With his colleague Richard Schickel, he made Time's All-Time 100 Movies list.[6]

Personal life and background

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Corliss was born in 1944 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,[7] the son of Elizabeth Brown (née McCluskey) and Paul William Corliss.[7] He attended St. Joseph's College, Philadelphia (now Saint Joseph's University), obtaining a bachelor's degree, before progressing to Columbia University to earn a master's degree in film studies. Corliss was one of Andrew Sarris's students at New York University; he challenged Sarris's idea of the Director as auteur (author). The two remained friends until Sarris' death. Corliss resided in New York City with his wife, Mary, whom he married on Sunday, August 31, 1969. Mary was formerly a curator in the Film Stills Archive of the Museum of Modern Art.

In a 1990 article, Corliss mentions his mother clipping movie ads with quotes of his and posting them to her refrigerator door.[8]

On April 23, 2015, Corliss died under hospice care in New York City after suffering a stroke.[9] He was 71.

Career

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Corliss wrote for National Review from 1966 to 1970. Despite working for the conservative publication, Corliss was a self-described "liberal".[10]

At Film Comment, Corliss helped draw attention to the screenwriter in the creation of movies. Corliss brought Jonathan Rosenbaum to Film Comment as a Paris correspondent. In 1980, Corliss joined Time. In 1982, he profiled Steven Spielberg, covering the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist.[11] Although he started as an associate editor, he was promoted to senior writer by 1985.

Corliss wrote for Time online and in print, including a column about nostalgic pop culture, That Old Feeling. He was an occasional guest on The Charlie Rose Show, commenting on new releases with Janet Maslin and David Denby. His last appearance on the show was in December 2005. Corliss also appeared on A&E Biography to talk about the life and work of Jackie Chan,[12] and appeared in Richard Schickel's documentary about Warner Brothers.

Corliss attended the Cannes Film Festival along with Roger Ebert and Todd McCarthy for the longest period of any US journalist. He also attended festivals in Toronto and Venice. Corliss used to work on the board of the New York Film Festival, but resigned in 1987 after longtime head Richard Roud was fired due to his challenging of editorial direction of the festival. He was fond of word play; in a 1993 review of The Crying Game, he spelled out a subtle spoiler with the first letters of each paragraph.[13]

Lolita, Corliss's third book, was a study of Vladimir Nabokov's novel and Stanley Kubrick's film. Later Corliss wrote an introductory essay for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Portrait of the Ang Lee Film.[14]

Corliss admired animation, particulalry Pixar. With the release of Ratatouille, Corliss had access to the studio's inner workings.[15] Pixar director Brad Bird said that he has "got nothing against critics" and that he had "done very well with them, over the years."[16] Corliss and Martin Scorsese first came up with the idea for the issue on "guilty pleasures".[17]

Corliss and Richard Schickel made Time's All-Time 100 Movies list.[6] Corliss created lists of the 25 greatest villains, the 25 best horror films and the 25 most important films on race. In addition Corliss was on the 2001 jury for AFI's 100 Greatest movies list.

In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, Corliss cast votes for Chungking Express, Citizen Kane, Historie(s) du Cinema, The Lady Eve, Mouchette, Pyaasa, The Searchers, The Seventh Seal and WALL-E.[18]

Conflict and criticism

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Corliss was critical of the escalating expenditure on action films, writing in his review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) that "the cost of the product is not passed on to the consumer. Moviegoers pay as much for a ticket to a no-budget documentary like Paris Is Burning (1990) as they do for admission to any superspectacle."[19]

Corliss had movies on his top ten lists that fellow Time critic Richard Schickel rated the worst of the year. These included 2001's Moulin Rouge!, 2003's Cold Mountain and 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In August 2004, Stephen King, criticizing what he saw as a growing trend of leniency towards films by critics, included Corliss among a number of "formerly reliable critics who seem to have gone remarkably soft – not to say softhearted and sometimes softheaded – in their old age."[20]

Corliss appears in the 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, confessing that he was the film critic who, in the 1970s, coined the term "Paulettes" for the ardent followers of Pauline Kael, a label which has stuck.[citation needed]

Corliss criticized Siskel and Ebert in Film Comment with "All Thumbs?: Or, Is There a Future For Film Criticism?",[21] and Ebert responded with "All Stars: Or Is There a Cure For Criticism?"[22] Corliss praised Ebert in a June 23, 2007 article "Thumbs up for Roger Ebert."[23] Corliss's dialogue with Ebert in Film Comment was reprinted in Ebert's Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert.[24] Corliss appeared in the Ebert documentary Life Itself, where he praised Ebert's "polymathic genius."

Number Ones from Corliss' Top-Tens

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Best English language film in parentheses:

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Corliss, Richard (1974). Talking pictures : screenwriters in the American cinema, 1927-1973. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press.
  • Greta Garbo (1974)
  • Lolita (1995)
  • Mom in the Movies: The Iconic Screen Mothers You Love (and a Few You Love to Hate) (2014)

Articles

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  • Corliss, Richard (April 20, 2015). "Date with an android : two guys and a robot square off in Alex Garland's Ex Machina". The Culture. Reviews. Time. Vol. 185, no. 14 (South Pacific ed.). p. 45.

References

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  1. ↑ Corliss, Richard (1974). Talking Pictures : Screenwriters in the American Cinema, 1927–1973 (1st ed.). Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0879510077.
  2. ↑ Corliss, Richard (1974). Sennett, Ted (ed.). Greta Garbo (1st ed.). New York: Pyramid Publications. ISBN 978-0515034806.
  3. ↑ Richard, Corliss (August 11, 1980). "TV's Dallas: Whodunit?". Time Magazine.
  4. ↑ Villanova University Proquest search list of 2596 articles, 2009-2005.
  5. ↑ Richard Corliss (1974), Talking Pictures: Screenwriters in the American Cinema, 1927–1973
  6. 1 2 "All-TIME 100 Movies". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  7. 1 2 Profile, filmreference.com; accessed September 6, 2014.
  8. ↑ Richard Corliss (1990) "All Thumbs, Or, Is There a Future for Film Criticism?" Film Comment, March/April. Reprinted in Roger Ebert (2006), Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert, p. 394.
  9. ↑ Weber, Bruce (April 24, 2015). "Richard Corliss, 71, Longtime Film Critic for Time, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved May 17, 2015.
  10. ↑ Richard Corliss (August 17, 2007). "Superbad: A Fine Bromance". Time. Archived from the original on October 25, 2007.
  11. ↑ Corliss, Richard (May 31, 1982). "Steve's Summer Magic". Time.
  12. ↑ Jackie Chan: From Stuntman to Superstar at IMDb
  13. ↑ Corliss, Richard (January 25, 1993). "Queuing for the Crying Game". Time magazine. Archived from the original on April 17, 2009. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
  14. ↑ "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Portrait of Ang Lee's Epic Film". Barnes & Noble. January 23, 2001. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  15. ↑ Corliss/Emeryville, Richard (June 7, 2007). "Savoring Pixar's Ratatouille". Time. Archived from the original on June 11, 2007.
  16. ↑ Blogsite Archived December 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, orlandosentinel.com; accessed September 6, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Mail Page". Entertainment Weekly. October 3, 1997. Archived from the original on May 19, 2007.
  18. ↑ Corliss, Richard. "Analysis: The Greatest Films of All Time 2012/ All voters". Sight & Sound. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016.
  19. ↑ Corliss, Richard (July 8, 1991). "Half A Terrific Terminator". Time. Archived from the original on November 22, 2010. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  20. ↑ "Stephen King on summer film's four-star follies". Entertainment Weekly's EW.com. February 1, 2007. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  21. ↑ Corliss, Richard (1990). "All Thumbs: Or, Is There a Future For Film Criticism?". Film Comment.
  22. ↑ Ebert, Roger. "All Stars: Or, Is There a Cure For Criticism?". Film Comment.
  23. ↑ Corliss, Richard (June 23, 2007). "Thumbs Up For Roger Ebert". Time Magazine.
  24. ↑ Ebert, Roger (2006). Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert. University of Chicago Press.
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