The Magic Hour: Film at Fin de Siecle

Culture and the Moving Image

by J. Hoberman

The magic hour is the name film-makers give the pre-dusk late afternoon, when anything photographed can be bathed in a melancholy golden light. This work anthologizes J. Hoberman's movie reviews, cultural criticism, and political essays, published in The Village Voice, Artforum, and elsewhere during the period bracketed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the World Trade Towers.

Genres: Film

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Author bio from Verso Press:

J. Hoberman served as the senior film critic at The Village Voice from 1988-2012. He has taught at Harvard, NYU, and Cooper Union, and is the author of ten books, including Bridge of Light, The Red Atlantis, and The Dream Life.

Reviews

[Vincent Mollica]

Gets repetitive & Hoberman is a bit of a smarm but such an incredibly soothing & engaging read

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

J. Hoberman was my favorite thing about The Village Voice until they let him go a few years ago during one of their "let's fire the older writers and replace them with twentysomethings" purges. He's since moved on to Artforum, Tablet, and the home video column for The New York Times and continues to contribute to Sight & Sound. This book collects film reviews and essays from the early 1990s until late 2001, primarily from The Village Voice. Hoberman is one of my favorite film critics because he's both a serious intellectual and a relaxed, pleasurably entertaining writer with an extensive knowledge of history, politics, and aesthetics, a widely varied personal taste, and a great sense of humor. He's fun to read, but he's got substance. In addition to the reviews, the book features longer essays about the reasons for the rise and fall of the western as a popular American genre, the disaster film crazes of the '70s and '90s, the George Bush I and Bill Clinton presidencies as media spectacles (with a lot of fascinating analyses of the Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan years as well), and a provocative introduction that makes a connection between the mass destruction of major American cities in many of our action blockbusters and the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

[Adam Krause · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific and very readable critical prose, and his longer pieces on film reception (like the slow death of the Western) are about American history as much as they are about the history of film.

[Alex Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the two great american film critics, with jonathan rosenbaum, currently working.

[Dan Vinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my gospels when I was reviewing movies. Magical writing and films too.