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Second Sight: The Selected Film Writing of Adam Mars-Jones
The film review can be a little work of art, not just a consumer guide—as is manifest in this collection by one of the United Kingdom’s foremost doyennes of the contemporary silver screen. Covering more than thirty years of film releases, celebrated critic Adam Mars-Jones guides us through the most entertaining, most appalling, and most fantastic films of his viewing lifetime, interweaving his original film reviews with new insights and reflections.
Mars-Jones answers the questions that no other critic has even bothered to ask. What is Twister really about? How many Steven Spielbergs are there? ( he counts thirteen). How many of them are worth anything? Who had the greatest slow-burn career in the movies? ( he taught Montgomery Clift how to roll a cigarette.) And which science-fiction film features the most haunting use of slime? Funny, combative, and revealing, Second Sight is a celebration of the artform that maintains the strongest hold on the modern imagination.
Mars-Jones answers the questions that no other critic has even bothered to ask. What is Twister really about? How many Steven Spielbergs are there? ( he counts thirteen). How many of them are worth anything? Who had the greatest slow-burn career in the movies? ( he taught Montgomery Clift how to roll a cigarette.) And which science-fiction film features the most haunting use of slime? Funny, combative, and revealing, Second Sight is a celebration of the artform that maintains the strongest hold on the modern imagination.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published December 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 18, 2021
The British writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones has had a longstanding interest in film, something which informs this collection of reviews, essays and personal insights spanning more than thirty years of cinema releases. As the first film reviewer for The Independent (from 1986 – 1997) and more recently as a critic for The Times Literary Supplement, Mars-Jones is well placed to offer views on this subject, having analysed a wide range of movies over the course of his career.
The book opens with an extended autobiographical piece covering the author’s grounding in film, largely informed by the process of watching and thinking about movies rather than more formal training on the subject. This organic or naturalistic immersion is important to convey upfront as it informs Mars-Jones’ approach as a critic – an ethos where personal insights, reflections and opinions sit alongside more objective assessments of the technical aspects of film.
With the groundwork in place via the opening meditation, the remainder of the book comprises a selection of the author’s film reviews and essays from the late 1980s to 2017, interspersed with more recent reflections on these pieces. In essence, the additional notes allow Mars-Jones to look back on his original columns with the benefit of hindsight – and, in some instances, to offer a modified view on the picture in question.
One of the book’s most entertaining pieces is an essay entitled ‘Thirteen Spielbergs’, commissioned by Prospect magazine in 2016 to coincide with a Stephen Spielberg retrospective at the NFT. Mars-Jones goes on the offensive here, effectively grouping the director’s films into thirteen fairly reductive categories from ‘Sledgehammer of Subtlety’ (Sugarland Express) to ‘Inner-Child Wrangler’ (E.T.) to ‘Reluctant Minimalist’. This last grouping includes Jaws (one of Spielberg’s best movies), in which the director was forced to rely on inventiveness due to technical issues with specific special effects. In reality, this development turned out to be a blessing in disguise, pushing Spielberg down the route of subtlety in favour of clumsiness.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2021...
The book opens with an extended autobiographical piece covering the author’s grounding in film, largely informed by the process of watching and thinking about movies rather than more formal training on the subject. This organic or naturalistic immersion is important to convey upfront as it informs Mars-Jones’ approach as a critic – an ethos where personal insights, reflections and opinions sit alongside more objective assessments of the technical aspects of film.
With the groundwork in place via the opening meditation, the remainder of the book comprises a selection of the author’s film reviews and essays from the late 1980s to 2017, interspersed with more recent reflections on these pieces. In essence, the additional notes allow Mars-Jones to look back on his original columns with the benefit of hindsight – and, in some instances, to offer a modified view on the picture in question.
One of the book’s most entertaining pieces is an essay entitled ‘Thirteen Spielbergs’, commissioned by Prospect magazine in 2016 to coincide with a Stephen Spielberg retrospective at the NFT. Mars-Jones goes on the offensive here, effectively grouping the director’s films into thirteen fairly reductive categories from ‘Sledgehammer of Subtlety’ (Sugarland Express) to ‘Inner-Child Wrangler’ (E.T.) to ‘Reluctant Minimalist’. This last grouping includes Jaws (one of Spielberg’s best movies), in which the director was forced to rely on inventiveness due to technical issues with specific special effects. In reality, this development turned out to be a blessing in disguise, pushing Spielberg down the route of subtlety in favour of clumsiness.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2021...
September 19, 2021
If Adam Mars-Jones wrote a book about oatmeal, I'd read it. Part of the reason is that I trust his instincts so fully that if he did choose to write a book about oatmeal, I'd be confident that he saw something in it that has eluded everyone else until now, and that it's worth exploring in great depth.
Movies have the potential to be more interesting than oatmeal, but are not automatically so. Mars-Jones has culled some of his film reviews from the past 30 years, adding current clarifications and hindsight along the way, and also writing significant new pieces to somewhat link the older pieces.
The film reviews themselves are fine, in some cases feeling a bit pinched by the space constraints of the periodicals he originally wrote them for. The really good pieces are the metacommentaries, where he can pile all the little bits of clay onto a bigger wheel and build a Very Intriguing Bowl. His dissection of Steven Spielberg's competing impulses is brilliant, and kinder than I ever could have managed. His thoughts on aging in film - how actors are punished for it, how to manage it (differently for actors and actresses), what it means to all of us - is fantastic. The recurring line I most strongly responded to is his awareness of music, sound and sound design in film - and its increasing abuse. It arises in multiple reviews, and he also wrote an essay specially devoted to the topic ("Silence, Please!"). It's bracing, clarifying insights like these that won me over so long ago. I often feel like Mars-Jones is my ideal of a conversational friend. I want to hear and engage with everything he deems worthy of saying out loud.
Movies have the potential to be more interesting than oatmeal, but are not automatically so. Mars-Jones has culled some of his film reviews from the past 30 years, adding current clarifications and hindsight along the way, and also writing significant new pieces to somewhat link the older pieces.
The film reviews themselves are fine, in some cases feeling a bit pinched by the space constraints of the periodicals he originally wrote them for. The really good pieces are the metacommentaries, where he can pile all the little bits of clay onto a bigger wheel and build a Very Intriguing Bowl. His dissection of Steven Spielberg's competing impulses is brilliant, and kinder than I ever could have managed. His thoughts on aging in film - how actors are punished for it, how to manage it (differently for actors and actresses), what it means to all of us - is fantastic. The recurring line I most strongly responded to is his awareness of music, sound and sound design in film - and its increasing abuse. It arises in multiple reviews, and he also wrote an essay specially devoted to the topic ("Silence, Please!"). It's bracing, clarifying insights like these that won me over so long ago. I often feel like Mars-Jones is my ideal of a conversational friend. I want to hear and engage with everything he deems worthy of saying out loud.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews