James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949)[1][2] is an American film critic, journalist,[3] author and academic. He began working at The Village Voice in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic from 1988 to 2012.[4]

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. (May 2015)

J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman in 2012
Born	James Lewis Hoberman (1949-03-14) March 14, 1949 (age 73) New York City, U.S.
Pen name	J. Hoberman
Occupation	Film critic journalist author academic
Education	Binghamton University (BA) Columbia University (MFA)
Period	1977–present
Subject	Film
Website
j-hoberman.com

Early life

Hoberman was born in New York City.[5] He completed his B.A. degree at Binghamton University and his M.F.A. at Columbia University. At Binghamton, prominent experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs both instructed and influenced him.[6]

Career

After completing his MFA Hoberman worked for The Village Voice as under Andrew Sarris. Hoberman specialized in writing about experimental film for the weekly paper: his first published review (in 1977) was of David Lynch's seminal debut film Eraserhead. In the mid-1970s, Hoberman contributed text articles to the underground comix anthology Arcade, edited by Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith.[7] From 2009 until January 4, 2012, Hoberman was the senior film editor at the Village Voice, where he was also an active leader in the staff union.^{[citation needed]}

Since 1990, Hoberman has taught cinema history at Cooper Union. He has also lectured on film at Harvard and New York University. In addition to his academic and professional career, Hoberman is the author of several important books on cinema, including a collaboration with fellow film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, entitled Midnight Movies, published in 1983.

At the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival, Hoberman was honored with the prestigious Mel Novikoff Award, an annual award "bestowed on an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema."[8] Hoberman appears in the 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, recalling his first movie memory, going with his mother to see Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), and how he was mesmerized by a scene in that film that depicts a train crash.

In January 2012, the Village Voice laid off Hoberman in a move to cut costs. Hoberman said, "I have no regrets and whatever sadness I feel is outweighed by a sense of gratitude. Thirty-three years is a long time to be able to do something that you love to do, to champion things you want to champion, and to even get paid for it."[4]

Following his tenure at the Village Voice, Hoberman has contributed articles to other publications, including The Guardian[9] and The New York Review of Books. He also contributes regularly to Film Comment, The New York Times, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.[10]

Hoberman participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, where he listed his ten favorite films as follows: Au Hasard Balthazar, Flaming Creatures, The Girl from Chicago, Man with a Movie Camera, Pather Panchali, The Rules of the Game, Rose Hobart, Shoah, Two or Three Things I Know About Her..., and Vertigo.[11]

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (July 2020)

Books

• Hoberman, J. (1981). Home made movies : twenty years of American 8mm & Super-8 films. New York: Anthology Film Archives.
• Midnight Movies (with Jonathan Rosenbaum), 1983
• Dennis Hopper: From Method to Madness. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1988.
• Vulgar Modernism: Writing on Film and Other Media. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1991.
• Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds. New York: The Museum of Modern Art/Schocken Books, 1992.
• 42nd Street. BFI Publishing, London, 1993.
• The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1999.
• On Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures:(and Other Secret-flix of Cinemaroc). Granary Books/Hips Road, 2001.
• The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties. The New Press, New York, 2003.
• The Magic Hour: Film at Fin de Siècle. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2003.
• An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War. The New Press, New York, 2011.
• Film After Film: (Or, What Became of 21st Century Cinema?). Verso Books, Brooklyn, New York, 2012.
• Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan. The New Press, New York, 2019.
• Duck Soup. BFI/Bloomsbury, London, 2021.

Essays and reporting

• Hoberman, J. (March 7–20, 2019). "The waiting rooms of history". The New York Review of Books. 66 (4): 20, 22.[12]

References

External links

• J. Hoberman website
• J. Hoberman's Top Ten Lists, 1977-2005
• Video: Interview with J. Hoberman