Plenty of better, smarter writers
than I will have enough to say about the legacy of the now-late Andrew Sarris.
(Here are Andrew O’Hehir at Salon and David Edelstein at Vulture, and David Poland at Movie City News. And Peter Labuza over at his blog, with a lovely anecdote. Oh, and
the Times obit is pretty good, too.) For my part, I can note that, for all the
times I’ve (literally) thrown The American Cinema across the room in
frustration, I‘ve always picked it back up to check and see what
Sarris had to say about the next filmmaker. (“John Sturges as ‘Strained
Seriousness’? Screw this guy! Okay, what does he have to say about Robert
Mulligan?”) Others have noted his erudition and generosity as a writer, as well
as his willingness to change his mind. O’Hehir’s piece mentions Sarris’s famous
change of heart on 2001: A Space Odyssey.*
