Final Cut: The 21st-Century Film Criticism of Stanley Kauffmann

Final Cut: The 21st-Century Film Criticism of Stanley Kauffmann is a collection of previously uncollected film criticism by the late Stanley Kauffmann (1916-2013). Kauffmann’s creative life spanned seven decades: starting in 1958 and continuing until the end of his life, he was a film and theater critic for The New Republic, The New York Times, and Saturday Review, among other publications. Kauffmann was one of the most potent, influential critics included in the New York school of twentieth-century American criticism. In Final Cut, Kauffmann discusses films from such countries as France, England, Mexico, Israel, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, Argentina, Finland, Norway, Italy, Iran, Japan, Belgium, South Korea, China, Lebanon, Russia, Ireland, India, Greece, Chile, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, and the United States. Among the films reviewed are Michael Haneke’s White Ribbon; Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds; the Dardenne brothers’ Silence of Lorna; Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code; Woody Allen’s Match Point; Barbet Schroeder’s Our Lady of the Assassins; Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia; and Zhang Yimou’s Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.