A Cinephile Under the Influence

<p>For more than half a century David Sterritt has been one of America's most distinctive and trusted critical voices championing both the avant-garde and the mainstream with equal curiosity rigor and generosity. In this wide-ranging book-length conversation with cultural critic Mikita Brottman Sterritt revisits a lifetime at the movies: from his early years at <em>The Christian Science Monitor</em> through his work with NPR <em>Variety</em> the New York Film Festival and the National Society of Film Critics. Along the way he recalls encounters with Hitchcock Truffaut Scorsese and Sophia Loren; debates about auteur theory philosophy and popular culture; and the pleasures and pitfalls of a career spent in the dark watching fi lms viewing plays and listening to music with relentless passion and critical clarity. At once personal memoir and cultural history <em>A Cinephile Under the Infl uence</em> is an absorbing portrait of a critic whose devotion to cinema and culture has shaped how generations of readers see and think about movies music and theater.</p>