David Thomson

[November 5th, 2008]

You really should read: The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

Our finest living film critic, the author of Have You Seen…?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films skips past weekly verdicts and sees movies as a vast garden, which he weeds at his leisure. A remorseless scourge of middlebrow pap (The Shawshank Redemption, The Sound of Music, almost anything with Dustin Hoffman) and a champion of his passions (Sam Peckinpah, Paul Thomas Anderson and…The Truman Show?), he takes a special glee in needling conventional wisdom. And since most critics think conventionally, and all are convinced of their own wisdom, his reevaluations are indispensable. AARON MESH. Noon Sunday, Nov. 9. Powell’s Stage.

What’s your personal writing ritual?
Early in the morning, around dawn, on a Mac, though I used to hand-write everything and still enjoy that feeling. I believe the movement of the arm and hand is stimulating.

What are your favorite themes to write about?
Acting and being, I think.

The most beautiful word in the English language is:
Autumn.

What authors made you want to pick up a pen in the first place and why?
Faulkner, Hemingway, Dickens, Nabokov.

Fight Club time: If you could fight one author (or critic), who would it be and why?
Pauline Kael—it would be a great fight because I admire her and fear her and leaned from her but because I think she was often full of shit.

Name a book you think is highly overrated. Be honest.
Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano.

Dream project:
A novel set in Hollywood in the ’40s.

Most recent nightmare: Seeing my child drowning.

Your cure for writer’s block:
Don’t suffer from it.

Pessimistic question: Will you keep writing even after people stop reading?
Yes, I have already passed this point, I think, in that no one feels as widely read as he or she should be.

Optimistic question: Kittens? Discuss.
Don’t like kittens—prefer cats. In general, we spoil and sentimentalize the young.

Please paste a short paragraph from a story, poem, article, blog post, etc., you’re currently working on below:
“Jazz me, movie.”

—The first sentence of an article about jazz and the movies.