A Cinephile Under the Influence

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 The Christian Science Monitor through his work with NPR, Variety, 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, A Cinephile Under the Infl uence 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.