Philharmonic: A History of New York's Orchestra Book

This was my primary reference for film courses when I attended Marquette U. back in the mists of time. I had two main film professors there. One, James Arnold, was outstanding: a published scholar in the field and a wonderful, personable guy. The other, whose name I can't remember and wouldn't mention if I did, was a true idiot who seemed to be going senile and knew nothing about film aesthetics or style or philosophy or history and whose only criterion of film quality was if a film addressed "social problems." He was like a Bosley Crowther pedant freeze dried with the water sucked away. All you had to say on the blue book quiz was "social problems" 20 times to get an 'A.' As least he showed us some good (and at the time, rare) films. I actually went to Arnold's office to complain about this guy, but Arnold stuck to the Masonic old-boy's club, no-snitch-teacher-protection-racket code, or some such. It was like filing a complaint with police internal affairs.

But anyway, I appreciate Cook's narrative of the history of the movie art a lot more now than I did at the time. It is remarkably thorough and dense for all it tries to cover and is well presented and smartly written, and liberally illustrated with stills. (Several editions have appeared since this one).

A few years ago I found and read an interview with Cook on some website and I was shocked and disillusioned by what a film philistine he is. His tastes struck me as odd. That bias, to his credit, does not appear in his book, which remains an essential work for film studies.

(KevinR@Ky, amended 2016)