David Thomson - 'A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies'
7/4/20261 hr 29 min
The revered British writer on film — a critic, historian and author of more than 40 books, most famously one first published in 1975 under the title ‘A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema’ and updated and reissued five times since as ‘The New Biographical Dictionary of Film’ — reflects on how a childhood stammer led to his fascination with words and desire to speak out; the happy accidents that led to his dictionary, and why there won’t be a seventh edition; and why he believes — and asserts in his latest book, out July 7 — that the proliferation of anti-heroes on screens big and small may have led to the presidency of Donald Trump.
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First 90 secondsScott Feinberg· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hi, everyone, and thank you for tuning in to the six hundred and fifty-second episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast. I'm the host, Scott Feinberg, and my guest today is a brilliant and revered British writer on film. He's a critic, historian, and author of more than forty books, most famously one that was first published in nineteen seventy-five under the title A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema, and that was updated and reissued five times since, most recently in two thousand and fourteen as The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, in which he profiles hundreds of key figures from across film history, offering not just facts, but also opinions that are often contrarian and always thought-provoking, to the extent that the book was selected in a two thousand and twenty-three survey of film industry heavyweights conducted by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the one hundred greatest film books of all time, and in a two thousand and ten poll of critics and writers conducted by Sight and Sound as the single best film book of all time. A man whose latest book, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies, will be published by Simon & Schuster on July seventh. David Thompson. Thompson has been described by the Los Angeles Times as "Cinema's Dr. Johnson, without doubt the greatest living film historian, archivist, and professional fan. Among contemporary film writers, our greatest stylist, with a voice that is arch,