Across the Movi-verse: Writing on Film, 2011–2021

A brand-new anthology of J. Hoberman's previously uncollected essays, tributes, reviews and ruminations from his post-Village Voice career. Hoberman published his first piece in the Voice in February 1973 and his last in January 2012. Covering contributions from a range of publications (beginning with "After My De-Voice"), these are the work of a recovering film critic, post 2011 and post Voice, without the burden and benefit of a weekly gig or a journalistic peg.

Hoberman considers the Spaghetti Western, "Pop Before Pop: Welles, Sirk and Hitchcock," the films of the Obama era, the film maudit, the U.S. distribution history of Fassbinder, and Triumph of the Will, as well as reviews of films by Chantal Akerman, Mike Kuchar, Jean Rouch, Steve McQueen, Sergei Loznitsa and Todd Phillips, tributes to Manny Farber, Jean Luc-Godard, and Elliott Gould, and two pieces—”My Debt to Jonas Mekas” and “Why I cannot review Jonas Mekas's Conversations with Filmmakers”—examining his conflicting feelings about a singular figure in cinema history as well as the editor who published his first pieces for the Voice.

“One of the few film writers whose work has no expiration date.”—Ted Loos, New York Times

Perhaps the preeminent stream-of-social-consciousness film scholar of the past thirty years.”—Adam Nayman, Cineaste