David Thomson (film critic)

Biography[edit]

Thomson was born in London. He taught film studies at Dartmouth College, and has been a regular contributor to The New York Times, Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic,^[6] and Salon. Thomson has served on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival,^[7] and scripted an award-winning documentary, The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind.^[8] In 1975, he published A Biographical Dictionary of Cinema, now in its sixth edition as The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.


Thomson helped to revive interest in the director Michael Powell (along with Emeric Pressburger, one half of the film duo known as the Archers.) Roger Ebert writes that "Powell was rescued from obscurity and relative poverty first by the film critic David Thomson, whose Biographical Dictionary of Film contained a glowing entry about the director. Powell wrote thanking Thomson, who invited him to teach at Dartmouth College. The trip to America led to Powell's meeting Martin Scorsese, a devotee of the Archers films since he was eleven or twelve years old, and Scorsese's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, who eventually became Powell's wife."^[9] With Ian Christie, Thomson edited Scorsese on Scorsese (1989), a book of conversations with Scorsese. He went on to edit Levinson on Levinson (1992), a book of conversations with Barry Levinson.


Thomson has written several biographies, notably Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles. In 1985, he published Suspects, a metafictional novel that imagines the secret histories of film noir characters like Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond and Chinatown's Noah Cross.^[10] Charles Champlin called Suspects "the wildest and most imaginative use of the movies as material I have ever read."^[11] Graham Fuller named it one of his favorite books on film, saying "Thomson was a historian writing like a novelist and so it was logical that he would eventually weave fiction with history in the serpentine Suspects, from which one can learn more about the iconography of film noir than from many worthy textbooks." In 1990, he followed this with Silver Light, which mixes real and fictional people from the history of the Western; Publishers Weekly notes that the “cast includes Willa Cather, Montgomery Clift, Charles Ives, Judge Roy Bean and numerous characters smuggled in from such movies as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.”^[12] Thomson has written screenplays, including Fierce Heat, which was to be produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Stephen Frears.^[13]


Thomson has written books that combine biography and fiction, such as Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes, which combines a biography of Warren Beatty with speculative fiction. Publishers Weekly wrote that "Thomson's analysis of Beatty's work is perceptive" but criticized the "silly futuristic story of a California peopled with earthquake survivors."^[14] Champlin called the book "stunning and unprecedented." He has also written a controversial book about Nicole Kidman, which Peter Conrad wrote "slithers from critical observation to subjunctive daydreaming", including ventures into "territory best left to pornography."^[15] Lawrence Levi, in The New York Times, called it a "weird and unseemly mash note."^[16]


In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson memorializes his friend Kieran Hickey, a documentary filmmaker. Thomson wrote some of Hickey's films, including Faithful Departed, a short documentary on the Dublin of James Joyce's Ulysses.^[17] Thomson credits Hickey with shaping his book: "I do not mean to shift the responsibility. Kieran helped in the research on all editions of this book; he commented and improved it at every page. But his deepest contribution was to the years of talk, the climate of taking pictures seriously, that made me think this book possible. If you feel the urge to talk back to this book, then know that Kieran paved the way." Hickey died in 1993, and Thomson writes that "in a way I feel the movies are over now that he's gone."^[18]


He has confessed that he prefers writing books to film writing.^[19]


Thomson lives in San Francisco with his wife and sons. In 2014, the San Francisco International Film Festival announced that Thomson would receive the Mel Novikoff Award at their 57th annual festival.^[20] This is given to those making significant contributions to the Bay Area's film community.^[21] He has turned his interest to television, writing Breaking Bad: The Official Book (2015) and Television: A Biography (2016).