| Birth Name: | James Lewis Hoberman |
| Birth Date: | 14 March 1949 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Education: | Binghamton University (BA) Columbia University (MFA) |
| Period: | 1977–present |
| Subject: | Film |
| Children: | 2 |
| Website: | j-hoberman.com |
James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949)[1] [2] is an American film critic, journalist,[3] author and academic. He began working at The Village Voice in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic from 1988 to 2012. In 1981, he coined the term "vulgar modernism" to describe the "looney" fringes of American popular culture (e.g. the animators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, MAD Magazine, TV pioneer Ernie Kovacs and the films of Frank Tashlin).[4] [5] [6]
Hoberman was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn. His ancestors immigrated to the United States from Poland, Ukraine, Austria-Hungary, and Alsace-Lorraine.[2] [7] He grew up primarily in Fresh Meadows, Queens.[2] Hoberman completed his B.A. degree at Binghamton University and his M.F.A. at Columbia University. At Binghamton, prominent experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs both instructed and influenced him.[8]
Hoberman and his wife, a social worker, married in 1974. They have two daughters.[2] He is an atheist.[2]
After completing his MFA Hoberman worked for The Village Voice under Andrew Sarris. Hoberman specialized in writing about experimental film for the weekly paper: his first published review (in 1977) was of David Lynch's seminal debut film Eraserhead. In the mid-1970s, Hoberman contributed text articles to the underground comix anthology Arcade, edited by Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith.[9] From 2009 to 2012, Hoberman was the senior film editor at the Village Voice, where he was also an active leader in the staff union.[10]
Since 1990, Hoberman has taught cinema history at Cooper Union. He has also lectured on film at Harvard and New York University. In addition to his academic and professional career, Hoberman is the author of several important books on cinema, including a collaboration with fellow film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, entitled Midnight Movies, published in 1983.
In 2006, while reviewing his favorite films of the year, Hoberman wrote, "A curious form of journalism, film reviewing is highly topical yet essentially timeless. It consists of reporting week after week on out-of-body experiences in a parallel universe—subject to its own laws but intermittently visited by millions of others and filled with references to so-called real life."[11] "From a purely subjective point of view, the film event that affected me most deeply would be the two-day screening of Jacques Rivette’s 14-hour Out 1 at the Museum of the Moving Image. But Out 1 had only a single public show—too few to be more than a personal experience."
At the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival, Hoberman was honored with the prestigious Mel Novikoff Award, an annual award "bestowed on an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public's knowledge and appreciation of world cinema."[12] Hoberman appears in the 2009 documentary film , recalling his first movie memory, going with his mother to see Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth (1952), and how he was mesmerized by a scene in that film that depicts a train crash.
In January 2012, the Village Voice laid off Hoberman in a move to cut costs. Hoberman said, "I have no regrets and whatever sadness I feel is outweighed by a sense of gratitude. Thirty-three years is a long time to be able to do something that you love to do, to champion things you want to champion, and to even get paid for it."[13]
Following his tenure at the Village Voice, Hoberman has contributed articles to other publications, including The Guardian[14] and The New York Review of Books. He also contributes regularly to Film Comment, The New York Times, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.[15]
Hoberman participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, where he listed his ten favorite films as follows: Au hasard Balthazar, Flaming Creatures, The Girl from Chicago, Man with a Movie Camera, Pather Panchali, The Rules of the Game, Rose Hobart, Shoah, Two or Three Things I Know About Her..., and Vertigo.[16]
He is interviewed in the HBO documentary Spielberg to give insight into Steven Spielberg's work.