Amy Taubin (; born September 10, 1938) is an American author and film critic. She is a

contributing editor A contributing editor is a newspaper, magazine or online job title that varies in its responsibilities. Often, but not always, a contributing editor is a "high-end" freelancer, consultant, or expert who has proven ability and has readership dra ...

for two prominent film magazines, the British ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...

'' and the American ''

Film Comment ''Film Comment'' is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, ''Film ...

''. She has also written regularly for the ''

SoHo Weekly News The ''SoHo Weekly News'' (SWN) was a weekly alternative newspaper founded by music publicist Michael Goldstein and published in New York City from 1973 to 1982. Positioned as a competitor to ''The Village Voice'', it struggled financially. T ...

'', ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'', '' The Millennium Film Journal'', and ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

'', and used to be curator of video and film at the non-profit experimental performance space The Kitchen.

Life and career

Taubin attended

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...

as an undergrad and received an MA from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Taubin is also a filmmaker,

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

, and educator. She is one of the people visible in

Michael Snow Michael James Aleck Snow (December 10, 1928 – January 5, 2023) was a Canadian artist who worked in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Rég ...

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

Wavelength In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves ...

''. Taubin has served on the board of trustees of the

Anthology Film Archives Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the film preservation, preservation, film studies, study, and film distribution, exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent film, independent, experimental film, ex ...

; She was named as a Distinguished Art Historian-Teacher at the New York

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

, Department of Humanities and Sciences; and has served on the selection committee for the

Film Society of Lincoln Center Film at Lincoln Center (FLC), previously known as the Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC) until 2019,Aridi, Sara (April 28, 2019).. ''The New York Times''. nytimes.com. Retrieved April 29, 2019. is a nonprofit organization based in New York Cit ...

. In 2020, Taubin was awarded a writer grant, in the short-form writing category, by the Warhol Foundation. In her statement on receiving the prize, she said she planned to use the funds to survey the '"time machine of cinema available on our home screens."'

Selected works

Books

* ''Ghosts in the Machine'', Village Voice, 1998. * ''Douglas Gordon: through a looking glass'', co-authored with Gagosian Gallery, Hal Hartle and Kay C. Pallister, Gagosian Gallery, 1999. * ''Taxi Driver'', BFI Publishing, 2nd ed., 2012. * ''James Nares'', co-authored with Glenn O'Brien and Ed Halter, Rizzoli International, 2014. * ''The complete films of Agnès Varda'', co-authored Michael Koresky, Ginette Vincendeau, So Mayer, et al., The Criterion Collection, 2020. (The book is part of a 15-disc Blu-Ray collection.)

Articles

* ''"So there, Orwell": 1984: a video review'', co-authored with John Howell, Louisiana World Exposition, 1984. * ''Stands by his man: On Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand'', Artform international, October 2003. * ''Eastern exposure on recent Asian cinema'', Artform international, November 2004. * ''Common sense'', Film comment, Vol. 52, no. 6, November/December 2016.

References

External links

* 1938 births Living people American film critics National Society of Film Critics Members The Village Voice people American women film critics 20th-century American journalists American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American women journalists 20th-century American women writers SoHo Weekly News people 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American women journalists 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers {{US-film-critic-stub