Science fiction in the cinema

by John Baxter

Paperback Paperback Library Edition; 1st Printing edition (1970) B002B8ZMO8

Genres: Reference, Film, Nonfiction

237 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

John Baxter (born 1939 in Randwick, New South Wales) is an Australian-born writer, journalist, and film-maker.

Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as in his native Sydney, but has made his home in Paris since 1989, where he is married to the film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel. They have one daughter, Louise.

He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New Worlds, Science Fantasy and other British magazines. His first novel, though serialised in New Worlds as THE GOD KILLERS, was published as a book in the US by Ace as The Off-Worlders. He was Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia in 1975-1976. He has written a number of short stories and novels in that genre and a book about SF in the movies, as well as editing collections of Australian science fiction.

Baxter has also written a large number of other works dealing with the movies, including biographies of film personalities, including Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert De Niro. He has written a number of documentaries, including a survey of the life and work of the painter Fernando Botero. He also co-produced, wrote and presented three television series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Filmstruck, First Take and The Cutting Room, and was co-editor of the ABC book programme Books And Writing.

In the 1960s, he was a member of the WEA Film Study Group with such notable people as Ian Klava, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Thornhill, John Flaus and Ken Quinnell. From July 1965 to December 1967 the WEA Film Study Group published the cinema journal FILM DIGEST. This journal was edited by John Baxter.

For a number of years in the sixties, he was active in the Sydney Film Festival, and during the 1980s served in a consulting capacity on a number of film-funding bodies, as well as writing film criticism for The Australian and other periodicals. Some of his books have been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Chinese.

Since moving to Paris, he has written four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable feast : a Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World : a Pedestrian in Paris.

Since 2007 he has been co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop.

Reviews

[Freder · Rating 2 out of 5]

While useful as a reference work, as criticism the book is exceedingly annoying. Baxter is one of those self-indulgent critics who tries to build himself up by tearing down absolutely anything that is even remotely popular, while praising to the skies films that are (usually deservedly) obscure. To say that I disagree with most of his assessments is putting it mildly. A book of this type should make you want to track down the films that it praises -- this has the opposite effect.

[Janne Wass · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting time capsule from a time when SF movies were not yet accepted as A-movie fare. Baxter is well-informed, but it is a weird feeling writing a book about science fiction movies written by someone who clearly despises most of all science fiction movies ever made. Baxter feels like the old-school SF fan whose clear opinion is that SF is a literary genre, period, and cannot be translated into film in a satisfactory manner.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baxter’s book was published in 1970, so it is out of date without being dated. Its virtues are that he has a good feel for what sci-fi fiction and cinema are, and how they differ, far better than most. He returns to this, as appropriate, throughout the book. Baxter also has an international slant, considering films from all over the world. He has an inclusive view of what should be included as a sci-fi film, and so discusses selected horror and fantasy films when there is a scientific angle, or when they shed light on the films and film makers who are more typically sci-fi. The main negative, and it is a big one, is that he has a tendency to use words such as “excellent” and “superb” to describe movie serials and potboilers such as the entertaining films of Jack Arnold. This leaves me in doubt as to weather or not Baxter knows a great film from one that is merely fun, so those parts of his book are hard to trust. In the one area where I am expert, Shakespeare, he way overstates the similarities between THE TEMPEST and FORBIDDEN PLANET, which creates further doubt. This is the best book on sci-fi film I have read. It has much to recommend it, but I am still waiting for a really great book on the subject written be someone whose perspective I can trust.

[Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of the International Film Guide Series, John Baxter's book is a wide-ranging history and analysis of science fiction film and television. Given that it was published in 1970, it goes up to 2001 but stops shy of Star Wars and the resulting renaissance in science fiction and related adventure series movies. Baxter's commentary is extremely smart and savvy, and the book's really done a job on my Netflix queue. A wonderful survey of the genre. (I actually have the 1970 Paperback Library edition rather than this edition.)