Janet Maslin | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, U.S. | August 12, 1949
Education | University of Rochester ( BA) |
Occupation | Journalist |
Years active | 1970–present |
Employer | The New York Times |
Known for | Film and literary criticism |
Spouses | |
Children | 2 |
Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. [1] She served as a Times film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, Maslin helped found the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. She is president of its board of directors. [2] [3]
Maslin graduated from the University of Rochester in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. [4]
Maslin began her career as a rock music critic for The Boston Phoenix and became a film editor and critic for that publication. She also worked as a freelancer for Rolling Stone and worked at Newsweek. [5]
Maslin became a film critic for The New York Times in 1977. From December 1, 1994, she replaced Vincent Canby as the chief film critic. [5] Maslin continued to review films for The Times until 1999, when she briefly left the newspaper. [6] Her film criticism career, including her embrace of American independent cinema, is discussed in the documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009). In the documentary, Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum recalls the excitement of having a woman as the lead reviewer at The New York Times. In a 2005 interview with Aaron Aradillas at Rockcritics.com, Maslin explained she quit reviewing films because she experienced burnout, expressing gratitude it ended when it did. [4] Filmmaker Harmony Korine, whose directorial debut feature Gummo (1997) Maslin famously called "worst film of the year", [7] [8] [9] noted how Maslin stopped working as a movie critic not long after. [10] [11]
From 1994 to 2003, Maslin was a frequent guest on Charlie Rose. Overall she made 61 appearances on the program. [12]
From 2000 she worked as a book reviewer for The New York Times; from 2015 as a contributor as opposed to being their full-time critic. [6] As of 2023 [update], Maslin continues to review books for the newspaper, albeit sparsely. Her latest[ when?] review is for Dennis Lehane's novel Small Mercies, speculating it might be the author's last and concluding with "As epitaphs go, you could do a lot worse." [13] Among her reviews are many enthusiastic discoveries of then-unknown crime writers, the first American assessment of an Elena Ferrante novel, and a 2011 essay on the widowed Joyce Carol Oates's memoir, A Widow's Story, which offended some of Oates's admirers. [14] [15]