James F. Monaco (November 15, 1942 – November 25, 2019) was an American
film critic
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets ...
,
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
,
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
, and
educator
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
.
Life and Work
Monaco founded
Baseline in 1982, an early online database about the entertainment industry, and a forerunner of the
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
. It was taken over by
The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is an American mass media company that publishes ''The New York Times''. Its headquarters are in Manhattan, New York City.
History
The company was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones in New York City. T ...
in 2006. In 2011 the Times sold the company to Project Hollywood LLC, which is majority owned by entrepreneurs Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein, who sold it to
Gracenote
Gracenote, Inc. is a company owned by Nielsen Holdings that provides music, video and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies, worldwide. Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Base ...
in 2014 for a reported $50 million.
He has taught at
The New School for Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
,
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
, and the
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
. He was a media
commentator for
Morning Edition
''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 AM ...
on
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
in the 1980s, and has written for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'', and ''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
''.
He wrote several books, including ''The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette'' (1976), ''How To Read A Film'' (1977, 1981, 1999, 2009)
Google Books
/ref> and ''American Film Now'' (1979). Monaco was also a contributing editor and writer to the Canadian film magazine, Take One, for many years.
He was the founder and president of UNET 2 Corporation, and he ran Harbor Electronic Publishing in New York and Sag Harbor. In 2012 he co-founded the Long Island Nature Organization, Inc., sponsors of the annual Long Island Natural History Conference.
Since 2001 In Germany a reputable student film award is named after James F. Monaco, "Der Goldene Monaco" or The Golden Monaco
https://www.dergoldenemonaco.de/]
Every year the student award is handed over to the winners in a large Oscar like show in front of up to 1,600 students in th
Siegerlandhalle
a large venue in the city of University of Siegen, the University of Siegen, where the award was born.
James Monaco died of vascular disease on November 25, 2019.
Published works
*''The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette''. Oxford University Press, 1976
*''How to Read A Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond''. Oxford University Press, 1977, 1981, 2000, 2009
*''Celebrity''. Dell, 1978
*''Media Culture''. Dell, 1978
*''Alain Resnais: The Role of Imagination''. Oxford University Press, 1978
*''American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, The Movies''. Oxford University Press, 1979. New York Zoetrope, updated edition 1984
*''Who's Who in American Film Now''. New York Zoetrope, 1981, updated edition 1987
*''The French Revolutionary Calendar''. New York Zoetrope, 1982.
*''The Connoisseur's Guide to the Movies''. Facts on File Publications, 1985
*''The International Encyclopedia of Film''. Putnam and Virgin, 1991
*''The Movie Guide. Putnam and Virgin'', 1992, 1994
*''Cinemania: Interactive Movie Guide'' - DVD-ROM. (Contributor) Microsoft, 1992
*''The Dictionary of New Media''. Harbor Electronic Publishing, 1999
*''How To Read a Film: Multimedia Edition''. Harbor Electronic Publishing, 2000
References
External links
About James Monaco - readfilm.com
Background and Links
1942 births
American educators
Living people
American publishers (people)
20th-century American non-fiction writers
{{US-nonfiction-writer-stub