A Letter From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

TIME Senior Writer and Film Critic Richard Corliss watched his first movie, Cheaper by the Dozen, at age five in his hometown of Philadelphia. Eleven years and countless boxes of popcorn later, he viewed Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and was struck by the realization that films could be more than mere entertainment. That marked the beginning of a fascination with the cinema that took Corliss to the Cote d'Azur to report this week's two-page Show Business story on the Cannes Film Festival.

Between Philadelphia and the French Riviera was a lengthy apprenticeship. At St. Joseph's College, Corliss helped edit the school newspaper. After studying film history at Columbia University and at New York University, he worked as a film critic for publications as disparate as the National Review, New Times and the now defunct Soho News before joining TIME in 1980. In addition to his reviewer's duties, Corliss co-edits a bimonthly journal called Film Comment (circ. 48,000), scouts films for the New York Film Festival's program committee and is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, an association of reviewers who write for magazines and newspapers.

Corliss likens his sojourn in Cannes to "summer camp in the dark." It was his 15th consecutive festival (he started attending in 1973). "In Cannes, critics mingle with charming men and beautiful women whose films they secretly plan to savage. For a fortnight on the Riviera, I had a great time."

Back in New York City, Corliss avoids film-industry receptions and social contacts with actors and actresses. "Critics by nature are antisocial beasts. We dodge movie stars because we don't want to believe that those huge gorgeous creatures on the screen are real, tiny people with real, tender feelings that could be dented by an offhand joke in print." Each week he sees an average of a dozen films, usually in screening rooms but sometimes in crowded Times Square theaters. "I like to slip into theaters unnoticed. On Broadway the audience's critical comments are often more piquant than mine, and more interesting than the movie we're all watching."

Despite his familiarity with almost every aspect of the moviemaking business, Corliss has no interest in writing screenplays, directing, producing or acting. Says he: "I'm more analytic than creative. My main interest is batting out shapely prose that will inform the reader."