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Review Quotes:
"Thomson is widely regarded as the greatest living writer on film, which gives him the right to indict it. Rather than simply a history of cinema,
A Sudden Flicker of Light argues that film has spent a century training audiences toward passivity and fantasy, which has had consequences for culture and politics."
--Cultured Magazine
Review Quotes:
"Thomson is considered a preeminent film critic and historian, and this absolutely essential, indispensable book shows us why."
--Booklist (starred review)
Biographical Note:
David Thomson is the author of more than twenty books, including biographies of David O. Selznick and Orson Welles, and
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. His writing and his books have been featured in
The New York Times,
The Guardian, the
Los Angeles Times,
The Atlantic,
Esquire,
Slate, and many more. He lives in San Francisco.
Review Quotes:
"More than a flicker of light: a flood of illumination."
--Kirkus Reviews
Review Quotes:
"A feast for cinephiles."
--Publishers Weekly
Publisher Marketing:
From one of cinema's wisest and most penetrating observers, an arresting new perspective on the sweep of film history.
David Thomson has been called "the greatest living writer on the movies." Here is a career capstone of sorts--a one-volume history of film and screens as illuminating and provocative as his classic
Biographical Dictionary of Film. In tracing the progress, from the Lumiere Brothers to the Coens, Thomson glories in the great movies, but admits to increasing unease over what the medium has done to us--promoting fantasy, misleading models of sexual identity, the cult of authority, power, and happy endings.
This revisionist history is as alert to technology and business as it is to art and fun in tracing our pursuit of the lifelike instead of life. By turns trenchant, lyrical, and comic, Thomson uncovers our addiction to voyeurism and villainy, and a habit of passivity that has betrayed our political and cultural identity. In a survey that reaches from
Metropolis to
Rear Window to
Anora, this will redirect ideas about film everywhere. As
The
New York Times has put it, "Thomson proves anew that he is irreplaceable."
Review Citations:
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Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2026 (EAN 9781668205730, Hardcover)
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Publishers Weekly 05/04/2026 (EAN 9781668205730, Hardcover)
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Booklist 06/01/2026 (EAN 9781668205730, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
Contributor Bio:Thomson, David
David Thomson is the author of more than twenty books, including biographies of David O. Selznick and Orson Welles, and
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. His writing and his books have been featured in
The New York Times,
The Guardian, the
Los Angeles Times,
The Atlantic,
Esquire,
Slate, and many more. He lives in San Francisco.
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