FILM CRITIC STANLEY KAUFFMAN DEAD AT 97

Stanley Kauffman, the erudite, influential film critic for The New Republic for 55 years, died in New York on Wednesday at the age of 97. His last review appeared on the magazine’s website only last August for the film Israel: A Home Movie. In its obituary, the New York Times said: “His abiding interest in theatrical givens like theme, story, dramatic construction and character could make him seem old-fashioned, and set him in direct opposition to the auteur school, with its emphasis on the formal aspects of film. Readers came to him for reviews that read like mini-tutorials, the product of a deeply literary mind and a graceful pen.”