Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Canon and Canonicity
same time, growing scholarly interest in commercial,
cult, and previously marginalized cinemas has expanded
the criteria applied to canon selection. These shifts have
enlarged the fringes of the canon, such that Tokyo
nagaremono (Tokyo Drifter, Seijun Suzuki, 1966), a
campy, pop art genre picture, is as likely to be featured
in today’s film magazine or college cinema course as the
venerated classic Tokyo monogatari (Tokyo Story,
Yasujiro Ozu, 1953). As individuals are encouraged to
compare their ‘‘top tens’’ to those of critics, and access
to films and film scholarship expands, the re-evaluation,
expansion, and renewal of the canon will continue.
SEE ALSO Auteur Theory and Authorship; Criticism;
Film History
FURTHER READING
Bazin, André. What Is Cinema?, 2 vols. Translated by Hugh
Gray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Bordwell, David. On the History of Film Style. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1997.
Christie, Ian. ‘‘Canon Fodder.’’ Sight and Sound 2, no. 8
(December 1992): 31–33.
Rotha, Paul. The Film Till Now, 3rd ed. New York: Twayne, 1960.
Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions,
1928–1968. New York: Dutton, 1968.
Staiger, Janet. ‘‘The Politics of Film Canons.’’ Cinema Journal
24, no. 3 (Spring 1985): 4—23.
Lisa Dombrowski
220 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM