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The Stone Reader (2003)
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Reviews Counted:64
Fresh:52
Rotten:12
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: This fascinating documentary will be of most interest to those who read and write for a living.
Theatrical Release:Feb 12, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: In this labor-of-love documentary, director-writer-producer Mark Moskowitz tackles a project he had been wanting to pursue since he was 18 years old. In 1972 he read a New York Times book review of... In this labor-of-love documentary, director-writer-producer Mark Moskowitz tackles a project he had been wanting to pursue since he was 18 years old. In 1972 he read a New York Times book review of THE STONES OF SUMMER by Dow Mossman, a title which would later became an object of obsession for Moskowitz. Though he shelved the book for 25 years, Moskowitz finally did read it and was amazed at its ingenuity. He was shocked that its onetime author never penned another book. Determined to solve this mystery, Moskowitz made THE STONE READER, documenting his research project in finding the forgotten author and getting to the bottom of the publishing mystery of how so many great works of literature, and great authors, just disappear. Moskowitz's infectious excitement about literature--reading it, collecting it, understanding it, enjoying it--comes through loud and clear in this inspiring film. He interviews some fascinating characters on his search for Mossman, including Frank Conroy, an author and the head of the Iowa University Writer's Workshop; Robert Gottlieb, the editor of Joseph Heller's CATCH 22 and former Editor-in-Chief at Simon & Schuster; and Leslie Fiedler, a literary critic and author of LOVE AND DEATH IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL. [More]
Director: Mark Moskowitz
Director: Mark Moskowitz
Screenwriter: Mark Moskowitz
Producer: Mark Moskowitz, Robert Goodman
Studio: Jet Films
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Reviews for The Stone Reader
As personal memoir, a story of men and the books that bind them, it's fairly complex but verges on maudlin.
A unique account of the impact of a work of art on a single man's mind and spirit.
Moskowitz has made a wonderful film about readers and reading, writers and writing.
Moskowitz may soon find himself in the same boat as many of the artists he is analyzing, because Stone Reader is going to be one tough act to follow.
It's a tribute to the transforming power of reading and a reminder of the Sisyphean task that reading can be.
Until Stone Reader, no film ever captured the thrill and romance of reading.
No insight into its subject matter (reading, readership, creation), but a lot of insight into Moskowitz and the contents of his bookshelf.
For a film that's obsessed with a book, it's amazing how little we learn about it. Nevertheless, we walk out of the theater longing to get our hands on it.
Enormously affectionate, gloriously self-indulgent and unhesitatingly heroic in its championing of good books.
Mark Moskowitz ? has made a quaintly interesting, but too long (at 128 minutes), self-involved docu-mystery for the literary-minded.
A great literary mystery...even though its subject is an author who, from the purely practical point of view, was a 'failure,' it proves an uplifting, even joyful, experience.
Stone Reader is an affirmation for anybody who loves to read and if you don't, this may inspire you - or at least help you understand those of us who do.
Such stuff will most appeal to an endangered species -- the devotee of literary fiction -- but anyone who gives a damn about the state of popular culture and the future of language will want to take heed.
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