Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > The Brothers Quay - J. Hoberman (review date 19 March 1996)

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J. Hoberman (review date 19 March 1996)

SOURCE: "Class Action," in The Village Voice, Vol. XLI, No. 12, March 19, 1996, p. 65.

[Hoberman is an American film critic and educator who writes on a wide variety of topics in contemporary and historical cinema; his books include Midnight Movies (1983; with Jonathan Rosenbaum), Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film between Two Worlds (1991), and Vulgar Modernism: Writing on Movies and Other Media (1991). In the following excerpt from a review of Institute Benjamenta and Ken Loach's Land and Freedom (1996), he describes the Quays' film as "a triumph of atmosphere" but adds that it "may strike some as an Homage to Catatonia."]

Institute Benjamenta, the first live-action feature by the erudite twin animators known as the Brothers Quay, provides its protagonist with [a] sort of European education…. [I]t's a course in obedience. Drawn mainly from the novel Jakob...

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1. Introduction
2. ∗Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Mark Le Fanu (essay date Spring 1984)
   2. Tony Rayns (review date June 1986)
   3. The Brothers Quay with Chris Petit (interview date June 1986)
   4. Julian Petley (review date June 1986)
   5. Raymond Durgnat (review date June 1986)
   6. Michael O'Pray (review date June 1986)
   7. Peter Greenaway (review date Summer 1986)
   8. Richard Combs (review date July 1986)
   9. Roger Noake (review date July 1986)
   10. Vincent Canby (review date 29 April 1987)
   11. David Edelstein (review date 5 May 1987)
   12. Amos Vogel (review date May-June 1987)
   13. Terrence Rafferty (essay date June 1987)
   14. Georgia Brown (review date 2 April 1991)
   15. Jonathan Romney (essay date March 1992)
   16. Jonathan Romney (review date May 1992)
   17. Denise Tilles (essay date January 1993)
   18. Michael Atkinson (essay date September-October 1994)
   19. The Brothers Quay with Ryan Deussing (interview date 9 February 1996)
   20. Stephen Holden (review date 13 March 1996)
   21. J. Hoberman (review date 19 March 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright