We are pleased to introduce J. M. Tyree as Film Quarterly‘s incoming editor-in-chief. Tyree works as an Associate Professor in the Cinema Program at VCUarts, and has served as a Writer-at-Large and Contributing Editor at Film Quarterly, and as a Nonfiction Editor at New England Review. His books on cinema include BFI Film Classics: Salesman (British Film Institute/Bloomsbury), BFI Film Classics: The Big Lebowski (with Ben Walters), Vanishing Streets (Stanford University Press), and Wonder, Horror, Mystery (with Morgan Meis, punctum books). His coauthored story collection, Our Secret Life in the Movies (with Michael McGriff, A Strange Object/Deep Vellum), was an NPR Best Books selection and appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition. He has spoken at London’s National Film Theatre, The Cleveland Cinematheque, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and he was invited to cast a critic’s ballot in the most recent Sight & Sound magazine Poll of the Greatest Films Ever Made.
We asked Tyree to tell us more about himself and his plans for Film Quarterly.
Tell us about yourself and your research interests.
I work at a public arts school, where I teach film history and advanced undergraduate seminars on contemporary cinema genres (this semester, a course on folk horror). I’m the author or coauthor of six books, including two titles in the British Film Institute’s BFI Film Classics series, and my recent publications for Film Quarterly have focused on contemporary British cinema, including Richard Billingham’s Ray & Liz, David Lowery’s The Green Knight, Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men, and Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter. I’m a generalist’s generalist, and unabashedly interested in everything cinematic. I’m also a student of coauthorship and collaborative artistic practice as a challenge to individualistic theories of art, and I have tried consistently to practice what I preach by coauthoring several of my books along the way!
What drew you to the editorship of Film Quarterly?
As a longtime contributor to the journal under extraordinary Film Quarterly Editors—Rob White, B. Ruby Rich, and current EIC Rebecca Prime, as well as Guest Editor David Sterritt and FQ’s current online Quorum Editor, Girish Shambu—I have seen first-hand how rigorous editing shapes individual articles while curating powerful issues greater than the sum of their parts. In my opinion, editing, as a form of critical and collaborative practice with authors, exists at a point of resistance to the quick fixes of online puffery, social media hot takes, and bogus metrics and ratings that dominate how everyone now consumes film and commentary. Longer takes in film criticism, like those offered in the pages of Film Quarterly, can open into depth and complexity when films are considered and reconsidered in connection with one another by critics who are not beholden to the logic of profit, Likes, or the attention economy. The larger theme of David Sax’s book, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, offers clues to viewers and readers from any generation who are currently suffering from pixel fatigue.
What makes Film Quarterly unique and where is it headed next?
Film Quarterly has a well-earned reputation for accessible intellectual writing about cinema, surfing waves between academia and the public sphere. One of the most exciting aspects of film criticism involves its ability to reach specialist and educated non-specialist audiences alike. I seek to remain true to this core mission of the journal, while also cultivating innovative emergent fields in film criticism, such as rigorous critical-creative essays on cinema in which first-person subjectivity more firmly enters the frame. I want Film Quarterly to be a place where scholars at all levels of career progress speak to audiences within and beyond their specialisms by commenting on recent productions or cinema classics connected with their areas of knowledge and expertise. The present crises unfolding on all fronts—inside and outside of film industries, cinema cultures, journalism, and academia—are economic, political, environmental, and artistic. These converging crises make criticism more necessary and urgent, not less so, at least in my way of seeing things.
How may people submit their work?
Film Quarterly accepts submissions online via Scholastica at https://filmquarterly.scholasticahq.com/. We encourage authors to review the journal’s author guidelines prior to submission.
J.M. Tyree’s work has appeared frequently in the pages of Film Quarterly, including:
“Searching for Somewhere,” on the reception of Sofia Coppola’s film and online film culture (2011, 64.4)
“The Return of Miserablism,” on Richard Billingham’s Ray & Liz (2019, 73.1)
“The Green Knight: Non-Whiteness and Landscape Punk in “A24orror,” on David Lowery’s filmed adaptation (2021, FQ Quorum post)
“Specters of Brexit in Recent British Horror,” on Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men and Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter (2023, 77.2)