SOURCE: Asahina, Robert. “Sorting Out the Film Glut.” New Leader 65, no. 2 (25 January 1982): 21.

In the following excerpt, Asahina criticizes Forman's directorial skills in Ragtime.

When E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime was published a few years ago, there was much heavy-handed discussion of its fanciful mixture of fact and fiction. In retrospect, the controversy seems to have grossly exaggerated the seriousness of what actually is little more than an entertaining commercial novel with a distinctly cartoonish quality. The film adaptation, [Ragtime,] on the other hand, directed by Milos Foreman from a script by Michael Weller, exhibits precisely the pretentiousness the book was wrongly accused of, while lacking Doctorow's humor and inventiveness.

Part of the problem is time, or the dearth of it; like most novels, Ragtime contains much more than any film could cover. So some elements of the book's plot are neglected, and others are thoughtlessly retained. The subplot involving...