Quotes from Godard illustrated by his wife and early muse, my own style inspiration and personal patron saint, the lovely and talented* Anna Karina.

*Not sure if you’d noticed, but I only bill as “lovely and talented” those who take it off. Write that down.

All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun. (Journal entry, 5/16/91)

“Light me up!” Still of Anna Karina as Natacha van Braun from Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution / Alphaville (1965)

I don’t think you should feel about a movie. You should feel about a woman. You can’t kiss a movie.

Still with Jean-Paul Belmondo from Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a Woman (1961), previously highlighted with “Look, Ma, no gag reflex!” still here back in September.

“In films, we are trained by the American way of moviemaking to think we must understand and ‘get’ everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don’t understand each atom of the potato!” (Interview with David Sherritt, The Christian Science Monitor, 8/3/94)

Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a Woman (1961)

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. (Critique called “What Is Cinema?” for Les Amis du Cinéma , 10/1/52, a work which advanced the auteur theory but also kind of ripped off Bazin, which is weird cause Bazin would’ve read it and was a big influence on Godard but this was done contemporaneously of Bazin himself working on something titled this, about this, so maybe the quote is misattributed? … or maybe there is more to it than I know with my tiny ken of French movie guys, maybe it was a done thing to borrow titles from one another, or perhaps it was a continuation of a dialogue they were already having both in person and via publications, or, finally, it could even have been an “understood” question which anyone might use as the title of a book or article … I am probably over-reading it.)

Hands down my favorite picture of Anna Karina

Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion. (“Defense and Illustration of Classical Construction,” Cahiers du Cinéma, 9/15/52)

Cover or liner art for her album, a collaboration with the dread Serge G

The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea. (“Strangers on a Train,” Cahiers du Cinéma 3/10/52 — Godard wrote extensively and insightfully in his early career about the movies of Hitchcock, one of my favorite and I think misunderstood directors; I’ll try to share some good nuggets from time to time)

Anna cahorts about topless as Anne in 1968’s The Magus, also starring Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek), Michael Caine, and Candace Bergen (Murphy Brown) — no one seems to like this movie but me. That’s okay, because I like it a lot.

Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second. (Le petit soldad / The Little Soldier, 1963.)

With Jean-Paul Belmondo again, this time as Ferdinand and Marianne in the sort of romantic-tragi-comedy-crime-caper Pierrot le fou / Crazy Pete / Pierre Goes Wild (1965).

To be or not to be? That’s not really a question. (unsourced)

Screencap with subtitles from Une femme est une femme / A Woman is a Woman (1961).

New in at Cinema Books: A Short History of Cahiers du Cinema by Emilie Bickerton, $22.95 cloth.  Michael Wood describes this small volume as a “deft account of the real life and virtual death of Cahiers du cinema.  The cinema itself lived and died in its pages, and it would be hard to imagine a better brief guide . . .”

Hoje saiu na Ilustrada uma entrevista com Jean-Michel Frodon, ex-editor chefe do Cahiers du Cinéma, e voz na crítica francesa e internacional.

O principal tema da entrevista foi sua visão sobre o cinema brasileiro, o qual foi considerado uma decepção por tudo aquilo que se esperava de nosso cinema após da redemocratização.

Frodon, antes de tudo, é um olhar estrangeiro para cá e ainda mais sendo francês e da revista de cinema mais influente do mundo carrega um direcionamento de olhar muito marcado pelo exotismo e o ineditismo.

Não se pode negar que um crítico europeu (e na mesma categoria, curadores e júris de festivais, distribuidores) não vê mais o cinema latino-americano como via há 30 anos, porque lá nos anos 60, a América Latina era “terreno virgem”, um lugar livre para criar um cinema diferente do americano. O cinema latino-americano era uma espécie de “bom selvagem”.

É isso que combatia Glauber Rocha. Nossa fome é  de entendimento. Ninguém quer por aqui o olhar exótico eurocêntrico. Com o tempo, a novidade acabou: Glauber e Joaquim Pedro morreram, Nelson Pereira deu uma decaída, Jabor parou de filmar, crise dos anos 80, o fim das ditaduras sul-americanas e o olhar daqui deixou demostrar grande smazelas humanas e só voltou para o interior dos seres e da vida.

Estou especulando, obviamente, mas quando o cinema latino-americano perde esse caráter “selvagem”, os europeus perdem o interesse. Acabou o exótico e, com o tempo, deixou de ser novidade filmes latino-americanos em festivais internacionais. A crítica (a francesa em especial) tem essa fome de descobrir a nova “novidade” do cinema.

Hoje a Europa se volta para a Ásia – a coqueluche da vez são as Filipinas, a Coréia e a Tailândia. Um dia o olhar eurocêntrico se voltará para outro lugar, com certeza. Quem sabe pra cá de novo.

Mas, afinal, quem precisa deles?

Ontem fui à banca e vi a edição de setembro da “Cahiers du Cinéma” (essas coisas sempre chegam com certo atraso) e ela tem mudança na chefia de redação: sai Jean-Michel Frodon, entra Stéphane Delorme. A revista mais influente de cinema da história está pronta para reformulação.

Em janeiro deste ano, a revista foi comprada pela Phaidon Press, editora inglesa de livros de artes plásticas. A promessa com o anúncio do novo chefe de redação é uma modernização da revista tanto da aproximação junto aos filmes, quanto na parte visual. Há a promessa preparar a revista para o novo século (o que significa que já estão atrasados uns… 10 anos).

Nada muito concreto, por enquanto, e a promessa de novo visual já em 2010. Com a Phaidon, me parece, a idéia é internacionalizar a revista  (edição em inglês?). Segundo o press release da editora, Delorme tem o perfil ideal para a nova fase da revista. A escolha dele significa algo se pensarmos que é um jovem crítico de 35 anos substituindo um renomado crítico de 58. Novos ares talvez? Mais juventude, mais pegada? As promessas são interessantes (a revista com aproximação às novas características da produção e cinefilia internacional, espaço crítico de criação e análise), mas como eu já disse, por enquanto é promessa.

Nesta edição, destaque para Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura, novo Manoel de Oliveira, e Un prophète, segundo Delorme no editorial “o mais importante filme francês do ano” (e prêmio do júri no último festival de Cannes – por que não veio para a Mostra deste ano, aliás?).

Chamou minha atenção a extensa crítica a Bastardos Inglórios que me deixou com a impressão de analisar o filme com um certo pé atrás (aliás, segundo o crítico “Cães de Aluguel é nulo”).

Eu, particularmente, achei o filme uma obra-prima (ou será que Tarantino me convenceu com seu final?)

“El pesimismo tiene muy poca relación con el arte – escribía Andreï Tarkovski en su Diario del 9 de septiembre de 197o (“Journal 1970-1986“) (Cahiers du cinema) – La literatura, como el arte en general, es de esencia religiosa. En sus más altas manifestaciones, ella da fuerzas, inspira la esperanza frente al mundo moderno tan monstruosamente cruel y que, en su desatino, llega al absurdo. El verdadero arte moderno tiene la necesidad de una catarsis que purifique a los hombres ante las catástrofes ( o la catrástofe) que vayan a llegar. Tanto peor si esta esperanza es un señuelo, pero ella da la fuerza de vivir y de amar lo bello. Sin esperanza, el hombre muere. Conviene, en el arte, mostrar este horror en el que viven los hombres, pero solamente para encontrar un medio de expresar la Fe y la Esperanza. ¿En qué? En que, a pesar de todo, el hombre está lleno de buena voluntad y del sentimiento de su dignidad. Justo ante la muerte. En que él nunca traicionará su ideal, su milagro, su vocación de hombre”.

“La humanidad – escribía el mismo día – ha hecho todo para destruirse. En primer lugar moralmente – y la muerte física no es más que el resultado. Como los hombres son pequeños, lamentables y sin defensa, cuando ellos piensan en el “pan”, y solamente en el pan, no ven que esta manera de ser sólo les conduce a la muerte. (…) La hora de la virtud personal ha sonado. Es el banquete en los tiempos de la peste. No se puede salvar a los otros sin salvarse uno mismo. En el sentido espiritual, naturalmente. Los esfuerzos colectivos son estériles. Somos hombres y hemos perdido el instinto de conservación de la especie que poseen las hormigas y las abejas. En cambio, hermos recibido un alma inmortal – pero la humanidad escupe encima de ella con una alegría malsana. El instinto no nos salvará. ¡Y nosotros hemos escupido sobre las bases espirituales y morales!”.

Varias veces he hablado de Tarkovski en Mi Siglo. De “Nosthalgia“. De “Solaris“. De “Sacrificio“. Y de las relaciones indirectas de la epoca de Stalin con el gran director ruso. En este Diario que tantas aportaciones interesantes ofrece, Tarkovski anota el día 8 de marzo de 1982 los problemas que ha tenido el día anterior en la aduana de Cheremetievo antes de salir para Roma para preparar “Nosthalgia“: “En la aduana he tenido mucho miedo. El funcionario me ordena abrir mi maleta y extrae uno de mis carnets. Inmediatamente lo pasa a su superior para que lo examine. Yo desconocía que se necesitaba una autorización especial para transportar manuscritos: no la tenía. Entonces se aleja un poco y en ese momento su colega, hojeando mi cuaderno, descubre la foto de Soljenitsin con su hijo. Yo le aclaro, puesto que ellos exigen muchas explicaciones, que esa foto se encuentra ahí por casualidad. Él la vuelve a guardar y cierra mi cuaderno. El primer funcionario vuelve entonces – el segundo no dice nada- para preguntarme si yo llevo iconos. Le he contestado que no tenía nada de eso, aunque él ciertamente ha visto mi crucifjo con su detector. Y ya no me pregunta nada más…¡He tenido suerte!”.

Nos olvidamos quizá de cómo eran algunos férreos sistemas políticos no hace muchos años. Así intentaba salir hacia Italia el director de “Stalker” y de ”Andreï Roublev“, cuyas últimas notas de “Diario” están fechadas el 15 de diciembre de 1986 en París.

(Imágenes:-1-Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) y Hari (Natacha Bondartchouk) en “Solaris”/2.-una escena de “Nosthalgia”/3.-Andreï Tarkovski)

Ancora riguardo la polemica sul cinema e i finanziamenti, vi riporto il testo di un articolo dei Cahiers du Cinèma del 2007, nel quale vengono elaborate una serie di proposte e riforme che mi sento di condividere pienamente e che anche lo Stato italiano dovrebbe prendere in esame. Ecco il testo integrale:

Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film and first and only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury.

The film starred Oskar Werner as Montag and Julie Christie who was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role award for the dual roles of Linda (Mildred) Montag and Clarisse.

Trivia:

• Among the books burned by the firemen is the film journal “Cahiers du Cinema” for which director François Truffaut wrote. Pictured on the cover is a picture from À bout de souffle (1960), written by Truffaut. Also among the books burned is “The Martian Chronicles” and “Fahrenheit 451″ itself, both written by Ray Bradbury.
• Director François Truffaut was so eager to begin filming that he and co-writer Jean-Louis Richard wrote the screenplay before they had fully mastered English. Ultimately, Truffaut was disappointed in the awkward, stilted English-language dialogue; he was much happier with the French-dubbed version, which he supervised.
• The first and only English language film for director François Truffaut.
• The film’s credits are spoken, not read, in keeping with the film’s theme of destruction of reading material.
• According to producer Lewis M. Allen, François Truffaut and Oskar Werner hated each other by the end of filming. For the last two weeks, they didn’t speak to one another.
• For the part of the captain, producers considered Laurence Olivier, Sterling Hayden, and Michael Redgrave before hiring Cyril Cusack.
• According to producer Lewis M. Allen, it was his last-minute idea to have Julie Christie play both main female roles. Allen says Terence Stamp then withdrew from playing Montag because Stamp felt that with two parts, Christie would overshadow him.
• Oskar Werner cut his hair for the final scene to purposely create a continuity error. This was due to his hatred for the director.
• The title of the movie (and the book) comes from the exact temperature at which paper catches fire.
• Author Ray Bradbury never did any fact-checking in regards to the title. He asked a fire chief what temperature book paper burned at, and was given the answer “451 degrees Fahrenheit.” He liked the title so much, he didn’t bother to see if it was the correct temperature (it is.)
• Paul Newman, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Aznavour, Peter O’Toole, and Terence Stamp were all considered for the role of Montag.
• Montgomery Clift supposedly also passed on the Guy Montag role.
• Books shown or mentioned in the movie: – Don Quixote – Othello, the Moor of Venice – Vanity Fair – Madame Bovary – Le monde a coté – Alice’s Adventues in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass – Gaspard Hauser – Robinson Crusoe – The World of Salvador Dali – Jeanne d’Arc – Life and Loves – The Weather – My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin – Les negres – Confessions of an Irish Rebel – The Ginger Man – Petrouchka – The Catcher In The Rye – The Moon and Sixpence – Lolita – David Copperfield – Mein Kampf – She Might Have Been Queen – Social Aspects of Disease – The Ethics of Aristotle – The Brothers Karamazov – The Sorrows of Young Werther – The Martian Chronicles – Plato’s Republic – Fahrenheit 451 – Pride and Prejudice
• The scene where the fireman first put on his gear, is filmed in reverse. The same scene but in normal run is used again later for him to take out his gear.
• Amongst the actresses considered for the role of Clarisse/Linda Montag was Jean Seberg.
• François Truffaut’s first film in color.
• Although film editor Thom Noble speculates on the DVD that the books burned in the film’s fire sequences were all director François Truffaut’s, the director actually solicited paperbacks from grips, electricians and other crew members working on the film because he felt that well-worn, dogeared copies achieved the effect he wanted to convey.
• Many of the books burned during the entire movie are director François Truffaut’s favorites. Producer Lewis M. Allen says that it’s possible that Truffaut himself brought the books.
• According to producer Lewis M. Allen, François Truffaut spoke virtually no English, and the cast and crew mostly operated in French. Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, cinematographer Nicolas Roeg and associate producer Michael Dalamar all spoke French. Allen had high school French, but editor Thom Noble did not speak the language at all.
• Producer Lewis M. Allen said the studio’s legal department requested that only books in the public domain be shown burning for fear of being sued by offended authors. Director François Truffaut and Allen ignored the request, believing that anyone would be flattered to have their book included.
• Director ‘Francois Truffaut’ cast Oskar Werner, the star of his classic Jules et Jim (1962), in the role of Guy Montag, after Terence Stamp dropped out of the role because he apparently had problems with the idea of co-starring with Julie Christie, his former lover. Stamp felt that Christie’s appearing in dual roles would overshadow him. Losing his ideal Montag (the film after all was set in England), Truffaut turned to the Austrian Werner, whose accent and demeanor were decidedly non-English. The great director came to regret his casting choice as he became dismayed by Werner’s interpretation of the character and the two frequently clashed.
• The location filming of the final sequence with the “Book People” took place in poor weather. It was hoped that the weather would improve for the final days of shooting. Instead, they discovered that it had begun snowing during the night. The filming of the final shots while it was snowing was an unplanned contribution to the film’s memorable ending.
• Anton Diffring is dubbed.
• While shooting in London Truffaut felt no rapport with the English crew since he spoke only French, so off the set he held up in the hotel room for six months and had his meals brought to his room. When he got back in Paris, his friends asked him what swinging London was like and he answered “I don’t know – I just got out of the Hilton.”
• François Truffaut considered science fiction as uninteresting and arbitrary and because he was saying that someone told him the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. Immediately after hearing the story Truffaut wanted to make a movie about it and it took him years to raise the money for making it.
• François Truffaut said that only in this movie he had serious troubles with an actor and that was Oskar Werner. Truffaut asked Oskar to forget heroics and play with great deal of modesty, but he wanted to play it with arrogance. They were constantly misunderstanding each other. Truffaut didn’t like robotic performance that Oskar gave and asked him to play it like a monkey discovering books for the first time, sniffing at them, wondering what they are; but Oskar said that because it was science fiction film he’ll play it like a robot.
• Because François Truffaut had so much trouble with the leading actor, Oskar Werner, he said that if he hasn’t wasted six years into making this film that he would of left the set like a shot.

Galera, to indo foder com os caras que estão atazanando a vida dos meus vizinhos coreanos. Abraço!

Existe desafio maior para um ser humano do que ser, ao mesmo tempo, um velho republicano e um cineasta adorado por gregos e troianos?

Todo mundo gosta do Clint Eastwood. Toda vez que o cara termina um filme, uma fila incomensurável se forma para lamber as rugosas bolas desse homem de 78 anos de idade. Roger Ebert, Cahiers du Cinema, tá todo mundo ali ajoelhando e rezando pelo homem.

Clint Eastwood é um cineasta perfeito? Longe disso. Ele já contracenou com um orangotango, e fez uma porção de filmes meia-boca. Mas sempre que Clint dá uma derrapada, a gente dá uma colher de chá pro vovô.

Por quê? Porque Clint Eastwood é um respiro saudável nesse universo cinematográfico da elegância e do bom gosto. O mundo, e especialmente o cinema, precisa de Clint Eastwood.

Não existe conceito mais irritante no planeta que o do “bom gosto”. Bom gosto é uma idéia pré-concebida, uma cartilha formada por um bando de babacas que acham razoável temperar batata frita com fleur de sel. É toda uma coisa tirada do ânus e que, portanto, tende a ter a aquele apimentado odor de fezes.

Entre as condutas do bom gosto, a que mais me irrita é a da sutileza. No mundo dramatúrgico, que inclui 90% dos filmes feitos todo ano, sutileza é, no máximo, um recurso. Exemplo de sutileza: Bill Murray falando no ouvidinho da Scarlett Johanson em Encontros e Desencontros. Essa cena faz sentido naquela merda toda, mas não faria em outros quinhentos filmes.

Ás vezes precisamos mandar a sutileza pro lixão em nome de algo maior: afinal, existe algo de impactante na redundância. É Al Pacino gritando “Fredo” no meio de sua crise de diabetes em Poderoso Chefão 3: o que falta em sutileza, sobra em paudurecência.

Clint Eastwood é um sujeito que sabe muito bem disso. Ele pode ser sutil como em Cartas de Iwo Jima, mas pode ser bem cabeção como em Os Imperdoáveis, em que sua personagem fala em alto e bom tom qual a porra da moral do filme (deserve has nothing to do with it), ou quando ele cria a rude pista e recompensa do que caralhos significa Mo’Cuishle, em Menina de Ouro.

Mó emocionante aquela merda.

Eutanásia é um puta tema carne de vaca? Óbvio que é, afinal, trata-se de um conceito maluco que mexe com dilemas morais dos mais zoados.

A maioria dos tão repudiados clichês existem porque nós, seres humanos, somos burros e nos apegamos a uma série de coisas estúpidas e sem relevância. Outros são exatamente o contrário: surgem pela força que têm e a necessidade de serem retrabalhados à exaustão. São tão encantadores e atraentes que ficam rapidamente banalizados.

Isso não quer dizer que eles perdem, com isso, a validade. O Manoel Carlos não é ruim porque ele abusa de clichês. Ele é ruim porque ele é um dramaturgo de quinta. Clichê has nothing to do with it.

Gran Torino, por exemplo, é um festival de clichês dos mais descarados. E é um puta filme. Uma coisa meio misteriosa por um lado, e bem óbvia por outro.

Se você não é sutil, você não é sutil e pronto. Conviva com esse fato. Se você é uma pessoa cheia de sutilezas, um verdadeiro Ozu, bom pra você, mas nunca se esqueça que isso não é melhor nem pior do que ser direto e objetivo, mesmo porque não existe coisa menos sutil do que um otário se gabando da sua própria elegância.

É de enforcar o sujeitinho na sua própria echarpe.

El titulo del film y la idea clave de la imaginación expresan un conflicto fundamental. Si la imaginación, tu habilidad para crear se ciñe a tu habilidad para controlar o adueñarte del mundo físico.

Pero también existen limites a esas limitaciones predeterminadas. Hay límites de hasta donde puede ser controlada tu imaginación. Y la película, para mí, trata también sobre eso. Tu imaginación no puede ser controlada por alguien que te diga que esto es la realidad. Y ahora nos damos de bruces contra la realidad porque, por ejemplo, podemos decir que no nos gusten los combustibles fósiles, y que no creo en la usura, así que no creo en las tarjetas de crédito. Pero esta es la estructura de este modelo de lo que llamamos realidad. Como cineasta, no puedo dejar de volar en un avión o conducir mi coche o usar una tarjeta de crédito. Todo lo hermoso de la humanidad procede de la imaginación. Y creo que vivimos en un periodo muy interesante. Casi siento como si viviéramos realmente a la cúspide del Apocalipsis del pensamiento, porque todos eso viejos modelos que nos dicen que son la realidad están tambaleándose. El sistema económico mundial es un sistema ridículo, y se están cayendo. Es una ficción. Como también lo es el tipo de energía que usamos. Nuestras imaginaciones son mas poderosas. Creo que estas cosas están empezando a caer.

Fragmento  de la entrevista a Jim Jarmush en la revista Cahiers du Cinema, septiembre 2009

Jean Douchet’s lavishly illustrated coffee-table book, French New Wave, is an eye-popping tribute to the movement that gained worldwide prominence in 1959 with the release of two groundbreaking motion pictures: François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. At first glance, this pair of films appear to have little in common. The 400 Blows is a bittersweet autobiographical account of Truffaut’s troubled childhood, whereas Breathless is a lurid crime melodrama edited with flashy jumpcuts. Yet, in what would become a hallmark of New Wave filmmaking, these two low-budget movies shared an invigorating cinematic self-awareness that was both playful and deeply earnest. A manifesto-like avoidance of studio sets seemed to ennoble the cityscape—Paris streets, coffee shops, and office buildings—as the only acceptable backdrop for modern narrative truth. They combined fresh young performers, loose elliptical scripts, and handheld camerawork. Like a double jolt of espresso, The 400 Blows and Breathless were a bracing wake-up call to the French film industry, in addition to achieving international box-office success.

While his name is not as familiar as Truffaut’s or Godard’s, Jean Douchet has been involved with the New Wave since its inception. He began in the 1950s writing film reviews for the influential journal Cahiers du Cinéma. The core New Wave directors—François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette—all began as movie critics for this legendary publication. (Other well-known filmmakers often associated with the New Wave, though not with Cahiers, include Alain Resnais, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, and Chris Marker.) Douchet is primarily a writer and lecturer, but he has a director’s credit for a segment of the 1965 New Wave anthology film, Paris Vu Par. Clearly, his book is not an objective or impersonal appraisal of the heady times between 1959 and 1965 when the movement was in its heyday. Indeed, Douchet has composed something of a polemical broadside aimed at rescuing the era’s legacy from what he refers to as “recent attacks by official French cinema against the decline of the New Wave.”

French New Wave rarely rises above a romanticized “us versus them” combativeness. The mainstream French film industry is cast as “the establishment,” and the New Wave directors are the radical and crusading “young Turks.” Completely glossed over by Douchet is the reactionary strain of Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s, particularly Truffaut’s infamous 1954 essay, “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema.” As characterized by Douchet, Truffaut’s piece was a denunciation of studio filmmaking and an assault on lifeless screenplays adapted from novels. However, he fails to mention Truffaut’s tirade against “profanation and blasphemy,” or his disgust with cinematic depictions of homosexuality. The excellent biography, Truffaut, by Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana, is honest about the strident right-wing tone of Truffaut’s essay, which got him branded a “fascist” and an “intellectual vigilante” by French leftists.

Cahiers du Cinèma is probably most famous for giving birth to the controversial auteur theory, a key New Wave tenet. The auteur theory celebrated the movie director as “author,” much in the manner that a novelist can be identified through recurring themes and stylistic techniques. It was an idea that downplayed the collaborative significance of screenwriters, producers, actors and editors. While it is commonplace today—for better or worse—to consider filmmaking a director’s medium, Cahiers du Cinèma went further with the concept. A true auteur director, according to the theory, is able to triumph over second-rate scripts or third-rate actors by sheer strength of personality. A minor film by, say, Howard Hawks or Alfred Hitchcock, would often be championed simply because the director’s unique fingerprints were perceived to be in evidence. Jean Douchet, perhaps understandably, doesn’t discuss how this sometimes led to misplaced enthusiasm for terrible movies. However, he expends a good deal of axe-grinding against detractors who, he says, “minimalize and ridicule” the New Wave’s embrace of auteurism. (Andrew Sarris, a supporter of the auteur theory in the U.S., has been feuding with Pauline Kael about it since the early 1960s. In his 1998 book, You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet, Sarris is still taking potshots at Kael over their disagreement.)

Douchet is at his best in describing the passion of Truffaut and his friends. They lived and breathed films, not uncommonly seeing several a day. The excitement that emerged in their own filmmaking came from the almost tactile joy they took from watching movies. French New Wave does a fine job of recreating the intoxicating atmosphere in postwar Paris when film clubs and journals suddenly flourished and there was an influx of foreign movies that had been banned during the Occupation. In 1948, Henri Langlois opened the Cinémathèque Française, an archive of rare motion pictures coupled with a small 50-seat theater. Langlois regularly screened a mind-boggling array of world-class cinematic fare. It wasn’t long before his venue became the unofficial film school and social club for future New Wave directors. Langlois’s popularity was such that when the Ministry of Cultural Affairs tried to remove him from running the Cinémathèque in April of 1968, there were demonstrations and scuffles with police. The government backed down and Langlois kept his job, but the youthful energy of the demonstrators carried over to the cataclysmic strikes of the following month when the country was brought to a near standstill.

Although the text of French New Wave is a hit-or-miss affair (it reads like a Francophile parody when Douchet at one point enshrines Jerry Lewis as a seminal American filmmaker), the illustrations and page layouts are magnificent. This is, after all, a coffee-table book meant to be browsed rather than read from start to finish. The pages are designed like a 1960s pop-art gallery with neon colors and flamboyant typefaces. Spilling across two-page spreads are movie posters, strips of film, single-frame blowups, Cinémathèque schedules, and front covers and reviews from past issues of Cahiers du Cinèma. There are stunning photos of glamorous New Wave icons like Jean Seberg, Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Brigitte Bardot. (Bardot’s alluring face is peeking out behind sunglasses and tousled hair on the book’s cover, a shot from Godard’s 1963 film Contempt.)

Is the book worth its deluxe price tag? If you’re a fan of the directors and their films, or if you’re captivated by the aura of French New Wave cinema, it will be an irresistible purchase. Not to mention its assured value to book collectors in years to come. Even Jean Douchet’s eccentric commentary (translated from the French by Robert Bononno) is a testament to the vibrant debate that continues to surround these filmmakers more than forty years after their extraordinary debut.

April, 2000

Aujourd’hui je reçois David pour une consultation en plein air.

Visiblement sain de corps et d’esprit, David s’inscrit pourtant dans la plus pure tradition du roux.

David, dis moi ce qui ne va pas.

_ C’est le cinéma docteur. J’en suis totalement dingue.

_ Ah.

_ En moi les questions pleuvent.

_ J’ai peut-être les réponses…

_ Qui est le Fonzie français?

_ Facile.

_ Y’a quoi dans la malette de “Pulp Fiction“?

_ Facile!

_ Porter une casquette, c’est obligatoire?

_ Bien sûr. Tu vois les Cahiers du Cinéma consacrer un article à un réalisateur qui porte un bob Ricard?

_ Oui mais qu’est ce qui fait que les foules adulent un navet comme “Slumdog Millionaire” nondidiou !

_ Alors ça par contre c’est un putain de mystère…

_ Des films j’en vois plein et je dis ce que j’en pense : Marie-Antoinette, La Belle Personne, Vol93, La Graine et le Mulet…  J’ai Vodkaster, un site pour faire en sorte qu’on puisse partager le cinéma qu’on aime. Il y a un blog aussi pour en discuter. Parce que bon euh, ultimement, des films, je veux en faire.

_Tu parles au présent David. J’aime cette volonté chez toi.

_ Tout ceci nous amène cependant au cœur du problème.

_ Comme dirait Jack Torrance à Mr Ullman : “I’m intrigued”.

_ Si par bonheur je m’accomplissais en tant que cinéaste, je serais à jamais un cinéaste roux… une sorte de Ron Howard français. Alors comment faire ?

Au moins il avait les pieds sur terre et ne se voyait pas physiquement comme Coppola.

Personnellement je me méfiais des roux. Il y avait bien sûr cette légende à propos de leur odeur. Et puis je me disais qu’au Moyen-Âge, on devait pas les brûler simplement pour le plaisir de faire du feu.

Par ailleurs, je savais de source sûre que les roux étaient résistants aux anesthésies. Et puis il y avait Guy.

Néanmoins, David avait détesté “Slumdog Millionaire” et ça me le rendait sympathique. C’était mon devoir de l’aider. C’était aussi mon boulot.

Il y avait bien sûr la facilité…

Mais malgré la teinture, il serait resté un roux dans sa tête. Je devais l’aider autrement.

David tu es fataliste.

_ Docteur, rendons-nous à l’évidence.

_ Oui mais sachons aussi la combattre. Je t’invite à revoir Le Jour du Vin et des Roux de Blake Edwards sur l’amour d’un homme en dépit de la rousseur de sa femme. C’est pas très agressif et c’est en noir et blanc.

_ Merci. À la fin ça se finit par un divorce!

_ Bon ben qu’est-ce que tu veux que je te recommande? De te faire l’intégrale de Julien Courbey?

_ Mais il est pas roux!

_ Sur l’affiche de “Il était une fois dans l’Oued” c’est pas évident.

Et arrête de regarder ailleurs quand je te parle.

_ Nan mais j’avais une idée de film là sur un couple qui tomberait d’une falaise…

_ David, j’essaie de t’aider. Tu es roux, tu portes un t-shirt jaune… tu crois vraiment que t’as besoin d’en rajouter pour faire peur aux gens??

_ Bon qu’est-ce que je fais?

_ D’abord, cure de Doliprane™. Et puis si ça peut te rassurer, Ron Howard il perd ses cheveux. Un beau jour, l’histoire oubliera qu’il était roux.

_ Faudra qu’il se rase la barbe aussi alors.

_ Dis toi qu’il a gagné plus d’oscars que Gérard Oury. C’est bien les Oscars non?

_ Mouais…

_ Oh et puis fait chier! Oublie Ron Howard! Oublie ta couleur! Oublie toute cette merde! Le cinéma dépasse tout ça. Tu dois donner ton existence pour ta passion. Allons plutôt boire un coup.

Je le sentais rassuré. Je décidais de l’emmener finir la journée chez Malou histoire de prendre un peu de recul en sifflant quelques bières. Il quitta le bar dans la soirée, un peu bruyamment, mais plus convaincu que jamais.

crédit photo : David

Vous aussi vous voulez consulter? Ecrivez moi sans plus attendre. drmorisset@gmail.com

Ils sortent de nulle part à chaque fois qu’un nouveau problème surgit dans l’appart (et ça arrive souvent). Ils sonnent, ils disent « Anji ? », se foutent de notre réponse en hinglish puis rentrent et vérifient systématiquement les mêmes choses – ouvrons le robinet de la terrasse, allumons le ventilo du salon, jetons un œil dans la cuisine, moquons-nous du bordel et chambres et testons la chasse d’eau.

C’est un peu notre trio d’anges gardiens, et on ne paie jamais pour les réparations qu’ils font. Il y a le petit maigre gentil qui se démène (le Bon), le vieux à cicatrices bourru (la Brute) et le gros qui parle comme un Parrain en réclamant des sous (le Truand). De temps en temps il se racle la gorge, crache un gros mollard et recommence à bougonner, le tout rappelant vaguement le bruit d’un train qui déraille.

Heureusement on a aussi un Clint Eastwood pour chapeauter cette joyeuse équipe ; mieux que Lucky Luke, le cowboy sikh. Grand, mince, vêtu comme le plus clâsse des éphèbes de vingt-huit ans (critères indiens c’est-à-dire avant déflation de 250% de l’indice d’élégance). L’œil vif, la barbe effilée et le turban bien mis, il escalade d’une traction souple les échafaudages pour atteindre le réservoir d’eau. Il sort son portable dernier cri, confirme à son patron + oncle = parrain que le problème est liquidé puis enfourche sa fidèle royal enfield et disparaît à l’horizon… Et les trois autres mecs le suivent en trottant. Quel merveilleux tableau.

The Class | Laurent Cantet, 2008

The first French film to win top prize at the prestigious Cannes film festival for 21 years, Laurent Cantet’s The Class – Entre les Murs; literally meaning “Between the Walls” – has certainly exceeded its own tidy ambition. Set in Paris at an inner city middle school, the film follows a focused young teacher as he attempts to tame a trying group of boisterous teenagers over the course of a year. The tale is actually a self-autobiographical one, written by lead actor François Bégaudeau – a writer who has worked for Cahiers du Cinéma and published a handful of successful novels – about his trials and tribulations working in a similar situation during the nineties. Now, with the help of experienced French writer/director Laurent Cantet he is able to bring this rather personal story to the screen first-hand by turning his hands to acting. The Class takes a somewhat well-trodden concept and breathes new life into it; we’ve all seen movies that take a passionate teacher and class of unruly students from poor backgrounds, mixing them together with a dose of overbearing drama to reach a typically positive conclusion. The Class, however, doesn’t allow the audience such an easy ride. As the title suggests we are there for every bit of heightened tension and every single inspirational moment, though without the usual melodrama.

The Class deftly recreates the kind of problems to be found in a multi-ethnic Parisian middle school, and perhaps more than usual we should be thankful to the writer for this. Not only do the real-life struggles of Bégaudeau allow us a valuable insight into this world, his performance is also surprisingly adept given his lack of acting experience. Of course, with such a young cast it is often difficult to maintain this high standard – each student plays his/herself in the film – but performances are strong and genuine without exception. I can’t help but compare The Class with an English television series of a similar setup – Teachers, as it was imaginatively titled, offered a similar look at the middle school tier of education over in England, though with an exceedingly neurotic central character and general hilarity throughout. Where Teachers took the inadequacies of national eduction and poked fun at it to great success, The Class takes its positives and highlights them; the passion of these teachers and their daily battle to connect with an increasingly restless audience. This isn’t an ambitious film by any means, neither does it have a general direction in which we are encouraged to look, it does however offer us – without an underlying social or political message – a look at today’s schools that makes for highly engaging viewing.

Our Rating:

Filmmaking is a notoriously collaborative process.  No matter how hard some people try to see film as an auteur’s medium — and no matter how alluring such theories may be, especially to the auteurs themselves — it’s hard to escape the fact that most directors barely even know how to operate a camera, much less construct an eleaborate lighting set-up, and would consequently be helpless without a good DP.  Most directors don’t write their own films, either.  Heck, some directors don’t even say “action”; they have an assistant for that.

Okay, Kubrick was an auteur. But he was also crazy.

Even when a director is wearing many hats, the question of authorship is far from clear.  “Sublet” is a prime example.  I wrote that movie, directed it, edited it, chose the music (from the generous outpouring provided by composer Stu Watson), and we filmed the whole thing in the apartment I was subletting.  Textbook auteur situation, right?

But let’s go back.  I wrote the movie — after Mike walked into my sublet for the first time and said, “We have to film something here.”  And then Mike read my first draft and gave me a ton of useful feedback, including — most crucially — the idea of giving more lines to the female character (in the original draft, the guy handled probably 80-90% of the text).  The “rewrite” was mostly just a reassigning of lines, but that process made both characters more vibrant and distinctive.

And it was Mike who proposed the idea of having the apartment’s owner appear in “ghostly” form at some point, to underscore his omnipresence.  Mike and James Creque gave important notes during editing, too.  This is without even counting the crucial contributions of the cast and crew, whose work speaks for itself.  So whose movie is it, exactly?

Well, it’s my damn movie, of course.  And I won’t hear anybody say differently.  But in the back of my mind, there’s always the nagging knowledge that it wouldn’t be half as good without the contributions of others — credited and otherwise.  As humbling (and terrifying) as that thought is, it’s also exciting.  My own creative resources are, alas, limited — but if I gather the right team of cohorts, there’s literally no boundary to what we can achieve.

And then, of course, I’ll take all the credit.

Posted by Keith

Uma parte do livro de Jacques Aumont que me prendeu especialmente foi a extensa análise do manifesto de Michel Mourlet, Acerca de uma arte ignorada – texto que o belo trabalho de traduções do blog Dicionários de Cinema oferece na íntegra, aparentemente com exclusividade na língua portuguesa. Segundo penso, Mourlet se trata de um crítico bastante peculiar, dono de um talento grandioso e indiscutível para as letras, mas de uma tese sobre o cinema que é, no mínimo, controversa. Aumont se dedica a uma crítica pontual do manifesto de Mourlet, apontando os seus paradoxos – inclusive, com a análise do restrito panteão de cineastas eleitos pelo crítico – ao mesmo tempo em que ressalta a sua importância para o tema da encenação.

Acerca de uma arte ignorada foi publicado em 1959 na Cahiers du Cinéma, mesmo com a política editorial da revista sendo estranha às teses que propõe – por isso, ao artigo foi incluído um comentário aos leitores, com a justificativa de respeito a qualquer opinião “extrema”. O que ocorre é que Mourlet posicionava-se na contramão da tendência moderna do cinema, já despontada naquele final da década, quando a própria nouvelle vague, emergida nas páginas da Cahiers, produzia seus primeiros cineastas. Passando por cima do modernismo, mas disposto a se referir à arte como um todo – e, sobretudo, ao cinema como arte – Mourlet postula uma relação específica entre os filmes, os diretores, os espectadores e o mundo, constituída a partir de noções estéticas como a beleza e o sublime; metafísicas, como a essência; ou morais, como a virtude.

Por essa via, não apenas clássico em seu gosto pelo cinema, mas em seu ímpeto teórico, Mourlet encarna a encenação no corpo dos atores em cena, e, segundo Aumont, estabelece uma “Ideia” de “cinema encenado” de tal modo exigente que não possui pleno respaldo nos próprios cineastas que melhor a representam, como Raoul Wash e Otto Preminger – o que não invalida a proposta de Mourlet, por certo, mas a problematiza necessariamente, assim como assinala a “perfeição” destes cineastas rigorosos como a encenação perseguida pela crítica de Mourlet. Além de Walsh e Preminger, completam a lista de diretores Fritz Lang e Joseph Losey. Estes quatros cineastas tinham os seus retratos em tamanho ampliado no hall de um cinema parisiense chamado Mac-Mahon. Não por acaso, a revista Présence du Cinéma, vinculada a essa sala de cinema, deu origem à corrente crítica chamada de “mac-mahonismo”, sintonizada com a tese conservadora de Acerca de uma arte ignorada - o próprio Mourlet compunha o quadro da revista, e nela publicou com freqüência.

Acompanhando Aumont, e considerando a tentativa de apropriação da teoria da história de Hegel, a relação implícita do cineasta com o poeta heideggeriano, ou o emprego de conceitos de Nietzsche, como o de vontade de potência, o legado crítico de Michel Mourlet me parece o curioso sintoma de um enorme esforço: o de alavancar uma alternativa à crítica marxista que predominava no cenário francês, e que, alguns anos mais tarde, conduziria a Cahiers du Cinéma à etapa desconstrutivista de maior acirramento contra a transparência clássica. E Mourlet, de fato, tem na transparência – assim como na naturalidade do ator – um fundamento inestimável, recusando a expressividade da imagem, a intervenção “autoral” do realizador (quando não compromissada com a “verdade do mundo”), e também a montagem que compromete o “fascínio” de uma experiência realista com sentido muito particular.

Em Mourlet percebo um autor que contorna a dificuldade de sistematização do seu arcabouço teórico (ou a sua indiferença para com os sistemas, o que é mais afeito ao aspecto nietzschiano) com um estilo sedutor e rebuscado, no qual o limiar que diferenciaria o exercício da crítica e a prosa poética nem sempre é patente. Mas é a sua omissão no tocante à crise dos sistemas de representação que me parece um apego despropositado, talvez prejudicando o desenvolvimento atualizador de suas teses, mesmo as mais controversas. Novamente com Aumont, pergunto: será realmente fatal, para a encenação, o cinema das imagens, moderno e “pós”-moderno, distanciado da simbiose com o teatro? Não seria apenas neste momento que, de fato, a encenação no cinema tornou-se um conceito propriamente cinematográfico? São boas perguntas que ficam – comprovando a validez da leitura e do embate com o artigo fundamental de Michel Mourlet.

En la actualidad Alfred Hitchcock es considerado, prácticamente por unanimidad, uno de los más grandes cineastas de todos los tiempos, lo que equivale a ser uno de los mayores artistas del siglo xx. Pero no siempre fue así. Durante la mayor parte de su carrera la crítica norteamericana no lo tomó en serio, tachándolo de artesano de entretenimientos de gran éxito popular, pero sin sustancia.

        Los cineastas y críticos de la revista francesa Cahiers du cinema fueron los primeros en considerar a Hitchcock como un autor, a la altura del reconocimiento que tenían Renoir, Bergman o Buñuel; Truffaut llegó a decir: “Si el cine fuese una religión, Hitchcock sería el sumo sacerdote”.

        A raíz de esa admiración, Truffaut y Hitchcock mantuvieron una larga serie de conversaciones que se convirtieron en uno de los libros clásicos sobre cine, revisado y aumentado en diferentes ediciones: El cine según Hitchcock (Le cinema selon Hitchcock, 1966). La edición definitiva repasa toda su filmografía, y trata exhaustivamente las circunstancias de cada película, cómo se elaboraron los guiones, las mejores anécdotas, los aspectos técnicos, el significado del termino “suspense”…Y, sobre todo, ambos realizadores dialogan sobre estética cinematográfica, sobre cómo expresar ideas y sentimientos valiéndose de una cámara.

        El cine según Hitchcock es, además del mejor estudio sobre la obra del director inglés, uno de los grandes homenajes que nacen de la admiración de un cineasta por la obra de otro, en la línea de Nicholas Ray y su tiempo (1986) de Víctor Erice y Jos Oliver, y de Tiempo de vivir, tiempo de revivir (1994), las conversaciones que mantuvo Antonio Drove con Douglas Sirk.

                     Publicado por Alianza Editorial.

I’ve been asked by fellow-blogger Movieman0283 over at The Dancing Image to join him and a few others in writing a little something each on our favourite books on cinema. I don’t really know where to start so have reached for the first things on my shelves I could find that I could hold my hand on my heart and say ‘Yes, I really like this book!’ So, without further ado:

1. Hitchcock, by Francois Truffaut (ed.)

The first book to get on Hitchcock and the one that you’ll keep turning back to over the years. My edition, from 1969, is a snug size that I can fit into a broad pocket – much nicer in my opinion than the clumpy A4 editions that seem to be the norm for this book at the moment. I very much like the cover design too with a vertiginous swirl distorting Hitch’s face with the left side of his face darker than the right, much like Judy’s face appears at that moment in her apartment in Vertigo. This book is simply jam-packed full of ideas about filmmaking – Truffaut got a great deal out of Hitch and follows him through his whole career chronologically. His famous contrast between suspense and surprise is in here but so too is his fascinating notion of ’saving’ the long shot, with everything in a scene (what we would typically term the ‘establishing shot’), until it can be put to a purpose. It’s also fascinating to read as a marker of its time, the mid-60s (when the interviews were done.) Truffaut and the Cahiers gang had all made films but were still young and Truffaut’s admiration for the man he clearly considers THE master of cinema is palpable. Incidentally Hitch doesn’t come across as too enthused about Chabrol and Rohmer’s portrait of him as a Catholic filmmaker in their monograph. Here are Truffaut’s words on Hitchcock at the close of his introduction:

     If in the era of Ingmar Bergman, one accepts the promise that cinema is an art form, on a par with literature, I suggest that Hitchcock belongs – and why classify him at all? – among such artists of anxiety as Kafka, Dostoevsky and Poe.

     In the light of their own doubts these artists of anxiety can hardly be expected to show us how to live; their mission is simply to share with us the anxieties that haunt them. Consciously or not, this is their way of helping us to understand ourselves, which is, after all, a fundamental purpose of any work of art. 

2. The Women Who Knew Too Much, by Tania Modleski

There are of course many great books on Hitchcock that I could cite here but this is one that’s certainly had an effect on me personally. Modleski basically attempts to stand between the polar opposition of perspectives on Hitchcock’s view of women – that he was a misogynist (Mulvey) or that he was a proto-feminist (Wood.) She humorously undercuts Wood’s wish to “save” Hitchcock for feminism as auteurist romanticism, making it clear that her intention is to “save” feminism for film studies (or vice-versa.) She achieves this through the close study of Hitchcock’s position on women in seven films. Modleski terms Hitch “ambivalent” about women and – similarly to Truffaut above - suggests that his talent, and more importantly his value for a feminist “reader” of his films, comes from the clarity of his expression of his anxieties about women.

3. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era, by Matthew Bernstein (ed.)

The Depth of Field series is a terrific one and I could just as easily have recommended the collections on Film and Nationalism and Movies and Mass Culture in this series. These collections bring together previously published work by some of the most important academic figures on the subject. The books are very well put together and the introduction is always authoritative.

4. Parallel Tracks, by Lynne Kirby

A book on film with a truly innovative form in its discussion on the interrelation of the railroad and cinema as twin engines of the onslaught of modernity. It’s also a joy to read combining in all the right ways history, theory and textual analysis of the movies and the railroad. The kind of book I’d love to be able to write someday… 

5. “Film Europe” and “Film America”: Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange 1920-1939, by Andrew Higson and Richard Maltby (eds.)

A groundbreaking collection that takes as its starting point a small period in the late 20s and early 30s in which there was a hope that a “Film Europe” could be established, with the nations of Europe combining forces in an attempt to match and compete with Hollywood cinema’s worldwide “Imperialist” dominance of cinema screens. While this hope ultimately failed the book uses this as a means towards discussing Hollywood world-dominance in the inter-war period in a manner that is refreshingly clear of hyperbole and that goes beyond the notion of a simple, top-down hegemony. This book is full of historical details on tariffs, embargoes and contingencies and definitely not one to take with you to the beach… But it goes beyond the details of economic exchange on this subject laid out so well in Kristin Thompson’s Exporting Entertainment, putting as much emphasis on cultural exchange. It’s a difficult read but really worth the effort,  to get a strong, grounded sense of the globalism and transnationalism of cinema that was just beginning at this stage but that is now central to the medium; lest we forget that, for example, The Lord of the Rings was really a German film…

6. Fritz Lang in America, by P. Bogdanovich

Fritz Lang, in my opinion, was a serious intellectual and you can learn a lot from what he had to say about his films. It’s necessary to take Lang’s specific historical details and his self-mythologising with a pinch of salt, but the essence of Lang’s views on cinema in this book are invaluable. 

7. The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy

I think we all get an attachment to the specific editions of books that we’ve read, but again I prefer this edition to the regular one with a colour photo. Ok, since I’ve written quite a bit on this book on this site I’ll redirect you to this stuff, of which I’m quite proud. First there is a segment from the opening of the novel here, then there is a piece of writing on that segment and its discussion of cinema here and finally there is a follow-up piece here. It’s all quite easy to read I promise!

8. Hollywood Modernism, by Saverio Giovacchini

The film still on the cover is from Confessions of a Nazi Spy (WB, 1939) the first film, as the tag-line went, that dared to ‘call a swastika a swastika.’ It’s a fascinating film that strangely, considering its historical importance, still remains completely unavailable on DVD or VHS. I have a copy of the film on the now obsolete format of the Video-CD (VCD), which is probably quite rare and seems to be the only way this film has been released. Giovacchini’s book forcefully counters the myth that Hollywood cinema, and Hollywood culture in general, of the 1930s and 40s produced only vacuous mass entertainment and was completely unwilling to discuss politics and the problems of modern society. He draws attention to heated discussions over the nature of “realism” in the 1930s and the immense national strength and influence of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. I’ve written a little about the HANL in an essay on Meet John Doe (1941) here. Giovacchini’s book is a very enjoyable read.

9. Time Out Film Guide 2008, by Geoff Andrew (ed)

You’ll notice I’ve put the 2008 edition here – this is no slight on the latest edition but just the edition I happen to have; it also has a rather lovely image of Penelope Cruz that I couldn’t resist having on my site.. Anyway, the Time Out Film Guide is without a doubt the best film guide on offer in Britain – I haven’t looked at that many of the US ones but they’d have to be pretty strong to compete. It certainly seems to be the guide with the most space for World Cinema. There are no star ratings and reviews don’t generally contain synopses – instead they offer acute observations and understanding of the films discussed, crammed into very few words. Reviews do generally make it clear if the critic liked the film but are so well drawn that you can come away from a review that slammed a film with so much detail that you feel you want to see the film anyway. This happened for me, for instance, when I read the review of Gregg Araki’s Nowhere (1997), which described the film as ‘a piece of shit.’ In this instance the critic got it wrong, by the way – hardly a great film but kind of weirdly enjoyable. But I’ll repeat that generally the reviews are uncannily accurate.

10. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960, by David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson

I’ve been pondering over what should be my last book here and felt I couldn’t really leave this one out. Love it or hate it The Classical Hollywood Cinema is probably one of the most important books in film studies. Bordwell et al set out to define the characteristics of an “ordinary” film. Of course it is contentious to imply that Golden Age Hollywood set the “norm” for which all other kinds of cinema (0f the “World” or the “avant-garde”) become the aberration and risks simplifying matters. Yet within the specific context of mainstream American cinema, in the period of the Studio System and its “dream factory”, this model certainly has value. The research in this text is incredibly thorough and when reading through a chapter you occasionally get the sense that the information and ideas here are equivalent to the amount you’d get from reading ten other books. Bordwell’s blog on cinema Observations on film art and Film Art is also essential reading.

That’s as much as I have the energy for right now! By the way, they’re not in any order of greatness, of course… Please comment to let me know what you think of these choices, whether you’ve read the books or not – I love to hear what you guys think. And get reading!

And so, here at AFaW, to make us more relevant to whoever reads us, we present “Kalyeng Cahiers”, thoughts on movies now playing in theaters, will play in theaters or have just been played in theaters.

So, to start off, we’ll post our mind words on ‘Taransefemers 2: Revenge of the Fallen’.

Stay Tuned.

Chris

PS: nakakatuwang DVDs yung nasa pic, eh in theaters nga yung dapat i-review di ba? Waw.

CAC Málaga y La Alianza Francesa organizan, en colaboración con el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Francia y Cajamar, el ciclo de cine para el mes de junio “50 años de Nouvelle Vague”, en el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga.

A finales de los años 50 Francia vivó un cambio social y cultural que dio lugar al nacimiento de un nuevo lenguaje artístico cinematográfico, la Nouvelle Vague. Su regla era que no había reglas, la Nouvelle Vague apostaba por un cine realista y fresco que mostrase la vida cotidiana y que no requiriese de grandes presupuestos económicos. En sus obras brillaba el carácter trasgresor, utilizando nuevas técnicas de rodaje como los exteriores, la poca puesta en escena y el uso de la cámara en mano, entre otras. Además, la nueva ola presentaba otra novedad, una nueva mujer, una mujer joven y guapa, que no tenía reparos en ir desmaquillada o con el pelo mojado paseando por la ciudad, una mujer que rompe con las normas establecidas, muy diferente a las estrellas femeninas de Hollywood.

La revista Cahiers du Cinéma (Cuadernos de Cine), de André Bazin, fue la responsable de la difusión de las ideas de François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol o Jean Pierre Melville, todos ellos críticos y escritores de la revista, que pasaron a ser los realizadores más importantes de lo que luego se conoció como la Nouvelle Vague.

El CAC Málaga con este ciclo de cine, quiere unirse a la celebración de los 50 años de la Nouvelle Vague, pues un 4 de mayo de 1959 François Truffaut estrenaba en Francia Les Quatre Cents Coups (Los cuatrocientos golpes), película considerada como una de las primeras obras del movimiento. Cada miércoles del mes de junio se proyectará una película o un documental representativo de la Nouvelle Vague, Jacquot de Nantes, Lola, Eric Rohmer preuves à l’appui (Eric Rohmer con pruebas en la mano) y una selección de cortos de Alain Resnais, cine para recordar.

Las proyecciones tendrán lugar los miércoles 3, 10, 17 y 24 de junio a las 20:00 horas en el salón de actos del CAC Málaga, con entrada gratuita y libre hasta completar el aforo.