Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
S
N
i
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
ii
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Andr Bazin
S
N
iii
Austin
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
- -
Bazin, Andr, .
[Essays. Selections. English]
Bazin on global cinema, / Andr Bazin ; translated and edited
by Bert Cardullo. First edition.
pages
cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes: Bazin bibliography; Books by Andr Bazin in French;
Articles and reviews by Bazin in their original language; Books by Bazin
translated into English; Book reviews of works by Bazin translated
into English; Biocritical works on Bazin written in or translated into
English; Dissertations and theses on Bazin written in English; Film
credits.
---- (cloth : alk. paper)
. Motion pictures. . Motion picturesReviews. I. Cardullo, Bert,
editor, translator. II. Title.
.
.dc
S
N
iv
doi:./
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
S
N
v
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
vi
. Film through a Telephoto Lens: Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth
Orkins The Little Fugitive (Cahiers du cinma, January )
. An Apocalyptic Pilgrimage: Kaneto Shindos Children of Hiroshima
(Le parisien libr, March , )
. Brilliant Variations on Some Well-Known Notes: Nicholas Rays
Johnny Guitar (Le parisien libr, February , )
. Akira Kurosawas Rashomon and The Seven Samurai
(France-observateur, April , ; and Le parisien libr,
December , )
vi
Contents
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Film Credits
Index
vii
S
N
vii
Contents
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Illustrations
S
N
viii
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ix
S
N
ix
List of Illustrations
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
x
x
List of Illustrations
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Acknowledgments
(
) for granting me the right to publish these translations of her husbands work, and for providing me with photographs of Andr Bazin. Thanks as well to Cahiers du cinma and ditions de ltoile for
granting me rights in cases where they co-held them with Mme Bazin, in
other instances as well, and, in general, for their cooperation in helping me
to bring this project to fruition.
My deep gratitude also goes out to Canberk nsal for his assistance in
gathering film images to accompany the essays and reviews in On Global
Cinema. Finally, I am grateful to my familymy wife, Kirsi, my daughter,
Kia, and my son, Emilfor all their forbearance during the time it took
me to complete this project.
xi
S
N
xi
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Introduction
( )
influential critic ever to have written about cinema. He is
credited with almost single-handedly establishing the study of film as an
accepted intellectual pursuit, and he can also be considered the principal
instigator of the equally influential auteur theory: the idea that, since film
is an art form, the director of a movie must be perceived as the chief creator of its unique cinematic style. Bazin contributed daily reviews to Pariss
largest-circulation newspaper, Le parisien libr, and wrote hundreds of essays for weeklies (Le nouvel observateur, Tlrama) as well as for such esteemed monthly journals as Lesprit and Cahiers du cinma (which he cofounded in ), the single most influential critical periodical in the history
of the cinema. A social activist, he also directed cin-clubs and, from
to , worked for the Communist outreach organization Travail et Culture. Moreover, Bazin befriended Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini, Orson
Welles, and Luis Buuel and was a father figure to the critics at Cahiers
who would create the New Wave just after he died: Franois Truffaut, JeanLuc Godard, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol. He even adopted the
delinquent Truffaut, who dedicated Les quatre cents coups (The Blows,
) to him. Bazins influence spread to critics and filmmakers in Latin
America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, where today, for instance, Jia Zhangke
salutes Bazin as formative to his approach.
One of Bazins first essays, The Ontology of the Photographic Image
(), anchors much of what he would produce. It legitimates his taste for
documentaries, for neorealism, and for directors who dont use images rhetorically but instead to explore reality. Criticized by communists for writing The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema (), he would be posthumously attacked by Marxist academics for his presumed nave faith in
xiii
S
N
xiii
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
xiv
cinemas ability to deliver true appearances transparently. Bazin was influenced not by Karl Marx but by Henri-Louis Bergson, Andr Malraux, and
Jean-Paul Sartre. He specialized in literature as a brilliant student at the
cole Normale Suprieure, where he also was passionate about geology, geography, and psychology. Indeed, metaphors from the sciences frequently
appear in his articles.
While many of Bazins acolytes are humanists or, in particular, devotees of the auteur theory, it is increasingly clear that Bazin attends equally
in his published work to systems within which films are made and viewed,
including technology, economics, and censorship. Of this published
workbetween and , Bazin wrote around , articles and reviewsonly pieces or so are easily accessible in anthologies or edited
collections, be they in French, English, or another language. He personally collected of his most significant pieces in the four-volume French
version of What Is Cinema? (Quest-ce que le cinma?, ). Additional
collections appeared later thanks to Truffaut, ric Rohmer, and other devotees. Obviously, then, most of those who have written about Bazin have
done so knowing only a fraction of his output. Still, that output is considered consistent, rich, and consequential. And Bazins impact will undoubtedly grow as more of his writing becomes available.
When the idea of truth encounters that of cinema, the first name
that naturally comes to mind is that of Bazin. But over the past few decades, as pointed out above, this French film critic and theorist has generally been viewed as a nave realist, someone for whom the essence of cinema
lay in its mechanical, photographic ability to bring the truth to the screen
without the all-too-partial and nonobjective intervention of humans. As
Nol Carroll wrote in in Theorizing the Movie Image, Bazin held that
the image from a film was an objective re-presentation of the past, a veritable slice of reality. Carroll was by no means alone in identifying Bazin as someone who believed in the objectivity of the imprint that empirical reality automatically leaves on film. Jean Mitry, Christian Metz, s
Screen-magazine theorists, and most scholars adhering to semiological or
cognitivist approaches have all dismissed Bazins ontological belief in films
immediate access to, and correspondence with, empirical reality. Casting
a retrospective glance at this almost unanimous rejection of Bazin, Philip
Rosen has more recently argued, in Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory (), that such a repudiation was a veritable collective obsession that allowed the then-new subject of film studies to be established as a
consistent discipline in its own right. In other words, rejection of Bazin was
itself a kind of founding act.
Nowadays, it is perhaps easier to look back and discover what the writxiv
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ings by the cofounder of Cahiers du cinma were really about. Yet, to repeat,
these writings are still basically little known to date. In , Dudley Andrew and Herv Joubert-Laurencin revived scholarly interest in this huge
amount of neglected work by organizing, on the occasion of the ninetieth
anniversary of Bazins birth, two international conferences on the topic of
unknown Bazin. One took place at Yale University (Opening Bazin), the
other at the Universit Paris VIIDiderot (Ouvrir Bazin), and an edited
collection (Opening Bazin, ) was published that gathered most of the
talks given at those venues.
Indeed, reading the large number of unknownunanthologized or
untranslatedarticles by Bazin leaves no doubt: he was not a nave theorist. His was not a shallow and simplistic faith in some magical transubstantiation of reality directly onto the screen. Indeed, much of his writing prefigures the very theoretical movements, from the s and after,
whichimporting concepts from disciplines like psychoanalysis, gender
studies, anthropology, literary theory, semiotics, and linguistics to fashion structuralist, poststructuralist, Marxist, and feminist film theories
opposed what they saw as Bazins exclusively realist bias. Thus we can now
dismiss the standard opinion according to which Bazin advocated cinemas
photographic ability to reproduce realitya dismissal that has in fact already been validly formulated in various places by several scholars. One of
the most interesting attempts to do so is Daniel Morgans Rethinking Bazin (), a careful review of all the excerpts in Bazins written works
that talk about cinemas photographic, replicative dimension. Morgan noticed that, on this subject, Bazin says different things in different places.
Whatever definition of cinema we can infer from Bazins writings, photographic objectivity has no essential place in it.
Perhaps more important is that Bazin himself repeatedly stigmatized the
so-called photographic objectivity of the cinema. His articles are replete
with warnings like the following: It is not enough to shoot in the streets
to make it real. All in all, the script is more important than the fetishism
of natural dcor (Le parisien libr, May ); Artifice and lie can walk
down the streets as well as they can haunt the studios, because reality is not
just in the appearance of things, but in mans heart. Ultimately, it is also a
matter of the screenplay (Le parisien libr, November ); The realist
destiny of cinemainnate in photographic objectivityis fundamentally
equivocal, because it allows the realization of the marvelous. Precisely like
a dream. The oneiric character of cinema, linked to the illusory nature of its
image as much as to its lightly hypnotic mode of operation, is no less crucial than its realism (Les lettres franaises, July ).
In a word, cinema functions in such a way that we can believe (to some
xv
S
N
xv
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
xvi
extent) that what we see on screen is true. But this does not mean that cinema can reproduce truth; on the contrary, its innate realism cannot be separated from its potential to create believable illusions. Hence, cinematic realism is not a nave acknowledgement of what reality actually is; rather, it
is dialectically linked to illusioni.e., to its own fundamental condition.
Indeed, in his one and only essay explicitly revolving around the subject of
photography, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, Bazin defines it
as intrinsically surrealist because it is a hallucination that is also a fact.
Only ostensibly the ultimate realist, the author of Quest-ce que le cinma? has in fact often been accused of being an idealist critic. This is not
incorrect: in many ways Bazin does share the philosophical perspective of
idealism, according to which matter does not exist in its own right; it is in
fact a product of mind, and therefore all objects are mental creations and
the whole world itselfthe sum of all objectsis a mental construction.
But the view that Bazin is an idealist is not correct enough, either, since
one should assume all due consequences from such a premise. The most obvious (but also the least negligible) of these is that, precisely as an idealist,
Bazins notion of reality is by no means simple. It is not limited simply to
what can be found out there, either in the real world or the world as the
mind projects it. Indeed, Bazins idealism quickly becomes a form of Catholic phenomenology, according to which any attempt at a faithful reflection of reality is really just a prerequisiteultimately merely a pretextfor
finding a transcendental or even theological truth that purportedly exists
in reality and is miraculously revealed by the camera.
Despite common opinion from the s through the sopinion
that the Yale/Paris conferences, followed by the publication of
their proceedings, have played a strong role in counteringBazin paid a
lot of attention to social, cultural, political, and economic contexts in his
consideration of individual films, and the selections in On Global Cinema
are meant to stress this component of his criticism. He frequently mentions
in this volume, for example, the effect of the profit motive on the artistic quality of Hollywood productions and how, despite its initially private
character, filmmaking behaves, by reason of the target audience at which it
ultimately aims, nearly like state radio. Bazin also describes how technological developments change the expectations of audiences and how, as a
result, one artistic form can become more convincing than another.
If cinema seems to be the quintessential realistic medium, according to
Bazin, this is precisely because it can grasp economic, cultural, political,
and psychological realitiesevery reality, in short, connected to the fact of
human beings living together in one society. In other words, cinemas on-
xvi
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
xvii
S
N
xvii
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
xviii
politique des auteurs, but he shamed them with their obligation to keep in
mind technology, economics, sociology, and, yes, actual politics, alongside
the usual approaches to film criticism borrowed from literary studies and
art history.
Bazin knew quite a lot about each of these subjects and methods, but
his particular genius lay in identifying some revealing textual attributes of
whatever film was before him, then using these to leverage a weighty understanding of the work as a whole, or the filmmaker, or the genre, or the
general conditions of filmmaking and reception. In effect, he searched for
the questions to which films appear to stand as answers, letting stylistic details in the pictures themselves call up his extraordinary range of knowledge. No one before him, and no one since, has ever written about film in
quite the same way, or on quite the same level.
In sum, Bazin, unlike nearly all the other authors of major film theories, was a working or practical critic who wrote regularly about individual films. He based his criticism on the film actually made rather than on
any preconceived aesthetic or sociological principles. Thus for the first time
with him, film theory became not a matter of pronouncement or prescription, but of description, analysis, and deduction. Indeed, Bazin can be regarded as the aesthetic link between film critics and film theorists. During
his relatively short writing career, his primary concern, again, was not to
answer questions but to raise them, not to establish cinema as an art but to
ask, What is art? and What is cinema?
In this Bazin was the quintessential teacher, ever paying attention to
pedagogy, as his lecture or presentation on Carns Le jour se lve (Daybreak, )included in On Global Cinemashows. Himself having
failed to pass the French state licensing exam, after which he would have
become an actual classroom teacher, Bazin was nonetheless teacherly in his
belief that film criticism should help audience members to form their own
critical conscience, rather than providing a ready-made one for them or
merely judging films in the audiences place. Through a kind of sociological
psychoanalysis as much as through critical analysis, the film critic should
educate moviegoers to deal consciously and responsibly with the dreams
on screen that are offered to them as their own. (As a rule, Bazins social
psychoanalyses through film were generated by a relevant and enlightening but barely discernible detail detected in the films texture, which then
stimulated a more general diagnosis on his part.) And this is possible only
if viewers get to know how those dreams, with their secret reality, work
that is, how they are expressed through every formal, technical, social, and
aesthetic aspect of the cinema.
xviii
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
In other words, film criticism should not simply unveil how a cinematic
text and the grand cinematic machine work; it should investigate how social myths and ideological formulations are foreign and intimate to the
viewer at the same time. Such myths and formulations, albeit illusory, are
real or true because they concretely affect the life and feelings of people, who respond accordingly. Hence the aim of postwar film culture in
general, according to Bazin, was to defend the public against this form of
abuse of consciousness, to wake the audience from its dream . . . to render
the public sensible to the needs or illusions that were created in it as a market, for the sole purpose of providing the opium sellers with an outlet for
their drug (Les lettres franaises, July ).
Andr Bazin, critic and teacher, died tragically young (he was only
forty) in of leukemia, an illness against which he fought bravely for
years. Yet he left much material behind, in his seminal collection Quest-ce
que le cinma? as well as in such magazines as L cran franais and Les temps
modernessome of the best of which I gathered in Bazin at Work: Major
Essays and Reviews from the s and s (), Andr Bazin and Italian
Neorealism (), and French Cinema from the Liberation to the New Wave,
. To these earlier collections, Bazin on Global Cinema may be considered a complement. Covering the years from to the postwar period when todays globalism, with its interdependent economic, industrial, and entertainment networks, first took rootOn Global Cinema
treats such prominent international moviemakers as Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Orson Welles, Roberto Rossellini, Andrzej Wajda, and Elia Kazan. This book also examines well-known films like High Noon (), Umberto D. (), M (), Hamlet (), The Red Badge of Courage (),
and Le jour se lve. Together with these movies and their directors, Bazin investigates such important subjects here as the philosophy of film, art
and politics, the star system, theater and cinema, film and the avant-garde,
the emerging market of film-book publishing, and the mission of criticism
itself.
Bazin on Global Cinema features, in addition, a sizable scholarly apparatus including an extensive index, illustrative movie stills, a comprehensive
Bazin bibliography (for the first time in print), and credits of all the films
discussed at length. (In the text itself, I have supplied all film dates, translations of film titles, publication dates, and birth-and-death dates of the
artists in question, as well as an occasional parenthetical note.) This volume thus represents a testament to the continuing influence of one of the
worlds preeminent critical thinkers, as well as a major contribution to the
still growing academic discipline of cinema studies. Yet On Global Cinema
xix
S
N
xix
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
is aimed, as Bazin would want, not only at scholars, teachers, and critics of
film, but also at educated or cultivated moviegoers and students of the cinema at all levels. In his modesty and simplicity Andr Bazin considered
himself such a student, such an interested filmgoer, and it is to the spirit of
his humility before the saint of cinema, as well as to the steadfastness of
his courage in life, that this book is dedicated.
S
N
xx
xx
Introduction
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
xxi
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
( ) -
(L cran franais, December , ,
and Cahiers du cinma, March )
ing the existence of a certain avant-garde and to founding the film society Objectif according to said premise. From to
, what we now know as the avant-garde took on a very precise and unmistakable meaning. Removed from the demands of commercial cinema,
this work attracted only a limited audience and tried to gain acceptance
for cinematic experimentation comparable to that found in the painting or
literature of the time. The films of Fernand Lger [], Hans Richter [], Man Ray [], Luis Buuel [], and later
those of Jean Cocteau [] did indeed garner recognition for their
exceptional character. For the rest, the public couldnt find these films anywhere, as they were shown only in specialized theaters that constituted a
sort of generalized movie club during this period.
Now it would be childish to retrospectively condemn the avant-garde of
, whose role, however indirect, has been considerable. If people
do not condemn this movement, they do confuse it on a larger scale with
the appearance of the first critical school of cinema, and thus they make it
part of the collective consciousness that wished to see the creation of cinema as an art form. Today we could certainly criticize such an avant-garde
in the name of the mass appeal of the film medium. It is a heavy burden,
but also a unique opportunity for the cinema, to be in a position to please
a very, very large public. Whereas all the traditional arts have, since the Renaissance, evolved into forms reserved for a highly reduced, elite audience
blessed with fortune or culture, the cinema is innately destined for throngs
S
N
This article constitutes the most important manifesto of the movement of cinephiles, critics, and directors known as Objectif .
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
was to follow them. They beat around the bush when the whole of cinema advanced at a leisurely pace down completely different paths. If instead we call the avant-garde not just a small and distinct artistic movement but rather everything that, in the cinema, finds itself at the forefront
of this art, really pushing it forward, then the first avant-garde filmmakers
would be Georges Mlis [], Griffith [], Louis Feuillade
[], Abel Gance [], and Erich von Stroheim []
who himself never thought of making anything but commercial pictures. Is
todays cinematic art less indebted to them than to Buuel, Germaine Dulac [], or Richter?
Its this first avant-garde that remains ever possible today, and its this
one that should be rediscovered and supported. It does have its promoters,
whether conscious or not, in directors such as William Wyler [],
Orson Welles [], and Preston Sturges [] in the United
States; Jean Renoir (the inexhaustible, the magnificent []), Robert
Bresson [], and Roger Leenhardt [] in France; and, in Italy, Roberto Rossellini [] with Paisan [Pais, ] and Luchino
Visconti [] with The Earth Trembles [La terra trema, ]. I certainly dont pretend to be making an exclusive and complete list here.
Moreover, the issue is not that these directors are necessarily the greatest
(although this has sometimes been the case). To wit: Charlie Chaplin [
] is greater than von Stroheim, John Ford [] greater than Wyler, and Frank Capra [] more important than Sturges. But in an
art in constant evolution, such as the cinema, novelty is a value. Given otherwise equal conditions, a director who innovates and enriches the language or content of filmmakingbroadens its domain, so to speakis superior to one who, however magnificently, dedicates himself to exploiting
already conquered territory, even if he did the conquering himself.
So, then, its up to artistic genius and critical enterprise to separate the
good new films from the bad, the advances to which the audience will later
get accustomed from those advances incompatible with the mass appeal
of cinema. Such a statement on my part entails developments that I cant
even begin to outline in the space of this article. But we can well see that,
for example, the avant-garde of the years was marred by an aestheticism whose retrospective devaluation proves that it could never have
had much in common with public taste, and thus not with the cinema either. Naturally, I cant stress enough that things are never so simple and
that such aesthetic errors can even have been indispensable and productive, if only to help the cinema take stock of itself. As such, these heresies
are, from a historical point of view, acceptable and even worthy of high esteem, yet I refuse to identify them with the commercial failures of Renoirs
S
N
Discovering Cinema
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
The Rules of the Game [La rgle du jeu, ], Welless The Magnificent Ambersons [], and Bressons Ladies of the Park [Les dames du Bois de Boulogne, ] or with the boredom some critics say they have experienced
while watching Leenhardts The Last Vacation [Les dernires vacances, ].
For if the general public is to be the supreme judge whose initial verdict we
should accept, even a seasoned critic like me could be deluded in the immediate present.
We should know how to distinguish between the innovative work whose
commercial failure is only accidental and anecdotal and the kind of film
that radically betrays the mass appeal of cinema. Those films that one critic
calls precious celluloid are more valuable than he pretends to believe, and
the joke is not on them. Jean Giraudoux [] made a valuable contribution on this subject when he said, If preciosity allows cinema to move
forward, long live preciosity. If The Last Vacation brings to the silver screen
a subtlety of psychological analysis and a manner of storytelling that rival
those of the novel, I regret that Leenhardt didnt have, in addition, Balzacs
temperament and that an excess of critical aptitude may indeed impair his
creative capacity. But surely I do not regret that his film bores those who
prefer Henri Decoins Monelle [Les amoureux sont seuls au monde, ].
Regarding Bressons Ladies of the Park, it itself constitutes a botched job.
It is true that, for all intents and purposes, this film isnt solid enough to
support the two equally implausible outcomes at which it hints; it is also
true that the rarefied aestheticism and psychological affectation of its subject didnt please me at all, and, justly, they may have displeased the public as well. At the very least, however, Bresson has proven that tone and
style can exist in cinema as in literature and that serving up some realism
in a story that otherwise does not call for it is not necessarily a calamity. I
may even hope that, by or so, there will be highly commercial scriptwriters who can convert to accepted form staging or shooting practices that
may have become clichd by then. There isnt currently, for example, an
American film comedy that doesnt use a mise-en-scne of some depth, and
doesnt make the characters enter from the background, with the director well awarebut without the publics paying attention to itthat in
Renoirs or Welless films such an entrance, for its own sake, would seem to
be a ridiculous and gratuitous experiment.
The avant-garde of , then, has as much chance of being misunderstood by the larger public as that of . The perfect example, again, is
the timeless The Rules of the Game; not even three successive releases and
the nearly uniform praise of this critic sufficed to make the public swallow
it. (The fourth release, in , found a much more understanding public.)
However, if we relegate Renoirs The Little Match Girl [La petite marchande
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Discovering Cinema
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Lesprit, September )
S
N
us scenes of life in besieged Shanghai. The high point was
the execution by revolver shot to the back of the head, right in the middle
of the street, of some young Chinese men (looters? spies? communists?). I
dont believe that the news has ever shown us such a horrifying image, so
atrociously, even during the war or after the liberation.
Lets move quickly to the indecency of most of the journalistic comments underlining the sensational nature of these images. Ill except clair
journal, whose succinct and sober text, by contrast, transparently shows the
horror and the pity of the whole situation. This commentary also has the
additional merit of being reasonably objective.
In the face of such documentation, we cant ignore the issue of exposing pictures like this to the public at large. For my part, Im strongly for
it. Along with contributing, in this particular case, to making unlikeable
whichever of the two sides deserves it most, it has the advantage, in my
view, of reminding us that the war in China isnt simply a case of operatic exoticism. Anything that could shake us out of our apathy or the pharisaic curiosity that allows us to read the news from Shanghai in the evening paper as if it were just the crime of the day; anything that could
make us grasp the reality of the horrors of war in spite of our geographic
insulation in this case; anything that forces us into a state of consciousness and then responsibilityany such thing is good. Even if, from the
start, the purveyors of this news didnt expect anything but profit from
the sensational imagery of blood and gore, they have, despite their intentions and by the very force of the matter at hand, fulfilled their duty for
once.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Nonetheless, I dont think that this spectacle could raise from the public
any feeling other than a sort of sacramental horror, something like spiritual
nausea. The exploiters of these images may have intended to create an outlet for someones sadistic impulses, but I dont think they have succeeded.
While we cant ascertain positively whether such sadism may in fact have
been awakened, it seems to me that such an effect cannot measure up to the
kind of existential current that only the cinema (and, to a lesser extent, radio) can stir up in the abysses of our collective consciousness.
This is because the miracle of cinema is its ability to dissolve time.
Whereas a photograph sticks to an event like plaster to a death mask and
doesnt take from it more than an instants imprint of light, the cinema extrapolates the duration and the space of the event at the same time. It is
able to re-present the event in the time allocated to it. Th is paradox, which
is essentially that of the mechanical arts, seems to me to have but one limitation or, more precisely, an ontologically intolerable point of contradiction: death. If life is calculated by society from the moment of birth, its
denial by means of death is lifes true existential origin. In effect, our experience of time is defined by, and derived from, this privileged instant that
transforms life into destiny, in Andr Malrauxs words. Death doesnt belong to time: it is its moment of origin, the absolute zero point. To change
the metaphor, death is to duration as sexual climax is to love in general: the
supreme experience of a sort of intercourse with time.
Hence the veritable ontological pornography of the re-presentation of a
real death. From one point of view, death, as exquisite pleasure, is pure subjectivity. We wouldnt know how to contemplate such extreme pleasure on
the part of another being; no one can vicariously die or make love. These
are, if I dare say so, situations that are lived through but which, by definition, cant be treated as objects independent of us. At the same time, they
are indescribable, since each one is accomplished through the negation of
consciousness. That is to say, they escape time since they cant be framed
except before and after the event.
The scandalousness of cinema is that it is able to make us see death as an
instant perfectly identical with others, whereas it is the only one of our actions that by its very essence cant ever be reenacted. The screen can make
us witness this monstrous phenomenon: to re-die. Each Chinese man in
the photograph is, on demand, alive again for every show: and the impact
of the same bullet lightly shakes the back of his head. Not missed, either,
is the gesture of the policeman who twice has to contend with his jammed
revolver.
Before the cinema we knew only the profanation of corpses and grave-
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
robbing. Thanks to film, the only one of our temporally inalienable apparatuses, the instant of ones death can be stolen and exposed at will. I imagine
the supreme cinematic perversion to be the backward projection of an execution, as in the gimmicky newsreels where we see the diver jump from the
water back onto the diving board.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
,
(Almanach du thtre et du cinma, )
a lot in the last year or two. There even seem to be formalist critics, to whom one would naturally oppose those who side with Diogenes the Cynic on subjects such as this. Formalism, I think, is a very new
idea in film criticism, at least in the vaguely pejorative meaning that the
word takes on nowadays. The final years of silent cinema were much more
formalistic in this regard than the current cinema of . It should suffice
here to recall German expressionism, the French school from back then,
and certainly, in large measure, Soviet filmmaking, which had crafted its
own strenuously intellectual aesthetic. Without question, only a select segment of Swedish cinema and most American films can escape the charge of
formalism.
In fact, it was the introduction of the spoken word, of sound, that
moved cinema in the direction of realism and established the preeminence
of content over form, of subject matter over its expression. Most of the scenarios of silent cinema, by contrast, are but puerile melodramas or even
(perhaps especially) soap operas in antithesis to the aestheticism of their
Beginning in , a conflict, first muffled and later more and more overt, broke
out between members of the Objectif cinema club and the Communist or proCommunist wing of the magazine L cran franais. The latter group lauded realism while accusing others of formalism. In an article titled Cinema, an Underground Art, Claude Vermorel [] first attacked Jean-Charles Tacchella
[born ] and Roger Thrond [] for an interview they had conducted
with Alfred Hitchcock []. Then Louis Daquin [], in Displaced Remarks, struck out at Alexandre Astruc [born ], Andr Bazin [
], and in a more general sense the entire Objectif movement. The article below by Bazin focuses on the debate between the two groups.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
form. Consider, for example, the work of Abel Gance [] or Marcel LHerbier []. It would have been quite unusual at the time to
chastise these directors for being more concerned with the originality of
their mise-en-scne than with the verisimilitude and depth of the subjects
they were treating. If told in words, The Wheel [La roue, ], for example,
wouldnt sell even in the train-station bookshops, but everyone still remembers Gances accelerated montage. What would the pompous and infantile
ideology of D. W. Griffiths Intolerance [] be worth today, if this work
did not contain at the same time the sum of cinematographic language
from which almost all contemporary films continue to take their cue? Indeed, until around the s, cinematic excellence was completely indistinguishable from the mise-en-scne.
It is true that, in effect, each new expressive instrument is almost invariably matched by a novelty in the thing expressed: to invent a technique has
always meant to create an idea or a meaning. Superimposition, now a hackneyed device, was responsible for every fantastic illusion conjured up by the
Scandinavian cinema, and accelerated montage could impart an epic grandeur to even the sentimental romance between a locomotive driver and a
shopgirl. It was with the primitive Westerns, where there was a meeting
of the great epic themes of American history and filmic montage, that we
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
saw for the first time in the cinema the creation of genuine dramatic suspensetogether with something as simple as the traveling shot, which
allows us to follow a galloping horse. The conception of ancient Christianity found in Ben Hur [, dir. Fred Niblo], moreover, cant hide its imbecility today; but in this film there still remain four white horses filmed
right in the middle of their gallop, writes Jean Cocteau, from a vehicle
that followed them at the same speed, as they raced past a line of disheveled
profiles, sculpted in a wind of marble.
These days, when we see such films again, its most often the scenario
that is the dregs. The only thing of value that remains has been created by
the films form. Its not that we cant be movedquite the contrarybut
it is as if our emotions are being filtered through the sieve of the mise-enscne. We reconstruct the film from there; we read a new work in the watermark, as it were. What we dont do is cry any longer over the jealousy of
the locomotive driver; instead we exult over a symphony of speed and juxtaposition, if not collision.
The realism of sound, having rendered the symbolism of the silent image less potent and having limited the effects of montage, has also clearly
modified the relationship between form and content, if it has not radically
changed their nature or evolution. In an ever more discreet fashion, sound
cinema has had to invent its own mise-en-scne, which was already rich
during the silent period; having been left with little new ground to conquer, sound films have taken instead to refurbishing and refining the filmic
landscape. The age of great technical discoveries, after all, has come to a
close.
Yet now, after the war, we hear for the first time insistent talk about the
crisis of cinema, and formal perfection is newly reproached as a blemish
on the medium, especially in American film. Any enthusiasm for novelty,
for originality in the mise-en-scne, is approached with suspicion, and the
formalist epithet comes very close to belittling anyone to whom it is applied. Maybe, then, it wouldnt be so futile to attempt to try to understand
this new paradox known as the crisis of cinema.
Let us first try to separate the facts of the issue from a few polemical incidents that have only helped to confuse matters. True enough, mention of
the crisis refers not so much to any absence or shortage as to its nature,
and to the kind of critic who not only rallies against the inanity of the subjects of Western filmmaking, but who also reproaches the political agendas
that he attributes to this cinema, be they right or wrong. The crisis, then, is
less about attacking movies for having nothing to say than for saying what
we dont want to hear. If we are to postulate that the only permissible subjects for the cinema must have predetermined social or political elements,
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
tates before annexing some of the territory associated with the novel and
the drama. And it is surely not by refining to a Byzantine level the gangster theme, or by substituting Ava Gardner [] for Rita Hayworth
[], that Hollywood is going to weather this particular storm. By
contrast, it is through the psychological subtlety of its best scenarios that
French cinema has kept its place after the war; and Italian cinema, through
the profound humanism of its themes during the same period, has managed to introduce itself to the entire world. My esteem for British filmmakers soars, as well, because they have incorporated in their films the traditional humor of their literature.
However much in the background the above considerations seem to
leave the matter of artistic technique, its goal in fact is to advance such
technique. How could anyone imagine that the cinema could escape from
such a law of art, which is as old as it is universal? One would have to be
utterly blinded by the passion of this debate in order to dispute the evidencethat is, that there isnt any novelty in artistic subject matter that
doesnt simultaneously require an invention of, or an adaptation in, the corresponding technique. Let us understand, of course, that by technique I
dont necessarily mean just an improved formal device. If such a device
does come into being, it may be necessary, as in the case of the muchdiscussed issue of depth of field; but it is only as a function of its expressive
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
value that this device gains its meaning and importance. Finally, and above
all, technique shouldnt be limited to plasticity. There exist many invisible
aspects of the mise-en-scne that are usually more important than what we
think we see on screen. That is what allows us to say that a film is good in
spite of its technical shortcomings.
Such shortcomings concern a secondary, but very visible, aspect of the
mise-en-scne. For example, as a period piece, Gigi [, dir. Jacqueline
Audry], from Colettes novella in an adaptation by Pierre Laroche [
], represents in effect a failure of material means. It was a challenge
to try to reconstruct the era of the s with such skimpy dcor, but the
film held up because the subject in fact was Colette [] herself and
the very particular psychology of the books characters. Whats important
comes to us from the script and the actors. The physical interpretation by
Danile Delorme of the role of Gigiwell, its a veritable mise-en-scne
unto itself. Maybe the most touching of Soviet sound films, The Childhood
of Maxim Gorky [Detstvo Gorkogo, , dir. Mark Donskoi], itself exhibits great technical poverty, with montage that comes across as very confusing indeed. But whats essentialthe marvelously equivocal spontaneity of
all the charactersis captured perfectly by the actors, and the discursively
rhapsodic, subjective, and sincere aspect of childhood memory is never betrayed by the mise-en-scne, which is less dramatic than spontaneously
novelesque.
It is not important that the urgency and necessity of a rapport between
form and content be self-consciously visible and calculated; they need only
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
arise from an intuitive yet balanced response on the part of the artist. It
doesnt even matter to what extent, and in what way, technique gives birth
to subject matter; up to a point they are indissociable, anyway, as is the
story of Phaedra from the harmonious verse in which Jean Racine cast it in
his tragic drama. If Yves Allgrets The Cheat [Manges, ] is a remarkable success, as much as his Woman of Antwerp [Dde dAnvers, ] and
Such a Pretty Little Beach [Une si jolie petite plage, ] were unremarkable failures, it is not because the scenario was better, but because it finally
found, through its editing, the right form. Abandoning every formal reminder of the prewar noir films, Allgret has imprisoned his characters in
a hopeless dialectic. This story could be seen as the product of a conventional style that uses its characters as mathematical symbols of a cruel algebra. It is one of those films where the style seems to have preceded the elaboration of the subject; where the artists primal intuition has doubtless not
been directed at creating a dramatic situation, or even a particular character, but at establishing a certain tone, a rhythm of storytellinga formal harmony, if you willbut one that nonetheless meshes entirely with
the pictures theme. The relationship between form and matter is not that
of container to contents, of bottle to liquid, but more that of shell to clam.
This is by no means a superfluous and interchangeable form, but a specific
architecture secreted by an amorphous piece of flesh whose disappearance
would therefore not leave a single trace.
If nature must proceed from the inside to the outside, from cause to effect, it is the privilege of art, as of science, to induce matter or to deduce
form. Paul Valry [] built The Seaside Cemetery [] upon the cadence of a single line of verse. Having said that, I still have to acknowledge
that an expressive style can veer from the subject that authenticates it; we
see this quite easily in the most mediocre Italian or especially American neorealist films, where the shooting in natural locations with nonprofessional
actors exposes even more the artificiality of these pictures subjects. But the
vanity and even superstition of such a dubious practice do not apply to genuine works of art, in which style is always a function of the matter to be
expressed.
It is not true at all, by the way, that every technical breakthrough superimposed on an important subject is forcefully justified by what its charged
with expressing. An old Renault taxi can take you to the train station as
well as the newest American automobile. That could very well be the case
for todays Soviet cinema, inasmuch as we can generalize from just one technical breakthrough, or the theory concerning it, about a sparse yet at the
same time diverse amount of filmic production. Eisenstein once labored to
aesthetically undergird the needs of revolutionary propaganda through his
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
theory of montage, but I cant see any way in which the patriotic themes of
Alexander Nevsky [Aleksandr Nevskiy, , dir. Sergei Eisenstein] demanded
the noteworthy formal expressiveness of this films mise-en-scne. The
abundant formal means of The Battle of Stalingrad [Stalingradskaya bitva,
, dir. Vladimir Petrov] and The Third Blow [Tretiy udar, , dir. Igor
Savchenko], for their part, neither add to nor subtract from the historical
thesis each one develops. In a sort of paradoxical revolution, socialist realism will thus take on, after a few years, the allure of a kind of neoformalism.
It is necessary, in any case, to conclude this discussion of the false issue
of formalism in the cinema. If it is true that technique poses the critics particularly interesting problems, this is certainly not with regard to film criticism itself, but rather with regard to the extent to which technique is an
enduring and readable sign of the achievement of depth. It has been a long
time, for example, since the cinema sought to emulate the theater. Was it
only the novelty of their subjects, then, that made The Little Foxes [, dir.
William Wyler], Hamlet (, dir. Laurence Olivier), or The Storm Within
[Les parents terribles, , dir. Jean Cocteau] such screen masterpieces? Was
it only after forty years of trial and error and bad filmed theater that the
cinema finally found the narrative techniques with which to successfully
adapt plays to film? Indeed, it would be quite astonishing if, in a real competition with the theater, the novel, and journalism over new subjects to
treat, the cinema didnt feel the need to enrich its means of expression.
Only a shallow observer could deduce, at this point in the cinemas evolution, that it falls on the director to renounce films technical resources instead of creating new ones, in the belief that creative invention will best be
served through the use of classic procedures. Sound cinema, having reached
the end of, or at least a plateau in, its formal evolution, is reflectingperhaps for the first timeon its true formal problems. Such a cinema cannot evade any longer the decisive importance of style: that is, the fundamental state of the art where every technique is completely responsible for
what it expresses, or every form is a sign, and where nothing is really said
without its being couched in the necessary form. Criticism could then be
practiced, at least on the best films, as it has been practiced now for a century on the best literature, by means of the otherwise artificial categories of
form and content. To speak of form in this new sense is the very opposite
of an analysis of subject matter, and we wouldnt be able any longer to confine ourselves to noting that this or that particular stylistic aspect has now
been introduced. Wed have to make sure that it has been conquered, for
the filmmakers as well as for ourselves: that it has become of the cinema
even as Stendhals characters, Andr Gides moral views, or Victor Hugos
political convictions have become of literature.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cahiers du cinma, September )
exclusive screens of Paris is the multiple number of rereleasesa phenomenon that no doubt doesnt date only from this year. We
have been noticing it for two or three years now, at the Cinma dEssai in
particular, yet it seems to be limited to small, semispecialized movie theaters whose clientele could almost be mistaken for that of the cinema clubs
or film societies. And yet it is not completely fair to identify this new commercial phenomenon with the mission of the cin-clubs. Without question,
rereleases are not completely anomalous, but one should acknowledge that
the effort of the clubs has in effect paved the way for them.
Indeed, the clubs have been sowing a good seed with their interest in
older films; they have contributed to the idea that the cinema of the past
is equal or superior to that of the present. They have also contributed to
the idea that film is endowed with the same qualities as the other arts, one
of them being that it is capable of resisting the passage of time. But this
idea follows a trajectory that can even be traced to a country without cinclubs, like the United States. We can take it for granted, for example, that
when Chaplin [] finally created a narrative, voice-over commentary for The Gold Rush [] in and rereleased City Lights [] in
, he was doing something that shared a common denominator, both in
form and spirit, with the activity of the cin-clubs. The same goes for Ren
Clair when he cut six hundred meters from Freedom for Us [ nous la libert, ], also in , and simultaneously restored the negative in keeping with current taste.
I can well imagine the cin-clubs of comparing the original,
version of Clairs film to the new commercial one. This hypothetical example perfectly illustrates the difference between the cin-club phenomenon
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
and that of rereleases. In the first case, we are dealing with a consciousness
of, and respect for, history in which the work of art is contextually linked
to the date of its making. In the second case, the work, even though it may
be old, preserves a universal value and a vitality that are always in keeping
with the times. The aging of a films technique and the multiple signs of the
year in which it was madeevident in the costumes, the makeup, and the
actors performancesthereby cease to be insurmountable obstacles to the
publics interest in its essential art. The cin-club aficionado may read a film
script and be pleased to discover that the author of the original source material is from the sixteenth century. The future spectator of Freedom for Us
will probably smile at the slight archaisms of language, yet, ever the capable
pedagogue, Clair has deleted the passages that would be incomprehensible without a dictionary and thereby made the film our contemporary. The
cinephiles may go to old films, then, but some old films reveal themselves
capable of going back to the publicvia the boulevard theaters.
As limited as it may be in principle, the practice of rereleases for some
films may have something radically revolutionary about it from the point
of view of filmic mores. As Marcel LHerbier [] once put the matter, cinema is opposed to the other arts in that these aspire to the conquest
of Time, whereas cinema aims to conquer Space. Stendhal [] is
not the only one who could proudly claim that he wrote to be read in one
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
hundred years; even the artists most worried about the consecration of immediate successpainters, poets, playwrights, and architectsknow that
the final judgment of their work will be in its appeal to posterity. Cinema,
by contrast, is in fact a slave to fashion. It must conquer the largest possible
number of screens, as fast as possible, in a maximum of four or five years.
The ideal example of this is Chaplin, whose films have flooded the entire
world. No geographical conquest in history has even come close to the one
achieved by this man-myth. Yet Chaplin himself, by taking care to pull his
previous film from circulation before the release of his next one, in order to
ensure the latters success, has illustrated these last few years the law of spatial competition. Cinematic successes are by definition extensive and exclusive; they are juxtaposed one against the other, not superposed on top of
each other.
The practice of remakes itself perfectly demonstrates this state of affairs.
When a film has been successful enough that peoples memory of it may
still have commercial value, it is not enough just to put it back into circulation: the picture is remade, sometimes as a carbon copy, with different actors and a different director. Here are some examples of this practice:
Back Street [, dir. John M. Stahl; , dir. Robert Stevenson], Daybreak
[Le jour se lve, , dir. Marcel Carn; remade as The Long Night, ,
dir. Anatole Litvak], and recently The Raven [Le corbeau, , dir. HenriGeorges Clouzot; remade as The th Letter, , dir. Otto Preminger].
Theres no doubt we could find an economic infrastructure for the aesthetic phenomenon of remakes as well as rereleases. The extent of the commercial distribution circuit, the speed with which films must run through
it, and the commercial inconsequence that they suffer by the end of their
runthese are all the direct consequence of the amount of financial investment in the cinema. The cinema is an industry that needs to rotate; the
new in it chases away the old without any consideration of value, simply because it is old, or, more precisely, because novelty itself is identified with
value. That is the principle behind the building of exclusive movie houses
in expensive neighborhoods. Yet economic imperatives arent the only cause
of this situation. They confirm more than they create the societal demand.
Presently the situation isnt so different in Soviet Russia, either, in spite of
the fact that the industry there is nonprofit. (However, it is true that ideological obsolescence calls for novelty as well.)
A thousand roots may link the cinema to the present, then, but they
wither once the season is past. This is especially true of films technical
evolution. Even if we were to dispute that there could actually be progress in art, even if we refuse to identify the perfecting of technical means
with aesthetic advancement, the fact still remains that the cinemas fore
S
N
On Rereleases
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
most strength is one of illusion: it presents itself as the fiction that comes
closest to duplicating the surface of the tangible world. Yet, despite its photographic verisimilitude, this illusion of reality cant be created without a
minimum of conventions. From Louis Lumires Workers Leaving the Factory [La sortie des usines, ] up to Orson Welless Citizen Kane [], its
true, the cinema continued to see a reduction in the number of its technical impairments. In , for example, a silent film gave its audience a perfect illusion of reality; by , the silence of such a film was a convention
that couldnt be effortlessly accepted. Realism is the general law of cinema,
then, but it is relative to the forms material evolution. To the imperious demands of realism, the following secondary ones related to artistic technique
must be added: photographic style, lighting, and montage. So many conventions are transparent during the period of their novelty, yet they become
opaque blindfolds after five or six years when another convention comes
along and imposes itself on the medium.
Apart from these properly cinematographic factors, what needs to be
taken into account is the more or less direct crystallization of an era on
filmits tastes, its sensibility, and thousands of little details that date the
image. Of all the arts, cinema is the one that leaves itself most open to the
passage of time. Whereas the erosion of the years usually doesnt affect anything except the incidental superstructures of other works of art, it touches
the essence of film: such erosion may skin and sometimes even penetrate
to the core of a play, a poem, or a painting, but it always destroys the very
illusion of reality that the cinema in principle creates.
How, then, do we emotionally identify with heroes, vicariously participate in actions, and avowedly believe in the objective reality of events that
the marks of time render in such a way as to make them indissoluble to the
imagination? The woman that I vicariously seduce in the form of an actress
on screen cant be wearing a dress from and have short hair like that
of a boy, nor can I pick her up in a prewar Hispano-Suiza automobile. The
temporal relativity of cinematographic appearances is their absolute, if you
will. In the manner of reality and of dreams, filmic action cant, by definition, present itself as past. The remake, which is nothing but the updating
of a film, doesnt have any more than a shallow link with theatrical miseen-scne, which adapts an ancient or classic text to the tastes of the present
day. Such a text is the essence of a play, its imperishable nucleus, whereas
the mise-en-scne of a film cant be distinguished from its script any more
than the body can be from the soul. Reshooting a film may be analogous
to rewriting a play, but the two activities are not synonymous: you dont rewrite Molires The Miser [].
The obligation of contemporaneity, which anchors film to the depths
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
On Rereleases
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
younger at the start of the picture. Sturges thus presents the old on equal
footing with the new; he breaks the spell created by Harold Lloyd [
] in his myth and reembodies it in an actor who has the right age (as
well as the right to age) and is, in reality, a sort of miraculously revived
Sleeping Beautyone whose adventures constitute, beyond mere farcical
caper, the substance of the films scenario.
Without question, the phenomenon of the rerelease surpasses in complexity and significance the case of films like Mad Wednesday, in which
the cinema tries to regain consciousness of its past, but the rerelease derives from the same deep-seated cause: a decisive modification in the relationship between the public and the movies. The primal and total illusion
in which the viewer lost himself a long time ago, the identification without
detachment, the euphoria of the cinematic presence whose charm was not
yet troubled by any sign of changing timesthese have all slowly been replaced by a conscious and consenting illusion. It is no doubt different from
that of the theater but, assuming that this new illusion is at the very least
like the one that attends the novel, there remains the possibility of participating in its imaginary universe despite fineries of style whose aging does
not allow for any confusion with current reality.
There is, then, no reason to see in rereleases, as is often insinuated, the
consequences of a hypothetical decadence of the cinema. It is not at all because todays films arent as good as those made fifteen or twenty years ago
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
On Rereleases
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, September , )
S
N
films of the past week in order to have an excuse not to talk
about them. From the city of Anjou, where I am trying to entice fish to bite
my hook, I observe rather the opposite tendency in the press: that the critics are talking about the films of the week because, more and more, distributors are ignoring the prejudice against the dead summer season. For
two or three years now, we have been witnessing the release, in exclusive
Parisian theatersamong all the rereleases and cannon-fodder pictures
of films once reserved for the fall and spring months. True, the programs
for August still arent comparable to those of October or March, but they
arent negligible anymore, either, and that means Ill have to catch up on
some of the films released during my absence when I get back to Paris. Naturally, the exceptionally favorable weather conditions for the movie-theater
business this year should be taken into account, but these really dont do
anything except stress an evolution already in course, whose first milestone
has been the practice of summer rereleases.
So, I wouldnt know how to critique the films that I havent been able to
see this week, but Ill use this opportunity to finally review, albeit a bit late,
the most important book on cinema to be published in France in many
years. In my view this is the most significant French film book of the postwar period, aside from the historical works whose value is of a different
kind. The book in question is Cinema, or the Imaginary Man: An Essay in
Sociological Anthropology [ditions de Minuit, ; translated into English and published by the University of Minnesota Press, ], by Edgar
Morin. The arrival on the scene of this young sociologist from the French
National Center for Scientific Research isnt unknown to the readers of
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
France-observateur, who nonetheless may not know that Morin devotes the
bulk of his research to the cinema. Cinema, or the Imaginary Man is the
first of a series of works in which he describes the anthropological foundations of the cinema.
Anthropology and sociology arent my fields, and I confess right
away that I have an a priori distrust, not in these sciences themselves, however uncertain they may be, but in the submission of the cinema to their
combined critical apparatus. You can always resort to a sociology or psychology of film, or of any other art for that matter, but, at the end of the
day, you should also have to determine if, as a result, you are more enlightened about the cinema in its totalitythat is, as an aesthetic phenomenon. I understand well that for a sociologist, a movie of almost no
aesthetic value could have the significance of ten masterpieces, but I myself would measure the scope and intelligence of his analysis on the basis
of how much it permitted me a fuller comprehension of a films superior
artistry.
Yet if we observe, notably in certain young critics, the abusive and halfhearted use of cheap sociology to buttress analyses that would otherwise
appear to be aesthetically based, we can also reciprocally lament that conscientious sociological researchers vitiate their own studies, or at the very
least considerably reduce their scope, by too obviously ignoring issues of
artistic hierarchy and historical context. Literature, as we know, starts at
its lowest rung in melodrama and detective fiction, and the sociology of
literature understandably pays special attention to these forms. Yet, above
all, it is important to understand how Balzacs work derives from melodrama and what the relationship is between the genius of Edgar Allan
Poe [] and the laws of the detective story. It then becomes necessary, and high time, for sociology to become aware of the superiority of
Honor de Balzac [] to Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail [
]!
Edgar Morins primary virtue is that he knows he is talking about an
art form, and it is his latent preservation of a sense of hierarchy and value
in works of art that makes his book useful for the critic, or simply for the
thoughtful cinephile. If his anthropology on one level merges with sociology, it opens on another to a purely artistic understanding of the cinema.
More precisely, it opens us up to this understanding.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
I wouldnt know how to summarize this -page (in large or coffee-table format) book here, and I must confess in addition that I barely
managed to get through Cinema, or the Imaginary Man on account of its
scientific, at times brutally off-putting, organization. I do hope, however,
not to betray Edgar Morins thinking, so I shall immediately place in evidence the central premise from which his analysis derives, and to which it
ceaselessly returns.
It has become commonplace to resort to comparisons between the cinema and dreams, and to build on the parallel between the two by starting
with some precise, yet arbitrarily extrapolated, quotations. Edgar Morin
begins with anthropological sources that attest to the magical function of
the image: that, on the one hand, it empowers the being represented, and,
on the other hand, it renders that being capable of indefinitely extending
life as well as defying death. With cinema, civilization has thus returned
to the most primitive, and perhaps the most universal, human myth. The
image, Morin writes, retains the magical quality of the double: interiorized, nascent, and subjectivized. The double embodies the psychic, affective
quality of the image, a quality that is simultaneously alienated and magical. Primitive man, a child, and a neurotic all have in common a certain
ability to magically reify the imaginary. This commonality, Morin postulates, is determined by the doublethe metamorphoses, the ubiquity, the
universal fluidity, the analogy between microscopic and macroscopic, between the anthropomorphic and the cosmological. That is, by none other
than the constituent characteristics of the cinematic universe.
More relative and individual than the magical reification of the double, the psychological realism of dreams constitutes a stage in the conscious
subjectification of the image. Dreams appear during sleep as, in effect, an
objective external reality instead of a phantasmal double. Yet didnt the first
film spectators, who reeled back from the Lumires train entering La Ciotat station in , exhibit, in their first startled response, the survival in
modern civilized man of the archaic or oneiric tendency to reify the image,
precisely because of its sudden appearance combined with its unexpected
realism (thanks in part to movement)?
I wont examine how Edgar Morin analyzes in a most compelling way
the processes of projection and identification that take the spectator from
magical-oneiric fascination to simple, affective participation, and then to
lucidly aesthetic emotion. I will only note that the effectiveness of his reasoning resides for the most part in the dialectics of his logic. Many such
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
analyses have been partially made already but without achieving a convincing synthesis, because they lacked dialectical reasoning or, at the very least,
a clear awareness of the reciprocity of cause and effect. From another angle,
Morin has the perspicacity not to see in cinema the birth of phenomena of
which it is otherwise the most radical incarnation today. The processes of
projection and identification, Morin declares,
which lie at the heart of cinema, are manifestly those that lie at the
heart of life. They combine there to spare the viewer the Jourdainesque joy [after Jourdains Paradox, as formulated by Philip Jourdain,
] of discovering them for the first time in a movie theater.
Nave commentators believe that identification and projection (each
of which is always examined apart from other psychological processes) were born with the cinema. By the same token everyone believes, no doubt, that he invented love himself.
Even though Morin doesnt cease to underline the autogenetic
links between magic and cinema, he doesnt belong to the group that sees
nothing but magic in the cinema. When it exerts its force on the primitive myths concerning images that are at the core of mechanistic civilization, film evolves very quickly to the level of intellectual consciousness of
this civilization. The deepest, most original pages in this book are therefore
those where Edgar Morin shows how cinema, from a primitive and fi xed
plane, has expanded as a languagenot in spite of its unreality but thanks
to itand has even turned itself into a tool in the service of what was originally a simple search for efficacy in fantasy. The metamorphosis achieved
by Mlis, Morin writes,
has given birth to the dissolve and the fade-out. Stripped of its
magic, the dissolve itself becomes a poetic and dreamlike effect.
These effects are used progressively: the dissolve and the fade-out
are reduced to a purely syntactical functionthe sign of an existential relationship between two planeswith the result that the magic
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
trick has become a sign of intelligence. Final wonder: the cinema allows us to witness the birth of reason out of the very system of participation that gave birth to magic and to the soul.
I wont quarrel with Edgar Morin much over minor details because I find
myself in agreement with most of his fundamental propositions, as well as
with his critical approach. What I feel, however, as I close his book may
not be any objection but some surprise. The surprise comes in the pages devoted to the similarities and differences between theater and cinema, because it seems to me that Morin unintentionally neglects to stress the fact
that theater presupposes the reciprocal convention of game-playing. And
yet, this idea of game-playing, which is essential for the comprehension of
certain, if not all, arts, seems nearly absent here. It may be that for Morin,
the game is not a fundamental anthropological category, but it also may
be that its reality cannot be reduced to an analysis of magical, oneiric, or
religious phenomena, or even to a mode of projection-cum-participation.
Whatever the case, it would unquestionably have been helpful had Morin justified his position on this matter. If magic has nearly disappeared
(at least in coherent social forms) from our scientific society, playing games
persists in many shapes and forms, of which sports are not the least significant. Truly, a game presupposes a certain level of consciousness that the
film viewer doesnt seem to attain, but that we may nonetheless find in live
television transmissions. In any event, there are several questions here that
were surely worth raising or at least intimating.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Lesprit, April )
gard criticism as hogwash, or, as is often the case, as a special form of hogwash. The authority of the professional critic resides in the
fact that criticism is his job, but his job only in the sense that he frequents
movie theaters more assiduously than does the average spectator. I do know,
however, that a number of young people who are not criticsyet who see
more films than I doare of the opinion that criticism is hogwash. Some
of my friends who have never written a single line believe this as well: indeed, they are surer of it than most people in Paris.
This short preamble is not precautionary rhetoric on my part; it has the
objective of summarizing the spirit in which I am going to discuss the latest article by the film critic Jean Carta (The Resignation of Cinema, in
Lesprit of March ), with whom I have already had a dispute over the
filmmakers Jean Renoir [] and Juan Antonio Bardem [
]. His violent criticism of French cinema seems to me so strong that I
wont even attempt to attack it frontally. I admit that even I was shocked by
Cartas virulence; in any event, his piece does contain some irrefutable arguments among others that seem less valid to me.
For what, then, does Cartaone of the regular film critics for the Catholic weekly Tmoignage chrtienreproach French cinema? He says that it
is not in touch with the realities of our time. Renoir, for example, who before World War II was the most lucid observer of French society, drifts off
today in the evocation of a Boulangist or reactionary soap opera that is further reduced to a love story. Carta could have added that Paris Does Strange
Things [Elena et les hommes, , dir. Jean Renoir] isnt even faithful to the
gravity of this veritable sentimental intrigue, at the end of which the French
general and politician Georges Ernest Boulanger [] committed
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Elena et les hommes (Paris Does Strange Things, ); director: Jean Renoir.
S
N
suicide on the grave of his mistress, Madame de Bonnemains [ne Marguerite Crouzet, died ]. I wont get into an argument with Carta over
the details of this case, because the negative aspect of his critique is on the
whole true. It is indisputable, as he argues, that French cinema of the s
and s was more social than it has been in these last five years, without even taking into account the fact that the dark realism of the prewar
period could itself pass for a faithful if less exhaustive portrait of the society
of that time. Renoirs The Crime of Monsieur Lange [Le crime de Monsieur
Lange, ], for example, had manifest and intimate connections with the
advent of the left-wing political movement known as the Popular Front.
I agree with Carta in his scathing attack against progressive filmmakers who do nothing but complain about censorship at the same time
they show themselves ready to sell out to any producer, to make any movie
for the right amount of money. As for the artistic courage and professional
solidarity that should be expected from professional unions, these groups
uttered not the smallest word of protest when the producers of Lola Monts
[] ravaged Max Ophlss work by making him reedit the original version, which had not done so well commercially, to their likingwith the
complicity of the films technicians and actors. The critics have protested,
its true, but what do these platonic protests amount to in the face of the
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
hypothetical solidarity that the technicians and artists unions have shown
with the directors association, if in fact only the latter has expressed its
opinion on this matter?
Certainly from Jean Cartas perspective, messing with a film so out
of touch with its time as Lola Monts is a rather benign affair; I suppose,
moreover, that he doesnt like it the least bit. After all, Lola Monts doesnt
deal directly or indirectly with the Algerian War, or the conditions of the
working class, or any of the other social and political problems that effectively prevent us these days from sleeping at night. This extravagant and
paradoxically accursed work [loosely based on Ccil Saint-Laurents nevercompleted historical novel of the life of the Irish-born American dancer
Lola Montez, ] is nothing but a baroque meditation on the glory
of love. Probably, too, this is the only film besides Jacqueline Audrys
version of Jean-Paul Sartres play No Exit [] that really has hell as its
subjectand its more convincing than No Exit as far as I am concerned. If
by chance Carta had happened to love Lola Monts, Id adapt his reasoning
to Smiles of a Summer Night [Sommarnattens leende, , dir. Ingmar Bergman], whose tragic eroticism Cartas eyes would certainly miss. When August Strindberg mined the depths of tragic eroticism, he was at least simultaneously addressing the subject of suffragettes and female liberation!
Dont believe for a moment that I making an a priori apology here for
detached films versus committed cinema. I would only like to defend
the cinema, be it French or not, against those who would absolutely make
it share our historical worries and who judge films for what they translate
onto the screen of our sociopolitical present. Thats a possible critical criterion but surely one that has little to do with cinematic art. Despite the fact
that we French critics exhibit more subtlety, more eclecticism, and naturally more intelligence than Communist ones, must we still judge films as
they do? Carta would rightly argue that the Communists do not (should I
have written did not?) reject nonprogressive films out of hand, and that
their true fault lies (lay?) in praising socialist-realist pieces of garbage to
the high heavens. Yet can we be sure that we will be lucid judges of socially
committed cinema if we are unjust toward detached cinema? I confess
that Cartas impetuous and brilliant argument would disarm me if I didnt
take a step back from the examples he offers in support of it; when I do so,
I see that his contempt for films I appreciate is matched only by my dislike
of those that he presents as masterpieces.
I wont revisit our dispute over Bardem, whom I think I just love with
more moderation and realism than does Carta, but as far as the otherwise
excellent Salt of the Earth [, dir. Herbert J. Biberman] is concerned,
this picture is just not going to take its place in the History of Cinema no
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
censorship that condemns this genre of film to commercial failure. Certainly, censorship didnt prevent us from dealing with anticolonialist or antimilitarist subjects. It may be unfortunate, but how many of these pictures would have seen the light of day without government intervention?
Who has prohibited the producers from undertaking films about our greatest postwar social ill: the housing crisis? I havent heard of any such scenario being submitted for precensorship screening. Oh, I forgot: Robert
Darnes The Ragpickers of Emmaus [Les chiff onniers dEmmas, ]! Alas,
it was not banned! Believe me, dear Jean Carta, if a film about the housing
crisis could turn a profit, there would be ten producers rushing to the fashionable sixteenth arrondissement to raise the funds to make it.
Maybe you would say that profitable films could be made about the
housing crisis; its just a question of imagination, and you hold it against
our directors for spending so much time, effort, and money on the eternal
themes instead of on the dramas of their own time. I agree with you, but
I would also add that there should be a reason deeper than individual psychology or creativity to explain why our scriptwriters and directors do not
make the kinds of films you desire. It is this reason or this cluster of reasons
that should be analyzed and maybe denounced, but it seems futile to take
your frustration out on the filmmakers themselves, who generally end up
shooting the pictures that suit their individual temperament or their taste,
which doesnt strike me as being something too far from what the general
public would deem acceptable.
If Jean Renoir doesnt shoot films like Grand Illusion [La grande illusion,
] anymore but only the likes of Paris Does Strange Things, we could always say that its due to senility on his part. We could also very well think
that its because today he doesnt want his message, if there is one, to meet
with individual moral reflection. You, Jean Carta, recognized this tendency
quickly enough in The Golden Coach [Le carrosse dor, ], but I cant understand how you could passionately love this filmas much as your writing about it reveals, in any eventyet detest Paris Does Strange Things.
Moreover, one could strongly prefer the first movie and deem the latter
anything but its equal or even a failure, but it is not possible to draw a deep
artistic dividing line between the two of them. You have also said that the
success of The Golden Coach, already anomalous enough in your eyes, paradoxically announced the start of Renoirs decline. Finally, you desire that
Renoir become himself again and you command him to do so in the name
of his past, yet you ignore the fact he that he has really never ceased to be
himself.
I have been working on an article for Lesprit, about the current renaissance in Hollywood, where I propose to show that this renewal owes much
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, April , )
The second letter is in a different tone and lays out its rationale over four
pages but, essentially, it also reproaches me for the artistic reservations that
I dared to express regarding James Dean. There is, so writes Mrs. D. from
Neuilly-sur-Seine,
a certain kind of unbalanced person to admire and to love! Fortunately for his memory (. . .) I have read many articles from American
magazines, and all of them were testimonies of friendship toward
James Dean.
Capricious or temperamental but humane, softhearted, and above
all misunderstood . . . I never met him . . . I regret it because knowing this man must have been very special for all those close to him,
even if he wasnt always kindness itself. You never once met him . . .
Well? How, then, can you form an opinion?
James Dean will remain nothing less than an actor of great talent,
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
In spite of their differences in tone and argument, these two letters seem
to me to reveal a common reaction. Each of my correspondents differs with
me for personal reasons. By daring to lend James Dean a human psychology, I have committed the crime of lse-mythology, or violating the myth
that this man has become. Ill defend myself by saying that I wrote about
him without evil intentthat whatever hypotheses I formulated may be
debatable, but they are devoid of malice. In short, I strove to portray James
Dean as a particular young man possessing exceptional acting talent but by
no means an indescribable or unlimited one. This little bit of audacity on
my part has nevertheless cost me, and in a weekly publication of such seriousness as France-observateur, moreover, where Edgar Morins article about
the James Dean mytha response so clearly confirming the existence of
said mythreveals, I think, that I was right to single it out for criticism.
At this point, however, I would like to cite as a worthwhile example
of perfectly objective argumentation the criticism made of me by Louis
Marcorelles [], whose name is not unknown to the readers of
France-observateur:
S
N
You implicitly attack the Phariseeism of this type of film that inevitably turns into an exaltation of the American Way of Life. But I
think that you are a bit unjust in the case of the film from George
Stevens [], a work whose sincerity is as undeniable, in my
opinion, as the total absence of genius of its producer and director. (. . .) These last few years we have been suffering from a certain
consensual yet involuntary demystification complex regarding the
American cinema.
I understand how, let us say, a screenwriter and director like Pierre Kast
[] would feel wronged by my kind of criticism. But George Stevens wont be affected by it: Giant has already been heralded as one of
the biggest successes in the history of American cinema. With more than
million in anticipated box-office receipts in the American market alone,
it will immediately secure a place behind Victor Flemings Gone with the
Wind [] and Henry Kosters The Robe [] in the earnings game. The
public may find a filmed bestseller in this movie, yet I think there is a lot
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
more. Stevenss taking a stand against racism during the fight scene in the
dinera racism sanctioned by the vox populimarks a turning point in
American cinema and, Im almost tempted to say, in American history. In
Giant, make no mistake about it, a cat is a cat and a racist is a racist; there
is no subtlety about it: everything here is written in black or white. I agree
that problems wont be solved just by principled statements of the kind
found here, yet this picture comes at an important time in American history. And its not afraid to cause a little trouble, either.
Finally, I disagree with those who discern demagoguery in George
Stevens. I have some fears that it may be just such an anticommunist phobia that paralyzes so many of our aesthetic reflexes. Once and for all, we
must liberate ourselves from the Muscovite burden and judge the world
and its inhabitants in the here and now. The United States, the cradle of
liberalism, a liberalism that issued forth from our very own encyclopedic
eighteenth century (completely different from the blissfully materialistic
nineteenth century, which gave birth to capitalism and its dreadful antidote, Stalinist communismthe results of whose ravages we are still seeing today), is advancing slowly toward the solution to one of its gravest
problems, that of the black minority, which holds the sword of Damocles
over the great American democracy. We ourselves are not in a position to
give lessons to our great ally for the simple reason that this racist cancer
doesnt exist here in France. Regarding the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev has
admitted that it was easier to deport his countrys own troublesome groups;
evidently, that is one way a way of solving the problemor so the Russians
suppose.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
cant as Jean Gabin or Humphrey Bogart. He touches me mostly for a reason that I concede is very subjective: that is, to the extent that he has more
or less taken up the mantle of John Garfield and other social rejects of the
screen. But there is something to his acting other than an exceptional identification with any character he is playing, and it is precisely Giant that
made Deans genius explode, putting an end to the dominance of William
Wyler, of other Stevens films, and of the rest of the old cinema with its psychological pretenses. Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor are nothing more
than beautiful mannequins in this picture compared to Dean. Mercedes
McCambridge herself is just a bossy lady, a typical female composite la
Hollywood.
In East of Eden [], Dean transposed modern angst and paranoia back
to the good old times of the early twentieth century, a period that, at the
very least, was badly defined. Elia Kazans success with Dean here was in
knowing how to treat his star, and his film, in a willfully anachronistic
style; his choice of Dean for the part of Cal was thus by no means an accident. By contrast, George Stevens adheres to the style of a glossy family
magazine in Giant, so its quite understandable that such a style would not
mesh with the presence of Dean. The American filmmaker, whether hes
called Stevens or Ray, lacks critical acumen; he doesnt know how to downplay himself or his work as do our filmmakers in France, where the ultimate
goal is precisely ever to demystify and show that no one has been fooled.
That will be the French cinemas superiority for many years to come.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, August , )
S
N
sphere of film books because publishing in this area, especially
during the past few months, has been quite fecund. But for now I want
only to talk about The Stars, by Edgar Morin [ditions du Seuil, ]. It
is unnecessary to introduce someone like Morin. Readers were able, a few
months ago, to read in advance some of the very brightest pages from his
small book, which is dedicated to James Dean. And last summer I reviewed
his first monograph, Cinema, or the Imaginary Man [ditions de Minuit,
], which still remains the most solid essay on the cinema from an anthropological point of view. The Stars is in a certain way an illustration of
the theses put forward in Cinema, or the Imaginary Man, through an analysis of the star phenomenon itself.
Andr Malrauxs dazzling summation on this subject is already well
known: Marlene Dietrich isnt an actress like Sarah Bernhardt; shes a
myth like Phryne. It was after such a statement that the notion of myth as
applied to film actors found an audience [Malrauxs Sketch for a Psychology
of the Cinema, published in , in fact dates from before the war], but it
was employed in a vague, if not erroneous, manner. There has been no deep
and rigorous analysis of the star phenomenon, instead just a lot pseudoscientific verbalizing. Edgar Morin gives clear definitions of this phenomenon and amply demonstrates the psychological, sociological, and economic
mechanisms that lie behind starification. He writes: Film, otherwise a
means to duplicate life, calls up the heroic and romantic myths, which incarnate themselves on screen and thereby set in motion once again the old
processes of imagination out of which the gods were born.
Psychologically, the star satisfies a paradoxical dialectic of idealization
and familiarity. If certain stars of the silent cinema (Rudolph Valentino,
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Greta Garbo) were gods inaccessible by definition, even when they attracted human sacrifices (the death of Valentino), the evolution of the phenomenon, principally with the coming of sound cinema, tended to position
the star at the ambiguous level of hero and demigod. Close enough to us to
allow for identification, ideal enough to be nothing but a projection of our
desires, the modern star isnt at all this intransigent sun that burns its worshippers but the mirage of a being that establishes an equivocal and subtle rapport with social and psychological reality. The star system, Morin
writes,
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
italism isnt the direct cause of the star, but it is the direct cause of the star
system. As Morin points out, The star responds to an affective or mythic
need that is not created by the star system. But without the star system, this
need wouldnt find its outlets, its supports, its aphrodisiacs. Historically,
the star was born during the first film competition, in the second decade of
the twentieth century. It takes only a reading of the extraordinary book by
Adolph Zukor, The Public Is Never Wrong [], to become persuaded. The
stars revival clearly proceeds from the movie-attendance crisis that Hollywood started to suffer in . To this crisis, as to that of sound in ,
Hollywood reacted with a technical renewalCinemaScope and the increasing use of colorbut even more so with the production of new stars:
Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, with the latters death
proving the degree of mythification of his celebrity.
Naturally, the star phenomenon didnt restrict itself to Hollywood, and,
by aesthetic polarization, it determined analogous movements in the other
great filmmaking nations, the most recent example in France being that
of Brigitte Bardot. It could be that, without ignoring the subject, Morin
doesnt underscore well enough the rapport that may exist between the
technical and psychosocial processes of star-making. Spurred by capitalistic competition, starification wouldnt have been possible without the
concomitant evolution of cinematic style and the invention of the close-up.
Its the close-up, because of the virtual proximity of the actors face, that
solicits and permits the oneiric identification incompatible with theatrical
spectacle. As Malraux always says, A theater actor is a small head in a big
room, a movie actor, a big head in a small room.
Now we know that the evolution of editing, after the advent of sound
cinema and especially after , tended toward the elimination of the
close-up, which was more and more felt to be an unrealistic artifice. From
this point of view, the enlargement of movie screens, itself independent of
the editing process, should have had an effect comparable to that of the reduction of cinematic space in the close-up. But in the same composition
as before, the actor felt closer to us in CinemaScope than he did in the classic format. Old Zukor himself isnt fooled, and this is precisely what he applauds about widescreen shooting in his book The Public Is Never Wrong.
Moreover, a truth that hurt as it dawned found itself confirmed: it is not at
all the dcor or the landscape that benefits most from CinemaScope, but
the actor, and even more so the actor in close shots. By becoming larger, the
screen is like a telescope that makes new stars rise up from the night.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cahiers du cinma, October )
of Peter Nobles book on Orson Welles, but of what it has
become in the French version released by Pierre Horay Publishers (Orson Welles le magnifique, [translated from The Fabulous Orson Welles,
]). If Maurice Bessy [] had not loaned me the English original so that I could consult the index for cross-checking, I would still be
completely ignorant of the despicable tampering in which the French editors have engaged, and I would have continued to hold Peter Noble responsible for the gaps, the inaccuracies, and the mistakes that I have been
able to detect in the French version of his book. Nothing permits the trusting reader to know that he has a digest in his hands instead of a translation, as it explicitly says on the cover: translated from English by . . . (It
is better here to hide the name of the translator, who has had the sad nerve
to sign this subsistence job, perhaps excused by the need to support an aging mother or several school-aged children; but let us not judge people, for
we never know when it could happen to us. I hope at least that she has obtained a substantial fee for lending her name to this hack job.)
For what its worth, out of curiosity I have made a small calculation. Its
simple: the pages of the English book contain more or less twice as many
characters as those of the French book; the first one has pages without
counting the index, the French version only pages and naturally no index. So a priori we know that much of the original text is not included in
the French translation. But these physical proportions dont give a sufficient account of the reality of what were dealing with here. We know that
in fact the English language is more concise than ours and that a French
translation is usually a bit longer than its English counterpart. So it is then
necessary to correct the arithmetic calculation by this translation coeffi
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
cient. In the end, and taking into account not only the length but also the
languages involved, I estimate the quantitative value of this translation to
be at most or percent of the original text.
Thats it for the larger view; now lets get to the details and see a bit of
how this cannibalization job was performed. Lets accept for a while what
I shall call the reduction principle, imposed, let us suppose, by the conditions of the French market. Even so, the damage could have been intelligently mitigated. Ill even recognize that the translator may have been
capable of mitigation, if we judge by the skill demonstrated in certain paragraphs where she has been able to cut half of the original while preserving
its essence. It was imperative, however, that this be the general rule. My
halting knowledge of the language of Shakespeare and Orson Welles hasnt
let me, in the time I devoted to this task, completely decipher Peter Nobles book, but I have read it at least twice in French, and have proceeded to
make comparisons between the French translation and two or three chapters of the English original.
Ill take as an example the chapter titled Return to Broadway: Macbeth
and the Conquest of the Old World in the Pierre Horay version (pp.
). Its in fact a fusion of two chapters in Peter Nobles book (pp. )
that have the same title but are split into separate parts. The first one (titled Return to Broadway) is devoted essentially to Welless theatrical adaptation of Jules Vernes Around the World in Days [], and Ill readily admit that this section is often faithfully reproduced in French. The
only thing thats regrettable is the condensation into a three-line report of
a discussion between Welles and Mike Todd, which shows us that the latter had already invested , in rehearsals for the show by the time he
decided to abandon the enterprise. Anyway, if cuts were necessary, this one
was admissible.
What is much less admissible, on the other hand, is the plain deletion of
a dozen of Peter Nobles sentences about Orson Welless simultaneous activities in radiowhich even included the following charming anecdote. One
station, fearing to give free rein to the very person to whom it had nevertheless initially given artistic independence, thought it necessary to take extra precaution and aired a prelude to the show in question, specifying that
Welless conception was strictly personal and absolutely did not represent
the opinions of the station. As a result, the day this announcement was
made, Welles proceeded plainly and simply to read on the air pages from
the Bible. Although this may appear to be just an amusing anecdote, it has
significance. Its suppression would have displeased me less had the translators role been to suppress the anecdotes in general for the sake of facts and
ideas. But one may be led to think the contrary, because if there are two an
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ecdotes, one long and not really meaningful but judged to of public interest and another shorter but of greater critical value, the translator often
chooses the first. So instead of creating, as she should, a deeper impression
of Welless life and work, she creates a version in French that seems futilely
anecdotal in the worst sense of the word.
But let us return to the erasure of the anecdote about the radio program.
It is significant, because a record of the total radio activity of Orson Welles
(whose aesthetic or qualitative role should also be judged in terms of its
sheer quantitative importance) has been nearly suppressed from the French
adaptation, with the obvious exception of the famous Martian transmission
(The War of the Worlds) and some vague allusions here and there without precise chronological references. I also noticed an equally grave and
even more inadmissible suppression, since one simple sentence could have
mitigated it. There is no mention that for the shooting of Macbeth (),
Welles and his crew performed the play in a theater (at the Salt Lake City
Festival, to be precise) to hone the mise-en-scne before going to the studio.
Later on, its also omitted that Welles envisioned Tallulah Bankhead in the
role of Lady Macbeth; only Agnes Moorehead is mentioned in the French
version of Nobles book.
From the omissions, let us pass now to the errors. I find only on
pages and three absolutely false numbers. Its said that Orson
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Welles earned , for his role in The Black Rose []; in fact Peter Noble says it was ,. Without a doubt the translator has never seen Norman MacLarens Dollar Dance []! On page , the French text says
that Welles received ten thousand pounds for starring in Trouble in the Glen
(), whereas it was really dollars. However, in the case of Trents Last Case
[], the French version tells us that Welles got one thousand pounds, as
in the original (Noble, p. ), but, since a number without a mistake would
have shamed the editor, the translation says that such a sum was given to
him weekly, since this is naturally the ordinary fee. These instances of error
should all be multiplied numerous times over; only then can we judge the
so-called seriousness of this particular enterprise.
But lets suppose that the above mistakes are just cases of memory lapse
or forgetfulness. We wouldnt be able, however, to show so much indulgence to the mistranslations, the incorrect meanings, and much less to the
factual inaccuracies about a complete period of Welless career. All this
starts from the cover page with its epigraph: I am a tragic character
Orson Welles. The original phrase says: I am a lurid character. I agree
that this is not an easy word to translate, but it has only a vague connection with tragic, especially in French usage. I believe that the most corrector maybe the most freetranslation here would be Shakespearean
for lurid. In any case, not tragic, or maybe this word with an explanatory footnote to correct its imprecision. Furthermore, I notice in the commentary on Macbeth the inaccurate epithet magntique, whose Anglicism
can be heard from a mile away: something like mesmrique or fascinant or
hypnotique would have spared the reader the need to consult the Larousse
dictionary.
But let us abandon such mean-spirited scourging, which would lengthen
this article by far too many words. Ill content myself to finish by mentioning a final serious mistake, keeping in mind that I have perused only about
thirty pages of the original, English text. The end of the theatrical experience of the Mercury Theater was crowned by two expensive productions
that didnt benefit from a sufficient public, that of Georg Bchners Dantons Death [written in , produced at the Mercury in ] and especially that of Welless own Five Kings in (even if this production came
from the Theatre Guild in New York and was then reprised by Welles). The
French translation simply says, on page : Orson Welles needed fifteen thousand dollars; he moved heaven and earth to find them, in vain,
and so Five Kings never saw the light of day. To begin with, these few lines
coldly summarize three pages of the original (that would have made six in
the format of the French translation), and they also deprive the reader of a
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
number of anecdotes, of which Ill be happy to mention the most interesting. During the dress rehearsal of Five Kings in Boston, Welles had to make
his amateur crossbowmen (students hired as extras) massacre, figuratively
speaking, the orchestra spectators; the mise-en-scne did call for the real
shooting of a flight of arrows, but in the direction of the backstage area.
Sadly, the rotating stage jammed at the wrong moment and the arrows flew
toward the seats. An account, even condensed, of this anecdote would have
spared the translator from affirming that Five Kings died during the rehearsal period. The truth (a bit confusing, I agree with Peter Noble) is that
this monumental spectacle in two nights never reached Broadway, but it
did tour the country, as the Boston anecdote proves.
Through some examples discovered randomly during my limited probing, we have already seen enough of the disdain for the reader and the subject with which this purely commercial endeavor has been sold to the public, in the guise of a simple and honest translation. Ill say it again: Im
absolutely not a priori against the principle of translation-as-adaptation. I
know from experience, after having analyzed the problem a few times, that
a few transpositions of style and background are necessary before one can
present a foreign critical work to the French reading public; the reason is
that social mores, artistic tastes, and critical habits are different from country to country: France, Italy, Germany, the United States, and so on. Its
also true, sadly, that the conditions of the French publishing market for
cinema books dont allow the release of large and therefore expensive volumes. It should be remarked, as well, that the publication of too many uninteresting film books, or books as mutilated as the one under review here,
has the precise effect of destroying this very market. The cinephile who has
already spent two thousand francs to buy three books that are good in the
end only for firewoodwell, he is lost as a buyer for Marie Setons Sergei M. Eisenstein: A Biography [] or P. E. Salls Gomss Jean Vigo [].
Therefore we should have no mercy on those buccaneers of publishing who
exacerbate an already compromised situation.
If Pierre Horay Publishing had wanted to act honestly instead of just
profiting from Orson Welless name, they could have condensed the original text in a more reasonable way. It seems to me that it could have survived
without great damage by having its length reduced by one third (Peter Nobles style is somewhat journalistic and aims less at conciseness than for the
approval of the reader), while preserving the essence of the anecdotes and
especially of the detailed information. We could dump into notes or place
in a smaller font the material thats difficult to fit inthe facts and especially the dateswithout breaking the continuity of the whole. But precise
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cinma , December )
criticism and the creative work of art, but it poses itself essentially in the same terms for all the arts, and it would be presumptuous of me to pretend to add something to what philosophers, aestheticians,
and artists themselves have already written about the subject. The only useful way to approach the issue for cinema, then, is to grasp it concretely on
the level of experience and historical context. Therefore I am simply going
to present a series of remarks or reflections on the state and practice of the
profession of film criticism. I myself have had the good fortune to practice
it for fifteen years already in a variety of forms (since I consider cin-club
debates, for example, a kind of film criticism), and particularly in all the
formats offered by the pressfrom the large-circulation daily to the specialized quarterly reviewwith stops along the way on the weekly magazine, whether specialized or not.
.
The first remark deriving from my experience that Id like to
make, and that I wish to underline in every reflection to follow, is that the
principal satisfaction this profession gives me resides in its seeming uselessness. Writing film criticism is almost like spitting into water from a bridge.
I say almost, because in spite of everything, there does arrive the rare moment when one can prove, in a particular case, the influential or at least
sensitive role of criticism: in the case of art-house or experimental cinema,
maybe (but less than what one might imagine). There is also the kind of
criticism that has been able to promote one film or another after it was
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
taken out of circulation following a very short initial run. Even in a case
like this, though, it is necessary to observe that criticism just supplied the
missing publicity. Such a film was destined to succeed anyway, provided
that it got good word of mouth from its first viewersthe best form of
advertisement, in the end. This amounts to saying that a written critique,
even a bad one, is the equivalent of free advertising. It also happens, more
and more, that advertising itself uses criticism, without our actually being
able to say at the same time that the quotations in the ads are really paying
homage to criticisms effectiveness. First, because the cleverly chosen citations are always favorable to the film in question, even when the review itself was a pan; and next, because they indirectly demonstrate the very impotence of criticism, which doesnt become potent until it is launched by
the springboard of advertisement.
In fact, and in the immense majority of cases, criticism plays only a small
role during the first week of a films run (lets say that it affects between
and percent of box-office receipts), but almost no role for the rest of any
commercial run. Proof from the reverse angle: even the unanimous favor of
critics has never been able to do more than, in the best of cases, prolong for
a few days the first run of a film to which the public didnt spontaneously
respond. And how many foreign films, culled from the festivals, arent even
released in Paris, or, if they are, turn out to be box-office bombs, in spite of
the support of the critics?
I would add a paradoxical correction to the above by advancing the
proposition that the always-low margin of critical effectiveness is otherwise
directly proportional to the print run of the publication in which the film
review appears. At least this is so for films whose first run is lightly subject
to influence: a good review from Le monde is surely more important than a
good review from France-soir, because the total number of readers who take
into account what Le mondes Jean de Baroncelli [] says is larger
than the number of those who worry about the opinions of Robert Chazal
[] or France Roche [born ] in France-Soir. Its a question of
journalistic market. The only exception may be the monstrous case of Le figaro, whose critical terrorism toward Parisian showingsthough not the
same for the theater and the cinemais undoubtedly attributable to a very
peculiar phenomenon of bourgeois sociology.
It is without irony, however, that I declare myself satisfied with this general condition of critical impotence. I have no envy whatsoever for the position of my theater colleagues, whose pens, by contrast, are fearsome, possessing to percent of the power that decides the fate of any spectacle.
Only the boulevard, popular theater escapes their judgment, a little like the
cinema. Its clear that the success of a theater piece depends on a certain
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
group of thousands, or tens of thousands, of spectators, who usually decide which productions they will attend after reading their favorite critic.
Should I confess that this critical responsibility scares me? Not because of
any fear of responsibility on my part, but because I judge it disproportionate and debatable. I cannot understand how the theater critic Jean-Jacques
Gauthier [], for example, could avoid committing suicide or entering a Trappist monastery, given all the power he has. No, my response
is just one of humility. I dont want the moral authority, and especially not
the state of intellectual grace, that gives the critic the monstrous privilege of
deciding the fate of works of art he doesnt like. Let us say that the critical
ideal would be to be able to help those works one likes and to have very little influence on the fate of all the others; but given that the two functions
are obviously linked, I still prefer near-total impotence to abusive power.
.
Could it be said that cinema can do without criticism? By no
means, and I would like to affirm criticisms necessity right now, together
with its uselessness. I dont know which philosopher or psychologist has
maintained that consciousness is nothing but a secondary phenomenon,
and that with it or without it, for example, Descartes would have written the Discourse on Method [] just as well. This is clearly a false idea,
but one to which I grant the value of metaphor. With or without criticism,
Chaplin, Griffith, Murnau, Stroheim, and Dreyer would have prospered
anyway: there wouldnt have been a singled altered shot in any of their
films on account of the critics. The huge amount of criticism produced, by
contrast, is just a matter of secondary consciousness, and one whose necessity cannot be measured by its utility. I do believe, however, that the parasitic critical vegetation on the majestic tree of art establishes, after the fact,
that this symbiotic relationship is absolutely necessary, not for arts slow
growth, but undoubtedly for its happy maturation.
In any case, criticism has two faces: one turned to the film, a face that I
have already said is cursory and without economic value; and the other one
turned to the public, the opposite face (in this environment) and the one
that really justifies criticisms existence. To be sure, the ineffectiveness of
film criticism has a statistical base: the fate of a film rests on three to four
million viewers, out of which number a critical review can influence only
several hundred thousand. But if we abandon this quantitative reference for
a qualitative criterion, if we think in terms of critical well-being and not
critical effectiveness anymore (fine, Ill get myself classified as a spiritualist
S
N
Reflections on Criticism
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
critic!), then I must say that if I were to reveal the essence of cinema to only
ten wild-eyed readerseven to just one such readermy role as a critic
would be justified.
In the good old days when I could still practice oral criticism at workshops and in cin-clubs, the superiority of the pleasure it gave me over the
kind I get from written criticism resided in my feelingimmediate, physical, and intensely humanthat our film discussions resulted in some genuine intellectual conversions. I cant tell you how many times I have been detained at the door of a workshop or a cin-club by a viewer (generally over
forty years old) who tried to tell me that he wasnt able to judge the validity
of my analysis of the film in question, but that this analysis had nonetheless
revealed to him that cinema existed, that it was certainly an art, and that
he had become a believer now. I remember that once, there was an elderly, distinguished lady sitting in front of me on a streetcar in Geneva who
dared to spontaneously introduce herself and discuss with me a talk I had
delivered the previous evening. Well! Dont believe me if you so choose,
but, over time, encounters like these have a much greater influence on the
money a film makes during its opening week than any percent increase
in the profits effected by a positive review in the print media.
Surely, then, its not forbidden to wish that the number of chosen few
who have seen the light would rise, and that the quality of their numbers
could become the quantity. Actually, this has been achieved to a limited
but appreciable extent with the growth and proliferation of experimental
and art-house cinemas. But criticism proper is only one factor among many
others in a complex phenomenon that, after a decade, should lead to the
constitution of a full and specialized filmgoing public. This is naturally a
phenomenon of aesthetic sociology, and one that is not even new, since we
also saw it in the years between and . The activity of the cin-clubs
and the Cinmathque Franaise, of the popular culture movements, and,
it should be said as well, the relative quality of postwar French criticism
all of these no doubt constituted the principal convergent forces that resulted at the time in a substantial increase in the number of enlightened
moviegoers.
I speak above about the relative quality of French film criticism after
World War I, and I would like now to explain myself. The wisdom of my
forty years allows me perhaps a certain objectivity regarding todays young
critics in comparison with the postwar journalistic generation. So I proclaim the following: in spite of all their faults (and God knows, there are
some, and quite irritating ones, whatever critical tendency they may manifest), the generation of critics from the s is definitely superior to anything French cinema has previously known. The French critics between
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
and were better informers, however; they kept closer to the cinema that was being made in France at the time. I mean by this that there
wasnt any real difference, as there is now, between studio and industry reporting (which these days often degenerates into stupid gossip) and serious information. The great generation of silent film critics, for their part,
should also be evaluated more carefully.
It is true that, back in the days of the silents, criticism had both quality
and the additional merit of being the first of its kind. This is important, because if criticism is the conscience of cinema, cinema owes to criticism its
self-consciousness. From another point of view, this criticism didnt separate itself from filmic creation, and we will see that, in this regard, the new
French critics join up with their forerunners (Ill come back to this later).
But I have to say, after having attentively read the complete collection of
the best film publication of the silent era, Cina-cin [], that if the
critical reflection here reveals itself always to be estimable and interesting,
the dullness of the writing would not be accepted today by anyone.
It is true that our Young Turks nowadays always commit the opposite
excess: that of intellectual preciosity, or a pamphleteering style at any cost.
At least one can say that in the weeklies, monthly magazines, and even
quarterly reviews where they write, the concern with style, with the form in
which thoughts are written down, constitutes a promotion of film criticism
as a literary genretraces of which wed search for in vain during the period after World War I. Back then, only ideas as such seemed to count for
anything, and simply expressing them was enough. Today there is a school
of criticism, however, that sadly reveals the same characteristics: the Italian school. Translated into French, the best Italian articlesseemingly vital and importantcrumble away like sawdust: nobody here will publish
them, and I dont think the French publishers are going to be contradicting
me on this matter any time soon. That the concern with literary style and
rhetorical effect sometimes leads French critics to debatable excesses is well
known, but these flaws are the price (the rest can be explained away to juvenility) one pays for a fundamentally new quality in critical writing that,
for the first time, places film criticism on a par with traditional criticism.
The intellectual and stylistic worth of work like that of Claude Chabrol and
ric Rohmer, on Alfred Hitchcockno matter what we may think of the
thesis of their bookis worthy of comparison with the best criticism
of the post-World War I period: they should get the Sainte-Beuve Prize or,
even better, the Armand-Tallier Prize.
But, to be fair, its necessary once again to place criticism in the larger
context of the film press. I apologize in advance for not nuancing my argument here, but if the film criticism of the years finally seems dis
S
N
Reflections on Criticism
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
.
I would like now to reprise the question of criticism from another angle. I have presented criticism as a necessary yet almost useless service, without any substantial effect on the fate of films (except perhaps in
the case, after a delay, of a second ruling, but such a belated resuscitation
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
doesnt interest anyone except the cin-clubs and the art-house theaters). I
know quite well what objection this hypothesis calls for: that if criticism is
unable to seriously modify the course of a films trajectory, it can then act
upon its sourcethe source, that is, of its creation. It would then be necessary to examine the possible influence of film criticism on the directors and
scenarists who read it.
I would say that, with regard to the matter of critical influence, my skepticism is even greater now, and this doesnt bother me in the least. First,
because it would be intolerably presumptive to pretend to teach the practitioner his trade (such lessons could come only from the equivalent of a
Baudelaire or a Valry). But, above all, because the creator of art doesnt expect much from the critics, for reasons connected with the profound psychology of creation. Criticism commences only with the result, the finished
work. It has as its mission not so much to explain but to open up the artworks meaning (or more often meanings) to the consciousness and spirit
of the audience. Some put forward the silly objection (which the creators
of art are the first to make, but we can fully understand their position) that
criticism purports to discover, in any work it appraises, a thousand wonderful little meanings that in fact never even crossed the authors mind. Such a
sublime discovery in the mise-en-scne, for example, may have originated
in nothing more than a technical accident.
I myself am tired of refuting the above argument, which is weak at best.
If the final work were nothing but the sum of the artists conscious intentions, it wouldnt be worth much. Moreover, we could in principle state
that the quality and depth of a work of art are measured precisely by the
distance between what the creator meant to put in it and what it actually
contains. (Taking into account different artistic temperaments, there exist
highly lucid artists who are more conscious of what they are creating than
other authors, but of all the arts, cinema is the one that by its very nature
leaves the most to unconscious chance.) Besides, the purpose of criticism
is not to unravel the psychological process of creation (an even more uncertain operation today than aesthetic analysis, which has its own arbitrary
component), but rather, as I have said, to help nurture the audiences intellectual and moral sensibility as it comes into contact with the work of art.
For this task, there arent any rules, and no bias is admissible except one:
that of taste. A critical method, whatever it may be, has no intrinsic value
if its not controlled, limited, or corrected by one specific quality that ultimately passes judgment on the critic himself: taste. Th is is obviously a quality thats hard to define, but it alone can distinguish theoretical ranting
from critical elaboration. The anything-goes attitude in criticism is the refuge of those who lack this secondary sense, and its an easy excuse for bad,
S
N
Reflections on Criticism
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
impressionistic criticism whose easy irony is nothing but a mask for analytical ineptitude.
But lets return to the subject of the creator. If he is worthy of this title,
its in him from the very beginning, in his experience, so that he can draw
from it what is needed to create. I dont say that critics, good or bad, have
nothing to teach artists; whatever critics say, however, can only be one element in the complex of factors that constitute the success or failure of a
film. In any case, the critical response counts for quite a bit less than the
simple reactions of a theater full of people. The artists own self-esteem remains to be considered, but that is another story for another day.
After describing the essential independence of creation from criticism, I
must now mention, in conclusion, a new phenomenon: the more and more
frequent independence of criticism itself from artistic creation. It could be
said that, from to , one of the characteristics of French criticism
lay in the fact that there was an almost total absence of intermixing between the film industry, on the one hand, and what the critics were writing
about it, on the other. The coming of sound more or less marks this rupture, because the emergence of film criticism during the silent era, by contrast, was tightly bound to creation: Ricciotto Canudo, Louis Delluc, Marcel LHerbier, Germaine Dulac, Abel Gance, Jean Epstein, Jean Tdesco
. . . all were at the same time filmmakers and aestheticians. I wont analyze
whether this confusion was fortunate or not, but the fact is that critical
reflection and artistic creation were interdependent back then.
Two contemporary foreign examples prove, at the very least, that the
conjunction of the analytical and the imaginative has nothing abnormal
about it: the English (with Gavin Lambert, Lindsay Anderson, and the
Sight and Sound staff ) and, above all, the Italians since the founding of
the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia [the Experimental Film Center or
Italian National Film School] in , during the Fascist era. Th is last instance is the best proof of intermixing, given that in Italy not only have
professional critics intermittently or definitively crossed the line between
criticism and filmmaking, but filmmakers themselves have also crossed this
line by constantly carrying on dialogues with various critics (in the press,
at conferences, festivals, etc.). Since I cant refrain from a certain skepticism
about the artistic fecundity of such exchanges of opinion, my purpose here
is neither to applaud nor denounce them, but instead to continue examining the French situation, which is quite different.
Here in France, we have a generation of young intellectuals who more
or less consciously have the desire or the vocation to produce cinema,
and for whom the knowledge and understanding of their future profession come not from the studio and the obscure tasks of an assistant on the
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Reflections on Criticism
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Interlude
:
(Cahiers du cinma, May )
tial characteristic of American cinema is that unexceptional films, those commercial films that are its principal
ingredient, are precisely genre films. American cinema thrives financially if the genres thrive. Production can keep going at an average or even above-average rate as long as there are good genres.
The weakness of the European film industries is that they are incapable of relying on genres for current production. In French
prewar cinema, even if there wasnt exactly a genre there was a
style, the realist film noir. Its still around but its diversified, and
Im afraid that one of the problems of French cinema may arise
from its inability to sustain good basic genres that thrive, the way
they do in America.
of view: a cinema based on stars and a cinema rejecting conventional attitudes to acting: the two kinds of cinema seen to coexist, for example, in Italian cinema. I mean that there is a certain kind of film, with a particular cinematic importance, that is
based on the star. Its quite obvious that French cinema before the
war was built around Jean Gabin. Theres an essential and profound connection between the scripts, the style of the films, and
:
Dbat sur le cinma franais (avec Andr Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze,
Pierre Kast, Roger Leenhardt, Jacques Rivette, et ric Rohmer). Cahiers
du cinma , no. (May ), pp. .
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Gabin. Its indisputable. But on the other hand you could give ten
examples where the star is a disaster. You have to judge the matter in context. I think were all agreed in assuming that its not in
the direction of the international superproduction, where the star
has a fundamental role, that French cinema has the most chance
of progress. This will happen by rediscovering a way of capturing the inspiration of talented people, and that ought not to happen independently of acting but with acting at a level beyond that
of the star.
out of date in psychological terms. Its possible that the evolution
of the cinema (I know nothing about it, which I readily admit) is
moving in the direction of the director-auteur working on the scenario with the scriptwriter or scriptwriters. But it matters very little to me whether there are scriptwriters as suchwhat does matter is that the scriptwriter should exist as a function.
What we come back to in fact isnt the problem of people, but
the problem of inspiration and themes. American cinema is just
about inexhaustible in the richness of its themes; thats just not
the case in France. Before the war there were thematic continuities. Now we have to ask ourselves what they are. The great unity
that existed before the war has split in all sorts of directions. But
one characteristic remainsof context, though not of subject
matterthat is, beyond psychology, a particular novelistic vision
of the world. Films like Jacques Beckers Golden Helmet [Casque
dor, ] or Edward and Caroline [douard et Caroline, ] are
films that, without any specific literary origins, seem to me very
French and very postwar. Roger Leenhardts The Last Vacation
[Les dernires vacances, ] is also a very postwar film. One may
say the same for Ren Clments Forbidden Games [Jeux interdits,
] or Robert Bressons Diary of a Country Priest [Journal dun
cur de campagne, ]. While they vary widely in style, atmosphere, and theme, they have in common a sharper sense of humanity than anything in prewar cinema, as well as a capacity for
analysis that is close to literature. Im afraid were losing this, and
its the only capital weve got.
ema, which did in fact demonstrate quite exceptional thematic
and inspirational unity, whichever directors were involved, could
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
II
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
( )
(D.O.C. ducation populaire, January )
Ive chosen to begin here with the form of this film or, more precisely, with its dramatic construction. Such a point of departure need by no
means be fatal. Usually one begins the discussion of a film with the reactions of the audience to the story or the characters and then finishes with
commentary on the artistic strategies used by the writer-director to visualize or validate the action as he had conceived it. But the point of departure is less important than respect for the fundamental principle of all film
analysis: in the cinema, even more than in any other art form, the content
can never be separated from the form.
Indeed, the critical analysis of any movie succeeds in proportion to its
answers to the following questions: did the audience grasp the relationship between the cinematic techniques used and the thematic intention of
the director; and, inversely, could the content itself be defined independently of the techniques employed in this instance to express it? Nothing
is more dangerous than a film commentary that treats the content and the
form separately. When such commentaries are published, they help to create those nave pedants in cinema societies or film clubs who always want
This article, best known by the name Paper on Daybreak (Le jour se lve, ),
has a famous history. It is the fruit of dozens of film presentations given by Bazin
in a variety of locations: factories, cinema clubs, etc. Originally a simple pamphlet
distributed to the public, it was published in in D.O.C. ducation populaire,
then in Regards neufs sur le cinma, edited by Jacques Chevallier (ditions du Seuil,
), and finally in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague,
(ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. . Le jour se lve was directed by Marcel Carn, written by Jacques Prvert, and featured Jean Gabin in the leading role.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
to discuss technique and claim to appreciate above all else the qualities of
the photography, the camera movements, the unusual angles, etc. We are
going to see, precisely in the instance of Le jour se lve, a filmic technique
whose excellence is wholly inappreciable independent of the story or the action itself.
If, by way of exception, I begin with the formal element of dramatic
construction, this is because in this case it is original enough to have held,
without interruption, the audiences attention. But the reader will see that
my comments here are the result of a lot of effort, beginning with a few formal elements and then delving little by little into the subject by showing
that the physical geography of the film in question is strictly determined by
an artistic geology, wherein the form and the content are completely identified with each other.
This article, then, is the result of something like shorthand. I apologize
in advance for its presentation and sometimes its style, which is less concise
than it should be. The piece follows a critical course that was developed, in
a way, improvisationally. For more clarity, I include in italics remarks addressed exclusively to critics; these constitute a sort of criticism of criticism,
or, if you will, instructions for the aspiring critic.
S
N
Question the audience on the singularities of the films construction.
They will quickly notice that what distinguishes Le jour se lve from the majority of films they are used to seeing is how the story unravels now in the present, now in the past.
This flashback process, which is no longer so rare in the cinema (its become a popular trend in American films, which frequently begin with the
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
end), was relatively rare in France during the period of Le jour se lve, and
even now flashbacks are very rarely used as they are in Marcel Carns film.
In a picture like Fritz Langs The Woman in the Window [], the action
of the past is simply framed by the dnouement in the present and the return to that dnouement at the conclusion; the action in the past is not cut
up into fragments that are interspersed with scenes in the present. In Billy
Wilders Double Indemnity [], we get a story from the immediate past
that is spoken into a Dictaphone, and if we come back to the present at
all, it is less for a return to the present itself than to hear testimony. In Orson Welless Citizen Kane (), for its part, the past is shown in flashback
through the memories of several different characters in the present. The
structure of Le jour se lve, by comparison, is thus relatively exceptional.
What we have in Carns film is perfect balance in the narrative, which
is divided into three groups of memories that are framed by four important
fragments of action in the present. What problem did the filmmaker desire
to resolve with such a remarkable script, and to what extent did he succeed?
In literaturethe novel, for exampleit is easy to describe an action
that takes place in the past. Verb tenses are made for that. One can write,
Last Sunday Franois had gone to see Clara in the furnished room of a
small hotel across the street from where he lives. The past perfect had
gone is sufficient here to indicate the past. In film, by contrast, the images projected on the screen are necessarily identical whether the event depicted takes place in the present or the pastwhich is to say, I dont have
the means to photograph a table eight days ago. It is the distinctive feature
of photography, and more so of cinematography, to provide us with current documents. It was necessary, nonetheless, that Marcel Carn succeed
in getting us to accept that the action occurring in his one-room apartment was contemporary with us, in the present, while the Gabin characters
memories were taking place in the past.
Try to make the audience discover the use of important devices: dissolves,
music, decor.
Definition of a dissolve. Quite often in films, in order to pass from one
scene to another, which is often quite distant in time or in space, the process used is called a dissolve: that is to say, the last image of the finishing scene disappears little by little to allow, through superimposition, the
first image in the following scene to appear. The dissolve is in some ways a
punctuation markone could almost say a typographical notationcomparable to the opening of a new paragraph, or the bottom of a page left
blank to signal the conclusion of a chapter. But the dissolve is used to another end in Le jour se lve.
In this film we can see two different devices used to pass from one scene
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
to another. In the sequences in the present the shot-changes are made very
quickly through the use of wipes, which have a kind of sweeping or sliding effect.
Definition of a wipe. A wipe is the substitution of one image for another as the replacement image sweeps or pushes the original off the screen.
Wipes are used especially in contemporary films.
Marcel Carn wanted to register, by means of the wipe, the difference in
space or time between fragments of action occurring in the present. Each
scene in the present is then separated from the past action, evoked in the
Gabin characters mind, by a dissolve of exceptional length.
What does such a dissolve correspond to?
S
N
Ask the audience members who among them understood from the beginning,
and without any ambiguity, that with the first dissolve, the Gabin character
was beginning to relate his past.
Probable response: only a few spectators will have understood this in so short
a time. This is because cinematic devices are at once much less nuanced and
much less explicit than those of literature. Hence the producers of Le jour se
lve thought it necessary to add to the first-run print of the film, shown to the
public, a sound-accompanied superimposition that represents in some way the
conscience of the Gabin character, who declares in a beyond-the-grave tone:
Hopedo you remember? This little phrase, designed to avoid any ambiguity, was not found in the initial cut.
Ask the audience what they noticed about the music of Le jour se lve.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Probable response: the music is much more important when it doesnt appear, even in moments of transition between the past and the present.
When you do hear it, the music is obsessive and has a hammered-out
quality. The tones of the chosen instruments are themselves strange. We
can indicate two principal themes: one sentimental, that of the oboe primarily, the other dramatic and oppressive, that of the basses and the percussion instruments. These two themes are sometimes mixed and sometimes separated, but always very subtly. The oboe theme itself is sharp and
very melodic, whereas the tympani theme, by contrast, is heavy and exclusively rhythmic. Now, each time that we pass from a scene in the past to
one in the present or vice versa, there is a change in the music, or simply
in the apparition of a musical elementwhich corresponds psychologically
to a kind of inversion of values. There are even passages where the music
seems to have been turned inside out. Thanks to the music, there is a sonorous ambience to the film that aurally gives the sense of a reversal in the nature of things.
If Marcel Carn had had only the dissolve at his disposition, the temporal changes in the action would have been much more difficult to accomplish. It is in large part thanks to the music of Maurice Jaubert in Le jour se
lve that the viewer is psychologically prepared for the sort of dramatic capsizing that corresponds to the evocation of memories. One only has to compare the facility with which these transitions are made to the awkwardness
of the return to the present in Claude Autant-Laras Devil in the Flesh [Le
diable au corps, ], for example.
It is important to underline in this regard the role of music in films.
Maurice Jaubert [] is perhaps the most important film composer to date. He wrote the music for every film by Marcel Carn up to
, the year of Jauberts death. About film music he averred that it did
not need to double the action, to paraphrase it, as do the innumerable nuptial marches that accompany wedding scenes, or the sentimental violins
that underscore trysts between couples in love. Such music must, on the
contrary, play its own dramatic role, coming in only where it adds to the
psychology of the characters or the character of the action. Recall the admirable leitmotif of Carns Port of Shadows [Quai des brumes, ], based
on the theme of the fateful sailors song Corsair/The Great Runner, when
the Gabin character walks through the streets of Le Havre. It is the music, and almost exclusively so, that gives dramatic meaning to this long sequence where we see nothing but the Gabin character anxiously walking
about the city.
If one could conduct the experiment of showing Port of Shadows or Le
jour se lve with only the dialogue and without music, one would notice
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
that each film is thereby seemingly emptied of part of its meaning, that the
psychology of the characters is impoverished, that the action itself is less
clear in any event. The music in these films in no way constitutes a mere accompaniment: it is incorporated into the action and even constitutes an action in its own right. This is to make the viewer feel clearly the weight of
the pastand feel that the present, when we come back to it, will not escape the grip of the past.
When the action that we see on screen in Le jour se lve is from the past,
there is in fact no music (except during the love scene in the greenhouse,
and we shall see why), but when we return to the Gabin figure in the present in his room, the music reenters the film and remains there as long as
we are in the present; quickly, thanks to the repetition of this process, but
foremost thanks to the quality of the music, we identify its score with the
imagination of Franois. The music inhabits us, if you will, even as the protagonists memory inhabits him. One scene in particular is quite representative of this point: near the end of the film, the obsessed Franois stops in
front of the mirror, takes a chair and throws it, we hear the crash of broken
glass, and then the music stops, as if this act of anger had liberated the hero
from his obsession, as if the mirror itself were Franoiss very memory
except that it is only the symbol of that memory. After a few moments of
silence the muffled and haunting tympani theme, little by little, regains
possession of the dramatic space, then the oboe theme insinuates itself irresistibly into this sonorous mass and in its own way asserts itself as the protagonists memory of the young floral-shop worker Franoise.
At the end of Le jour se lve, when Franoise, injured in the crowd, is carried to Claras room, no music accompanies this scene. But when we learn
that the police are going to use gas, and the camera takes us onto the roof
where a gas-squad specialist is crawling toward Franoiss attic room, music
accompanies the action because, although the Gabin character is not visible, the action is once again centered on him. It is the music, on the roof,
that makes Franoiss presence palpable. It radiates from his room like a
dramatic aura passing beyond the physical framework of the set, and thus
makes the policemans approach all the more moving. But when we hear
the sound of Franoiss revolver firing a second before the officer throws
the gas-bomb in, the music stops suddenly. The following shot shows us the
diff use and in effect anticlimactic explosion of the canister near Franoiss
body. A slight backward tracking shot uncovers the decor of half of the
room where the tear gas is spreadinga scene that will accentuate the first
rays of the breaking day, the ringing of the alarm clock, and once again
the outburst of music, which is intense this time and almost glorious during what has become nothing short of a grand finale. Undoubtedly a dra
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
matic counterpoint but also an indication that the soul of the hero has finally been freed, this kind of double sonority emanating from him, from
his room, spends itself in the serenity of his demise.
Naturally there is no music playing in the present when a violent action,
such as a hail of gunfire from police revolvers, distracts Franois from his
memories. In other words, when there is music to be heard, one can say that
the drama takes place between the Gabin character and the music. To do
away with the music in these instances would in no way be to remove an
accompaniment, as clever and even intelligent as that might be; it would
be to do away, cleanly and neatly, with one of the dramas protagonists:
Franoiss double, as it were. When the Gabin character smashes the mirror, we get the feeling that, figuratively speaking, he has just killed the music, and a sort of dread overcomes us as we are confronted with the absurd
brutality and extreme derisiveness of this action.
When I say that there is no music in the past, I exclude, obviously, real
music in the film, like that of the caf concert. There is only one exception:
the love scene in the greenhouse, where we find, precisely in its pure state,
the oboe theme. But this scene is an exception because it is privileged, situated, as it is, in some way outside time. It was necessary to show the difference between the nature of this scene and that of other peoples realities,
and the music helped to do that. The set was conceived with the same goal
in mind, as I shall discuss.
In sum, Marcel Carn resolved the problem of the different temporal
natures of certain parts of the action in Le jour se lve through a visual device (the dissolve of an unusually long duration) and an aural one (the musical accompaniment composed by Maurice Jaubert).
Also noteworthy are the modifications in decor and costume between
past and present. The wardrobe from the past is no longer visible by the
door in the present. The Franois of the present never wears a cap. In the
present, the plaza is filled with people. All the while that the present action is taking place, other modifications appear on the set: bullet holes in
the wall, broken windows, etc. These modifications in decor (especially
the moving of the wardrobe) provide a reference point in the mind of the
viewer and aid him, if the need arises, to locate the scene in time. But this
process is not in any way artificial. None of these modifications has the
primary goal of helping us place the scene; each one has a strict dramatic
justification. (See, later in this article, my discussion of the dramatic significance of the shattered glass and above all of the displacement of the
wardrobe.)
Yet, after resolving these problems of dramatic or temporal mechanics,
the filmmakers still had to satisfy other structural requirements connected
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
with the sequences in the past vis--vis the scenes in the present. In effect,
as we have seen, the action of the film unravels simultaneously on two levels. While Franois is recalling his memories, the action in the present develops: the attack on his door by the police sergeants; the captains arrival
and then that of the mobile unit; the arrival of Franoise and Clara, followed by the scene between these two women. Franois himself is affected
by his memories, and his psychological state alters as a result. Each time
that we find him in his room in the present, he is doing something or something is happening to him, and therefore when we return to the past we begin in each instance at a different point in the psychological development
of the herothat is, of the person who is doing the remembering.
Moreover, it was not certain, at the start of Franoiss voluntary confinement in his room, that the drama had to develop in the way it did. It is the
evocation of his memories that undermines, little by little, all of his will to
resistup to the final crisis, which will drive him to cry out from his window to the crowd below, There is no more Franois, its over. Dont know
any Franois. I have no more faith, do you understand?
It was necessary as well, each time the film returned to the present, to
createin addition to the visual and musical transitionsa plausible psychological and dramatic transition that would justify the return. Marcel
Carn had recourse to various devices to accomplish his aim. I will note
only one, particularly successful on account of its psychological realism.
It occurs during the second-to-last transition, after Franois has recounted
his breakup with Clara. The latter hands him a brooch similar to the one
given to Franoise by Valentin. This scene concludes curiously with a static
shot in which we see Claras face, unmoving, fi xing an equivocal look at
Franois. Upon reflection, I must say that the duration of this shot is improbable; the actress Arletty could not have remained in that pose for such
a length of time. To what does this improbability owe its existence, then?
As Franois recalls his difficult memories, the moment arrives when
Clara gives the brooch back to him and says: She [Franoise] has a little one like this, too. This especially terrible moment stays engraved in
the Gabin characters mind like an image from a nightmare. Arriving at
this point in his memory, he stays there as if frozen in time; and just as the
sleeper awakes from a bad dream in a kind of fit, Franois comes back to reality from the moral pain he is feeling. That is why the image is linked to a
long dissolve of Franoiss room, with him sitting on his bed and facing the
mirror, on the side of which can be found pinned the brooch. We find it
completely natural here that Franois, whose gaze notices at that particular
moment the object of his pain, gets up, tears off the brooch, and viciously
throws it out the window. The transition is thus psychologically justified
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
by the image of Arletty and the linking to the present action that follows,
where we see the image of the brooch attached to the mirror in Franoiss
room.
I want to touch now on Marcel Carns other great recourse to tie together past and present in Le jour se lve: namely, the decor.
It is unlikely that there will be any audience response to the following items,
but its possible, proportionally speaking:
a washbasin,
a nightstand.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Ask the audience (again) to describe the tablecloth, the bedspread, and the
wallpaper. Nearly all the viewers will have noticed their nature and appearance.
After this short questionnaire, which must be handled in such a way as to
interest the audience and not bore them too much, announce that every audience member without exception has forgotten to mention one piece of furniture
and several objects, even though all of these appeared on screen numerous times.
These are: a marble-topped chest of drawers situated between the fireplace and
the wardrobe; on top of this chest of drawers, an aluminum basket that one
fixes on the handlebars of a bike, and a lunchbox. On the floor, there are bicycle tires. If the audience, which felt quite familiar with Franoiss room to the
point of knowing it almost through and through, has forgotten such things, it is
because these particular objects are the only ones in the entire room that have no
dramatic function at any time.
S
N
Viewers noticed the alarm clock because it rings at the end of the
film; the revolver because, in a sense, it is the wellspring of the action; the
teddy bear because it is a souvenir from an important moment in the past;
the necktie because the Gabin character carefully picks it up after removing its tag, and because, since he has just killed Valentin, this could seem
like an act of mockery on his part. Similarly, we noticed that Franois is
careful to make his cigarette ashes, which would otherwise soil the tablecloth, fall into the ashtray. So much cleanliness and an almost manic passion for order, each of which reveals a tidy side that smacks a bit of the
bachelor, strike the audience as moral and psychological traits of astounding lifelikeness, highlighted by their contrast with the dire dramatic situation at hand.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
To continue: the bullets that tear the wallpaper draw the audiences attention to its decorative stripes. The mirror that Gabin smashes at the end
recalls numerous times throughout the action when his character, Franois,
looks anxiously at his reflection, or when we see him only through his reflection in the mirror. Conversely, the chest of drawers, the aluminum basket, and the bicycle tires are situated in a part of the room where the action,
so to speak, never occurs. It was natural, therefore, that the audience did
not notice them. Nevertheless, if this part of the room had not been visible,
if there had been no bicycle tires and no aluminum basket, the rooms decor would have been incomplete; and without the chest of drawers, we certainly would never have detected the presence of the tires and the basket
consciously or unconsciously.
I had the opportunity to make the counterproof of the above under the
following conditions. After showing only the first three reels of Le jour se
lve, I asked the audience to describe the decor for me. I was surprised to
note that, through the course of twenty such experiments comprising from
a thousand to fifteen hundred viewers, almost the entire audience had seen
the chest of drawers. The reason was simple: they had not had the time to be
taken in by the action. It would have required half an hour of supplementary projection to give the specified objects the time needed to take on their
intended role as dramatic relief. During the third reel the audience was still
able to notice the chest of drawers for want of a reason not to notice it.
Far from invalidating the success of my previous experiments, the failure of this current one only confirmed it. And from it we can lay down the
laws of filmic decor. Except, naturally, in films of a marvelous or fantastic
nature, the cinematic decor should be realistic and meticulously selected.
It also has to be spread out over the whole set so that it confirms the plausibility of the action. Yet the decor must not be confined to a merely decorative function. This is because film, through the magnification of objects,
through camera movement, and by means of selective editing, can make
the entire world of the frame intervene in the action, whereas the theater
more or less has only the actor and his dialogue as its resources. The cinema, by contrast, is able to treat the decor as actor in its own right in the
dramatic narrative.
The totality of the decor in Le jour se lve is consequently indispensable,
and the experiment Ive just conducted brings to the fore the role that decor
can play. The chest of drawers is what we can call ambient decor, with an
exactitude or precision that is necessary to our sense of the films truth. The
alarm clock, the teddy bear, and the wardrobe, by contrast, play a dramatic
role in the action in addition to any ambient function they may perform.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
You might have noticed the role played in the film by the Gabin
characters cigarettes: the smoking of each cigarette in his pack marks in
some way the passage of time during Le jour se lve. Franoiss obligation,
for lack of matches, to light his cigarettes one off the other compels him to
be vigilantly attentive to the burning tobacco. When, by accident, he forgets to keep his cigarette lit, we experience a strange pain, as if this bit of
negligence on his part marked a decisive moment in the tragedy that is taking shape at the same time. It seems that Franois was condemned to lament the very moment his pack of cigarettes was all used up. Th is alone
the last little pleasure of smokingallowed him to go on living. Still, he
was unable to extend his luck, or his pleasure, and the inattentiveness that
had permitted his cigarette to extinguish itself was finally nothing but a simultaneous renunciation of struggle: a subconsciously deliberate and revealing mistake by Franois.
It would be equally important to show, to some extent, the exact role played
by each of the other parts of the decor.
The stairway of the residential hotel is a geometric space in the life of
the building, a sort of artery through which the inhabitants manifest themselves and from which, at the sight of Franois, all life flees save the policemen at the bottom, with their hands on the banister. Moreover, the dramatic symbolism of a decorative element like the cigarette, whose meaning
is clearly perceived by the viewer, is without doubt subtler in the case of the
wardrobe. This famous Norman wardrobe that Franois pushes against the
door and that gives rise to a savory bit of dialogue on the stairs between the
police chief and the conciergein it we naturally see nothing but one detail of an intrigue that captivates us mostly through its realism. Indeed,
we can well imagine its mention in a miscellaneous news item about this
murder-suicide.
In reality, however, the implicit symbolism of this wardrobe is as necessary and precise as that of a Freudian symbol. It is not the chest of drawers,
the table, or the bed that Franois puts in front of the door; it had to be this
heavy Norman wardrobe, which he pushes like an enormous slab enclosing a tomb. The body language with which the Gabin character moves the
wardrobe, as well as the very form of this piece of furniture, makes clear
that he is not merely barricading himself inside his room: he walls himself
in. Even if the material result is the same and we do not consciously see any
difference between the two actions, the dramatic tonality of one over the
other is altogether different.
More slippery still, and almost impossible to define, is the role of an
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
other element in the decor: the glass. There is a lot of glass in the film: the
mirror and the panes of the window in Franoiss room, most prominently.
The love scene takes place in a glass-enclosed greenhouse, a synthetic, artificial place where the flowers growing are of a different species from the lilacs we gather in spring. Then there are the frosted panes enshrouding the
cloak room during the scene of the caf-concert and the mirror behind
the bar there, the mirrors and windows in the scene between Valentin and
Franois at the bistro, and even the dark glasses belonging to the overly
symbolic character of the blind man. Furthermore, when Franois is going
to Franoises place, instead of following him through the door, the camera glides to the window and observes him for a moment through the pane
of glass.
Although it is impossible to claim that, at any one moment in Le jour se
lve, glass is a symbol extending beyond its intrigue-related, realistic justification, it seems that the set designer could not arbitrarily have found so
many opportunities to show glass to us. Without question, glass is a reflective, transparent material that is at once truthful, since it lets us see
through it; deceptive, since it nonetheless serves in part to separate us
from what we want to see; and dramatic, because if you ignore it you will
break it and hence be responsible for your own misfortune. In this case,
glass seems, by its very presence, to condense or constrict Franoiss entire
drama. At the very least a sort of agreement, a complicity, exists between
glass and this mans drama, as if he could find something like an echo of
his own fate in the glass environment that surrounds him.
We see, then, how Marcel Carns realism, at the same time as it stays
meticulously faithful to the verisimilitude of the decor, knows how to poetically transpose it: not by modifying it through a formal or pictorial transposition, as German expressionism did, but by extricating its immanent
poetry, by compelling it to reveal the secret pact this decor has made with
the drama. It is in this sense that one can talk about Carns poetic realism, which distinguishes him perceptibly from the style of a Jean Grmillon, for example (whose realism relies less on the effects of decor), but
above all from the much more objective realism of a Ren Clment or a
Georges Rouquier. In thus stripping German expressionism almost completely of its recourse to visible transpositions in the decor, Carn simultaneously knew how to interiorize its poetic teachings by using the lighting
and the set symbolically. (This is what the Fritz Lang of M [] had already known how to do without ever managing to do without it.) The perfection of Le jour se lve is that the symbolic never precedes the realistic
during the film, yet somehow still manages to top it in the end.
Notice, as well, the film sets suburban plaza, the exactitude of its decor
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
with its central building erected against the sky. It seems that this particular corner of a leprous neighborhood had to be ugly; in reality, one paradoxically becomes aware of the poetry that emanates from this place. The
set here might have appeared real to most of the audience but it is artificial,
constructed entirely in a studio. We touch at this point on an important
problem connected with filmic decor. I have said that, except in movies
of a marvelous or fantastic nature, such decor had to be realistic and exhibit a meticulous verisimilitude. Nonetheless, if one were directly to film a
real suburban plaza comparable to the one in Le jour se lve, one would see
that it would seem less real, that it would incorporate less drama, and that
it wouldnt give off the sort of bitter poetry that inheres in Alexandre Trauners decor.
This is because, to be believable, the decor should not be under-conceived in relation to the narrative. In real surroundings, the decor would
have been so, because it would have been impossible to choose the exact angles for the viewpoints needed or to project to the precise location the luminous beam of an arc lamp. These technical reasons alone would suffice to
justify a set reconstruction, but there are more. In designing the small suburban plaza, Trauner composed it as a painter does his canvas. Completely
submitting himself to the requirements of cinematic reality, he knew how
to give the plaza the lightly poetic interpretation that makes it not a reproduction, but a work of art submissive to the artistic economy of the film as
a whole.
It is worrying that, these days, Marcel Carn grants the decor too much
importance in the overall scheme of his work. Already in The Devils Envoys [Les visiteurs du soir, ], it was possible to see the visual significance
of Georges Wakhvitchs production design more than its dramatic import.
In Gates of the Night [Les portes de la nuit, ], the development of the decor goes so far as to eat into the film like a cancer. Nearly devoid of the
dramatic, this decor barely even serves the function of ambience. In Gates
of the Night Carn asked Trauner for a sort of picture frame that was at
once realistic and poetica frame within which the action, itself anemically dramatic, could unfold. Such severe and exacting design restrictions,
happily, are not noticeable in Le jour se lve.
:
S
N
The decor plays a dramatic role in this film, as I was saying, but it
does so as a function of what would have to be called the psychology of decor. That is, psychologically speaking, the decor serves to unify the charac
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ters just as much as the performances of the actors themselves. The decor
in Le Jour se lve could even be said to constitute a surprising piece of social
documentary. For example, when we see Valentin dead on the concierges
bed, he is spread out on top of newspapers. We can imagine why. The concierge did not want this guy, whom she did not know, placed on her bedspread, for any excess of blood could have stained it; she goes to find some
old newspapers in a cabinet and spreads them out beforehand. This simple, documentary-like detail in the decor says more about the psychology of
the concierge than could any stretch of dialogue. It is with such details, as
much as with the action itself, that we establish character.
It is particularly with regard to the Gabin character that the decor interests me, however. His room, otherwise almost bare, allows us to reconstruct not only the life, but also the tastes and traits, of Franois. Sports
appear to be his only distraction: bicycling and soccer. His bicycle, moreover, is to him a supreme luxury, and for this reason he takes good care of
its mechanism (the pedals and gears, the tires). It is a beautiful racing bike
made for the road, shiny and well-maintained. Franois also owns a soccer ball, and the only photos on the wall are of sporting memories. These
sports objects are the only disorder he allows in his room, because in
fact he does not consider them disorderly. On the contrary, he bestows on
them a sort of privilege or status that he does not grant the other objects in
the room.
Now, this room is meticulously arranged. Franoiss variously styled furniture is nonetheless not entirely ugly: the Norman wardrobe itself is very
beautiful. It is characteristic of this sort of residence hotel, where the rooms
are more like small apartments (Franois, to be sure, lives in one of the
cheapest rooms, an attic apartment). The furniture and the interior decoration do not have the anonymity associated with rooms in tourist hotels,
where guests rent by the daylike the room Clara occupies, on the other
side of the plaza, with its copper bedstead, fluff y divan, and a copy of JeanFranois Millets Angelus [] on the wall. In rooms like these we
get the feeling that people never fully unpack their suitcases (which pretty
much corresponds to Claras situation). In Franoiss place, by contrast,
renters stay for years, and the bric-a-brac furnishings therefore include some
solid components, comfortable old things. There are just as many positive
elements to the decor in his room, then, as there are significant deficiencies.
Such a room has served others, as well, but it has always had the time to
get used to them. In this little apartment, a poor but authentic human sediment seems to have deposited itself over the years. Franois himself has undoubtedly lived there quite a while already; he has arranged the place after
his own fashionvery simply, but in his uniquely rigorous way. He rules
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
this particular roost with a fastidious tidiness evidenced by the mechanical reflex that drives him to perform, after Valentins murder, the ritualistic
gestures of making his cigarettes ashes fall nowhere but into the ashtray
a gesture he completes even though shots have been firedand of carefully
putting away his tie after having removed its label. (These gestures have a
dramatic value at this particular instant, to be sure, but at the same time
they define Franoiss overall psychology.) This is all because Franois is a
bachelor. Accustomed to solitude since childhood, he has learned to take
care of himself. What he has known of women did not prevent him from
learning how to keep house and sew on new buttons.
Moreover, one can suspect in Franois a hint, if not of misogyny, then
at least of distrust of women: he has lived up to now without counting on
them. This is due to his social origins (dependence on state welfare) but also
to his character. He has never been lucky, he says; he has always needed
more tenacity, more will, more structure in his life just to hold out and not
sink to the bottom. We therefore feel in Franois a form of patent stoicism
or, rather, conscious austerity. He must not drink, his life is orderly, he almost never goes out, and his little free time is devoted to bicycling and soccer. His artistic sensibility itself is weak if not nonexistentwhere would
he have gotten it? (The only pictorial element in the room: a sketch of
Gabin above the bed, most likely a souvenir from a friend who knew how
to draw or from some carnival artist who did it for a hundred francs.) But
Franois possesses a common mans feel for elegance that is not incompatible with his bad taste in things generally. His tie is not pretty but he also
did not choose it by accident. His cap goes with his personality; he makes
it a sort of point of honor never to take this cap off, even with women (witness the love scene).
Franois seems almost apolitical; whereas sports and his friendship with
fellow cyclists as well as soccer players leave visible traces all over his room,
we have no clue as to any political opinion he may hold, nor anything that
indicates, for example, membership in a militant workers uniontoward
which his work at the foundry should nevertheless have driven him. On
this particular point, we doubtless have to take into account a number of
constraints, the chief extracinematic one being a producers concern to remain safe inside the most politically benign, irreproachably neutral territory. The same constraint seems to have been imposed on Jacques Beckers
Antoine and Antoinette [Antoine et Antoinette, ]. To tell the truth, one
cant imagine Franoiss being involved in militant politics at all. Even if he
is unionized, there is an anarchic aspect to this man that must make him
as wary of politics as he is of women; the open solidarity of his colleagues at
work or his sports associates is certainly more to his liking. One should also
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
take into account here the anarchic individualism of Jacques Prvert himself in the composition of Franoiss character.
We can thus see how character traits join with the actors own performance to justify certain dramatic situations and to explain individual behaviorindeed, to establish the very grounds of narrative credibility.
Naturally, the Sherlock Holmes species of inquiryin which we
have just indulged so as to reconstitute the life and character of Franois
from a few clues offered by the decor in his roomis not something the
viewer himself consciously and happily conducts. Yet it is thanks to the
presence of these clues that the viewer more or less has an idea of Franoiss identity: that he lives for himself with a kind of moral and social precision. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that the audience receives a lot
of other information about the character played by Jean Gabin. The decor
comes above all to confirm, clarify, and retouch the idea of this character
as it constitutes itself through the dialogue and action of Le jour se lve. I
would like now to elaborate upon the profound nature of this action in its
relationship to the protagonist and the actor who embodies him.
It is said that Gabin demands, before signing a contract to shoot a film,
that the script include an angry scene during which he will kill someone.
And, indeed, one notices that in the majority of his movies, Gabin incarnates a character carried away by anger to the point of murder: for instance,
in Julien Duviviers Escape from Yesterday [La bandera, ], Jean Renoirs
The Human Beast [La bte humaine, ], and Carns Port of Shadows in
addition to Le jour se lve; and, recently, in Georges Lacombes The Room
Upstairs [Martin Roumagnac, ] along with Raymond Lamys Mirror [Miroir, ]. This story is probably apocryphal, but it might as well
be true. And such a demand would be the result, not of capriciousness on
the part of a star, but of consciousness of the nature of his character or
personality.
In reality Gabin is not an actor who gets asked to play the protagonist
of a narrative; he is himself, before there is any narrative, a protagonist to
whom the screenwriter must bend his will and imagination. No matter
what the script, Gabin would not know how to have a destiny other than
his own. And this destiny in fact includes outbursts of anger, acts of murder, and the death of the Gabin character himself by the end.
In Le jour se lve, Franois fought patiently, day after day and with
clenched teeth, against the rotten luck that had been dogging him. Since
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
his birth, marked by a kind of social malediction (known as public assistance), he has struggled steadfastly against the mechanized or scientific
gods of modern society and has been able to hold out against them: the machines, the factory, the industrial chemicals, and even the crowded bus that
drops him off in the rain. At age thirty, he could think that he had outlasted these gods malicious hounding, that his courageand one could
say, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, his virtuehad helped him to
elude fate. Then Franois meets the woman who is going to save him from
his solitude and consecrate his victory over life. It always seems that only a
woman can save Gabin (Michle Morgan in Port of Shadows, for example),
and nearly all his pictures are the story of such a salvationhowever illusory it may be.
Franois meets Franoise the day after their shared saints day, which
may be a sign that she is destined for him. He could very well continue
his affair with Clara, but he would not cheat on Franoise for such a pleasure, because Clara is cut from the same cloth as he. Franoise is precisely
made of something else, and the success of their love will permit Franois
an out: through her, he will escape Clara by escaping himself. He continues his relationship with Clara only so long as it takes Franoise to assure
him of her love. Ironically, it is Franoisein whom Franois has placed all
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Franois (suddenly very calm and lucid): It wont get you anywhere.
Valentin (backing away toward the door): And you? . . .
S
N
From this point on the infernal machine will set itself implacably in
motion. The case can then be handled by the secular arm of modern destiny: justice, the police, their mobile unit, and the police chief himself, who
leads this major operation in person. Nothing is left for Franois but to
wall himself in, in the room that has already become his tomb.
It is necessary to recall here that in the epic just as in ancient tragedy,
anger is not at all a psychological state but rather a metaphysical one, a
kind of sacred possession. The modern viewer also (unconsciously) interprets Franoiss anger as a second state, as it were, for which the hero himself could not be morally responsible. This state may even represent the best
in Franois, the purest element of his being that the evil forces of destiny
bait in order to force him into a series of angry gestures, at the conclusion
of which there will be nothing left for him except to die.
The tragic situation of Gabins character appears clearly in the scene
where we see Franois shout from his window to the attentive crowd below, which is silent and almost stunned at first, then little by little comes to
life and, as one, entreats him to come down: You are a good guy, we know
you, well testify for you. The crowd does indeed know Franois: they
know his innocence. Like the chorus of ancient tragedy, they lament the
heros destiny; and this scene (despite Prverts poor writing at this point)
has a majestic beauty about it. Through the crowds intervention, there are
also millions of brotherly spectators who silently cry out their support for
Franois, who they nonetheless know is going to die.
If supplementary evidence were necessary to prove the exceptional nature of Franoiss destiny, it would suffice to remark that Jean Gabin is
the only French actor, and almost the only actor in the world (Chaplin excepted), for whom the audience expects the story to end badly. After all, all
the romantic, stargazing women out there would be terribly disappointed if
Gabin got married to Jacqueline Laurent or Michle Morgan at the end of
a film. For this reason, Gabin was right to demand yet again his homicidal
outburst from screenwriters, since it constitutes the significant moment in
an immutable destiny wherein the viewer recognizes, from film to film, the
same hero. To be sure, this is a hero scaled to an urban world, a suburban
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
and industrial Thebes where the gods merge with the blind (yet still transcendent) imperatives of modern Western society.
In this way, the analysis of the Franois-Gabin character makes explicitand clearly definesthe profound nature of Le jour se lve. In spite
of its careful structure and stylized (if otherwise realistic) appearance, this
film is nothing less than a psychological or even social drama. Like that of
tragedy, the veritable fatedness or inexorability of the narrative and its characters is purely metaphysical. The realism of the mise-en-scne, of the decor, the characters, the dialogue, and the intrigue itself, is only the pretext
for the modern incarnation of an action that we would doubtless not know
how to describe outside its contemporary manifestationbut that essentially goes beyond such a manifestation. Nevertheless, this dramatic action
is not valid or convincing except in exact proportion to its realism. The art
of Marcel Carn and his collaborators is to make reality, whether it be psychological (the characters of Valentin, Franoise, Clara) or material (the decor, including the cigarettes and the wardrobe), fulfill its function as reality before insinuating its symbolic values into the picture. It is thus as if
the poetry did not begin to make its presence felt until the precise moment
when, paradoxically, the action seemed to identify itself only with the most
plausible details of its own surface. Let me be clear: the realism in Le jour
se lve has the rigor of poetry. That is, everything is written in verse, or at
least in prose, that is invisibly poetic.
I have had the opportunity to show, progressing through this article,
how the mise-en-scne, the decor, music, dialogue, costumes, and the actors performances work together in Le jour se lve to create a narrative and
its characters without its ever being possible to disassociate technique from
script, form from content, or subject from style. This is surely one definition of good cinema.
A final remark: one perspective has, without question, been absent from
this analysis, and that is the moral one. I hope the reader will have understood by now that this perspective seems as false to me as the technical one,
and that it is as absurd to judge the moral value of a film apart from its
substance as it is to judge a movies abnormal camera angles without taking
into consideration the abnormality of the story they tell. I hope, moreover,
to have even convinced the reader, by implication, of the excellence of the
moral code of a film like Le jour se lve, which is finally nothing less than a
tragedy of purity and solitude, if not of the soul.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Le parisien libr, October , )
S
N
, ,
its crowning at the Venice Festival, the celebrated film of
Laurence Olivier [].
Fundamentally, the challenge of Hamlet [] was more difficult to
meet than that of Henry V [], because this time Olivier has renounced
the magic trick of showing us, not the play, but the representation of the
play. This time he intends to place the viewer squarely in the same situation
as that of a theater spectator in front of the stage.
Was the challenge successfully met? Shakespeareans will definitely debate Laurence Oliviers interpretation of the daydreaming Prince of Denmark. But such disputes will eternally resurface with regard to stage productions as much as filmic ones. I myself would prefer to look at this work
from a strictly cinematic point of view. It seems indisputable to me that
Shakespeares play finds here, thanks to cinema, a sort of dramatic novelty
that is more contemporary and consequently more accessible to us. How
many French people have attended a presentation of Hamlet recently? How
many of them have watched it without getting bored? Here the drama of
Hamlet, thanks to Oliviers scenic continuity, the clarity of his cinematic
means, finally becomes understandable to the spectator unfamiliar with
Elizabethan culturewithout, however, losing its richness or profundity.
Who would deny that this constitutes progress of a kind? After all, Shakespeare didnt write in order not to be understood.
Certainly, we cant expect from the screen the exquisite pleasure, the
specifically theatrical emotion, that overtakes us when the curtain rises in
front of the footlights. Taken by itself, Im sure that this distinction would
justify the survival of theater. But couldnt classical theater pieces like
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Hamlet, which only a restricted public and students still see, conquer once
again, on the screen, the audience they deserve? Please dont anyone tell me
that this would mean the death of theater. On the contrary, it is cinema
that can bring back the public that theater has lost precisely by giving this
public the taste for great drama.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
,
(Cahiers du cinma, December )
S
N
, , []
into a film by Michael Gordon [], acted by Jos
Ferrer, awarded an Oscar, presented without shame in Paris, and dubbed
[into French] by Jean Martinellithis monstrosity of patent absurdities,
this combination of every imaginable aesthetic, literary, and technical heresy, actually isnt far from being a great film! It is in any case a good piece of
work and one from which I have taken the liveliest pleasure, not for the reasons the naysayers would like to believe, but precisely because of what this
picture desires to be: a solid, honest representation of Edmond Rostands
play. That Jean Dutour [], the literary humorist and paragon of
pure cinema, covered his face in shame didnt prevent us from shooting two
Cyranos in Franceone mute (wouldnt a mute Cyrano be worth a dubbed
Cyrano?) in [dir. Augusto Genina, starring Pierre Magnier] and one
with sound not so long ago in [dir. Fernand Rivers, with Claude Dauphin in the leading role]and from massacring in each instance a masterpiece that the Americans have sent back to us in perfectly adapted form.
This paradox merits some analysis.
Above all, it proves once again that the time of filmed theater has come.
Since we have had, on the one hand, Cocteaus The Storm Within [Les parents terribles, ], and on the other, Oliviers Hamlet (), Gordons
Cyrano de Bergerac now confirms that there is no theatrical genre that
couldnt in principle be adapted to the silver screen. Its just a matter of not
straying from the essential in a vain search for cinematic illusions. Director Gordon knew well what he was doing when he based his mise-en-scne
on the theatricality of Cyrano de Bergerac. His set, for example, doesnt attempt to open up onto the horizon when the script gets trapped indoors.
Even the outdoor scenes, like the siege of Arras, take place in a studio
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
of the dialogue and even of the intrigue was admissible, if not necessary, to
avoid the redundancy enforced by the visual possibilities of cinema, which
are more explicit than those of theater. The point here is by no means to betray Rostand but to serve him. Yet this version in particular reveals qualities that we dont always ascribe to Cyrano. Gordons film proves that the
value of the dramatic piece doesnt reside only in its verbal panache, the
beautiful scintillation of a somewhat flashy poetryits Victor Hugo [
] side by way of Jos-Maria de Heredia [].
The worldwide popularity of the character of Cyrano is already a sign of
his humanity, of the theatrical solidity of the character. He is not the exclusive property of France anymore. Instead of giggling at the nerve of the foreigner (without ever asking ourselves why we dare to stage Shakespeare), it
would be more intelligent to rediscover, through an unusual interpretation
and a different tradition, the youthfulness and richness of the play. For my
part, I was surprised to be thrilled at Michael Gordons picture, to laugh
and to cry with it as much as I did in the theater, and, on the whole, at the
same moments. Yet I felt in this case as if I had abandoned myself to emotion with more security; it was as if, deprived of a portion of its stylized verbal wizardry, further away from its original text but closer to its characters,
the piece confirmed its deepest qualities and revealed that its flashiness actually concealed gold.
Regarding Jos Ferrer [], hes admirable; his Cyrano is certainly less Gascon French and more Spanish. He has put some Don Quixote into the mix but, thats not an absurdity at allquite the contrary, its
a very original interpretation that is perfectly justified by the script and
doesnt diminish the character at all. In this I see a consequence of the universalization of the character about which I spoke just a moment ago. Isnt
it better that a Hispanic American actor took Cyrano for a cousin of Don
Quixote, so that French radio listeners of Jean Nohain [] would
more willingly take him for the Gascon cousin of Marius [Marius, ; dir.
Marcel Pagnol]? For Marius himself is proper French, is he not?
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Cahiers du cinma, February )
S
N
, ,
reader of these lines will be able to act on them. If she lives in
Paris and hasnt already gone to see this film at the Cinma dEssai, it will
be too late by now; and if he lives in the provinces, I doubt that he would
have the chance to find The Long Journey [a.k.a. Ghetto Terezn; Dalek
cesta, ] on the marquees of the cinemas in his city. This is not to imply the existence of a sordid cabal, or who-knows-what kind of Machiavellian plot; actually, that would even be preferable, because the phenomenon
at hand is much more serious: its the normal game of film distribution,
which will probably keep this film out of more modest markets. Everything
damns it: its Czech origin (just from this national reference, its already a
victory that censorship hasnt suppressed the picture), its subject (we have
had enough of these concentration-camp stories already), and its unusual
style. In short, this movies not commercial. There remains the possibility,
if improbability, of appreciation elsewherean appreciation that nonetheless will not refute the pessimistic tone of this paragraph. I am referring to
private screenings or the cin-clubs, to whose attention I passionately recommend this film. At the very least, then, some several thousand spectators
could learn of the existence of The Long Journey.
It is a curious coincidence that this month, January of , has seen the
release in Paris of the two best films yet (and under advertising conditions
almost as unfavorable for one as for the other) about the war or the concentration camps. I refer naturally both to the American Lewis Milestones
A Walk in the Sun [], which has been reviewed elsewhere by Jacques
Doniol-Valcroze [, co-founder of Cahiers du cinma], andwithout questionto the Pole Wanda Jakubowslas The Last Stage [Ostatni etap,
]. Its at once difficult and unpleasant trying to establish a hierarchy be
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
tween the Polish film and the Czech one, because their qualities cant really be compared. The first picture distinguishes itself through its complete,
and seemingly impossible, detachment from formalist concerns; The Last
Stage conveys the most direct, the most brutal aspect of a reality that could,
alas, have suffered excessive ornamentation. The second film, by contrast, is
overburdened with aesthetic reference; I would even say, if a sort of terrorism-by-critique didnt hover around this word, that The Long Journey is one
of the most formalistic films I have seen in a long time.
This remark shouldnt be taken a priori as being in its favor at all. Even
less so when one considers that the reference in question points to German
expressionism of the s and s. If there is an aesthetic that seems to
have been overcome in world cinema, in Western as in Soviet films, its precisely this one. It is therefore astonishing to find it taken to a paroxysmal
level here, particularly in a Czech film of (if the film is indeed from
this date, as has been said). Its even more astonishing that this unexpected,
formalistic resurgence took place in consonance with a subject that doesnt
seem to fit it in the least.
I have spoken of a concentration camp, but the film is more precisely
about the anti-Semitic persecutions in Prague prior to the war and the life
of the Jews trapped in the Terezn, or Theresienstadt, ghetto before most of
them were transported to the Polish ghettos, whence there was no return. A
Christian Czech has married a young female Jewish doctor, in spite of the
persecution of Jews that has already begun. The marriage guarantees her,
for the time being, some measure of immunity (even if it has brought, by
contrast, additional danger to her husband). They see, one after the other,
their friends and then their parents receive the order to relocate to the sinister Terezn, a small fortified village arranged into a ghetto. There, in effect, is the world of the concentration camp, in all its monstrous logic. Perhaps a less physically atrocious world than could be found in other places,
Terezn was just a stageand not the lastin the downward spiral, but a
complicated one whose own sociology complemented that of the concentration camp. The least abominable aspect of this universe was not that it
could have been even worse, on account of which it should have appeared
to its victims as heaven on earth. The Jew from Prague may have lived in
the anxiety of relocation to Terezn, but the Jew of Terezn subsisted in the
anguish of transfer to the concentration camp of certain death.
When the incarcerated father of the young Jewish woman succeeds,
thanks to the complicity of a guard, in having a letter from Terezn sent
to her, its just to demand some money andabsurd requesta bit of hair
dye; the old man hopes, against all evidence, that black hair will cancel
his fate as an old Jew scheduled for the next departure. He is still selected,
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
however, and when the convoy rattles heavily along the main street of Terezn, in mud and pouring rain, the soggy hair of the man falls across his
face. Its true, by the way, that the Germans embellished these departures
with music. A choir of inmates, ordered to appear in their Sunday best
bearded skeletons in stiff collars and bowler hats, perched atop a beat-up
hearse as if they were on a podiumhad to play for their coreligionists.
Others would play for them later.
I doubt that Alfrd Radok [] consciously sought out the style
of his film because he wanted the artistry that would result from combining it with such a subject. Id more willingly believe that this style is
mostly the product of the influence of expressionist aesthetics, which has
always been latent if not explicit in Czech cinema. What surprises me here
is that the most dubious characteristics of expressionism have paradoxically
gained a profound justification, a kind of realistic virginity. The excess decor (understood nonetheless as real decor, this is the expressionism of Fritz
Langs M [], not of Robert Wienes Cabinet of Dr. Caligari [Das Cabinet
des Dr. Caligari, ]), the high-contrast and symbolic lighting, the abnormal angles, the theatrical composition of certain scenes (the one, for example, in which a woman announces the arrival of the Russiansby striking
the harp inside a grand pianotruly reminds the viewer of the gong scene
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
therefore already halfway out of her personal ghetto. Yet she attempts suicide anywayto liberate her Christian husband from the danger she represents for him. The walls of Terezn do finally open upon the arrival of the
Russian soldiers, but only, as it were, at the Biblical sounding of the seventh trumpet.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Cahiers du cinma, April )
remakes. But the indignation that we manifest with regard
to remakes isnt entirely free of a certain confusion, and it hides an aesthetic paradox that deserves some detailed analysis. The remake is actually a constant in the history of art; the notion of plagiarism is more recent and, for all that, has more shame associated with it. (It was Edmond
Rostand, not Cyrano de Bergerac himself [], who, long after the
fact, reproached Molire [stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, ]
with the words, What the hell were you doing stealing a scene from the
real Cyranos The Pedant Tricked [Le pdant jou, ]?) After all, the slow
evolution of the literary or the plastic arts is based as much on copying as
on innovation. How many significant works of art are not known to us only
through one or two copied or plagiarized versions, and through the variations the original has suffered in them (as much as the idea of an original
can preserve any meaning in this system of avatars)?
The cinemaan absolutely recent art form but one that, from the point
of view of its aesthetic ontogeny, could still be considered as primitive
spontaneously repeats the behavior of the other arts. The true masterpieces
are few and far between, the laws of success and the scale of values being as
ruthlessly pragmatic as they are. The producer who had the idea of buying
the rights to Julien Duviviers Pepe, the Toulon Man [Pp le Moko, ] or
Marcel Carns Daybreak [Le jour se lve, ] was essentially behaving like
a copyist from the Middle Ages or a pharaoh of the Third Egyptian Dynasty. Unfortunately, its necessary to agree that the results of copying in
the cinema arent the same as in the other arts. For a long time now artists
in painting and literatureunlike film practitionershave been choosing
their borrowed material from an infinitely more vast historical selection.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Now cinema is the only art form of which we are truly contemporaries;
it develops and ages alongside us. Therefore it is pointless to be surprised
when the public loses interest in a filmeven if it is a masterpieceafter its obsolescence becomes perceptible. And the signs of obsolescence are
multiple. Apart from the most obvious ones, such as the passage from silent to sound cinema, from orthochromatic to panchromatic film stock,
and, nowadays, from black-and-white to color cinematographywith all
the stages of technical perfecting that come in betweenits necessary to
take into account storytelling technique (along with the history of editing), photographic style, and, finally, the countless temporal or topical references contained in the image itself: manner of dress, type of makeup, acting style, etc. Regarding these latter signs of aging, cinemas situation is
nothing like that of theater, where the restaging of a play in the end is always an adaptation to the taste of the day of an immutable text, which becomes modernized by the contemporary mise-en-scne.
Its true that this conjunctureof an increasing number of remakes yet
continuing advances in film techniquehas evolved quite rapidly over the
past few years; I myself have commented on this phenomenon in what is
otherwise an account of a related occurrence, the rerelease or reissue of old
or classic films (A propos de reprises, Cahiers du cinma, I, no. [September ], pp. ). With the creation of cinematheques [Cinmathque in
French (also cinematheque) refers to a film archive with an accompanying
small cinema that screens classic and art-house films.], the increase in the
number of cin-clubs, and the forming of an elite audiencesomething
that has helped to make motion pictures available to a much wider publicthe great movies of yesteryear are regaining their value. Eclecticism
concerning the aging of films is coming into prominence these days, and it
allows some films not to age anymore, bestowing on them the immortality
of traditional works of art. It remains to determine to what extent this evolution of public taste is going to interest the film industry: whether it constitutes a commercial phenomenon of note but one that remains at the margins, or whether such an evolution in taste becomes genuinely integrated
into the economic mainstream of production, as in the case of painting,
where the antiquity of the works doesnt hurt their economic value at all.
But its necessary to distinguish from the variety of remake described
above, which is as old as cinema itself, and a very special kind that is particular to Hollywood. In this sense the remake is not temporal but geographic. And the aging of the original film doesnt play any a facilitating
or even accidental role in its adaptation. Pepe, the Toulon Man hadnt aged
yet when the American Algiers [] was made from it; neither had Daybreak [Le jour se lve, ] aged vis--vis The Long Night [] or, more re
S
N
Joseph Loseys M
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
cently, Frances The Raven [Le corbeau, ] when The th Letter [] was
adapted from it. For the most part, and this is the biggest difference between filmmaking and the practice of the other arts, its not the scenario
that is remade: there is an effort to copy the film itself, as if a stencil were
being traced. Everything happens as if the producer had thought that the
artistic and commercial excellence of the original resided only in the final
look of the film, and whoever remained close enough to that look would
automatically reproduce the originals success. The childishness of such reasoning, from an aesthetic point of view, wouldnt escape even a cretin from
Las Hurdes [the Spanish region depicted in Buuels documentary Land
without Bread, known as Las Hurdes in French, of ]. This is, a priori, the
way a prelogical mind works: one, that is, still ruled by magical analogy.
Whatever we may think of producerseven those from Hollywood
subjectively speaking, its difficult to conceive of them as fully responsible beings. Its necessary that they stop being only the passive agents of
a sociological phenomenon. However, I cant discern exactly which phenomenon: perhaps the Americanization of cinema. Lets take as an example
Daybreak. Its commercial success has been modest but finally unsatisfactory; by contrast, this films critical acclaim has been enormous abroad
much more than in France, particularly in Sweden, Italy, and England. The
penetration of French films into the American market being insignificant,
we then witness the following economically absurd phenomenon: a prestigious film whose prestige doesnt pay. In sum, everything happened as if
Daybreak had opened a market that it was unable to feednot only because the French film was poorly distributed to most places abroad, but
chiefly because it wasnt truly appreciated except by an international elite,
since the general public everywhere is conditioned by the American style of
moviemaking.
This is where the Hollywood producer comes in: he coolly notices the
financial failure of Daybreak despite its acquired critical prestige and tells
himself the reason is simply that the film isnt American. He then acquires
the licensing rights, remanufactures the product in his studio, and rereleases it to the market under the U.S. brand, thereby augmenting the
prestige of the original prototype through the force of the American cinemas sociological domination of half the world (obviously beginning with
the United States itself). This is something like what happens in fashion
when a great Parisian couturier sells the production rights to an article of
clothing to a New York manufacturing firm. Sadly, the analogy stops at
the sociological level. Aesthetically and economically, copying a dress poses
problems completely different from those of remaking a film.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Joseph Loseys M
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
better way, we find here a sort of double for the Gaston Modot character,
dressed almost in the same manner, who puts the ball into the cup almost
as well. Even the man flipping the coin in Scarface, freely interpreted by
Duvivier, can be found in Algiers in an instance of grotesque plagiarism by
way of an American avatar. This detail betrays the aesthetic value of the remake in the restricted, Hollywood sense of the word.
And Joseph Losey [] sadly illustrates once again whats wrong
with this kind of remake in M [], adapted from Fritz Langs celebrated
masterpiece. This new example does, however, present several instructive variations on the remake not found in Algiers. The Americanization
process here is immediately explicit, given that the action has been transported to a U.S. city that goes unnamed but is evidently Los Angeles. The
same had already been done in The Long Night and The th Letter. There it
was, without question, a laudable and sensible measure. The equivalent of
French social realism in America cant be anything but American realism.
Unfortunately, the change of geographic location in the case of the German M exists in radical contradiction to the formal fidelity after which the
American scenario and its mise-en-scne strive (a fidelity that has its limits, as well see).
The film hasnt been copied shot by shot, but sequence by sequence, with
a precise reconstitution of the original images whenever possiblethe bal
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
loon in the telegraph wires, for example. The development of the plot and
the characters is the same (the red-balloon seller, for one); all the pivotal
scenes are there with all their incidents (the chase after the man in the
building by the night watchman, the panic of the murderer who has accidentally locked himself in a kind of attic, and the safecracker who has been
forgotten in his hole). But let us look at the differences between the two
films, mostly of form, for they are quite curious.
Joseph Losey seems to have wanted to modify Ms style after the neorealist fashion. Whereas Fritz Lang had done everything in the studio,
Losey depended largely on exterior locations. Those are the elements, incidentally, that, when isolated from the whole, constitute the good part of
his filmthe part that demonstrates that this young and impetuous director deserved a better fate. I get the distinct impression that, if the scenario
allowed him, hed just like to make a good picture in a personal vein. But
in this case the imperatives of remaking Langs M imposed on him an absurd return to expressionism, to a falsely German dcor and cinematic style
that are both perfectly at odds with neorealism: for instance, in the storage
room where the murderer is trapped with mannequins and a slew of wax
limbs. As for the music, whose role in Fritz Langs version was essential, in
Loseys adaptation there has been an attempt to preserve it by drowning the
soundtrack in the famous whistling motif: an instance of aural bathos that
deprives the music entirely of any dramatic effect.
Lets go now to the modifications in the scenario, for they will allow us
to fully grasp the absurdity behind the whole idea of the Hollywood remake. We remember the role, crucial in the narrative, of the criminals
and their bosses, who decide to mobilize the underworld of the city in an
effort to make up for an impotent police force. This cult of beggars and
thieves, transformed into a court of justice, will in the end judge the ignoble character played by Peter Lorre []. With Fritz Lang, this idea
was admirable and well-developed and inscribed itself in a kind of poetry
of banditry, in the manner of Brechts The Threepenny Opera [Die Dreigroschenoper, ] and according to the social history of Germany in .
With Losey, the picturesque and romantic lowlifes become gangsters and
shoeshine boys and everything falls apart. Such characters, which could
have been written by the American Dashiell Hammett [] or the
Briton James Hadley Chase [], are not the kind to feel outraged
by the rape of little girls! In this context, the main character himself loses
most of the horrible aura that surrounds him. In the case of Fritz Langs M,
the guarantee of authenticity was the true story of the Vampire of Dsseldorf, the serial killer Peter Krten []. But American sadism isnt
German or even English sadism. And even if bloodthirsty satyrs did exist
S
N
Joseph Loseys M
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
in Los Angeles at the time, their crimes didnt acquire the exemplary aura,
the mythical resonance, that managed to terrorize a whole city in the case
of Fritz Langs film.
Where the Americanization of the details succeeds in destroying the
new M, however, is through the intrusion of psychoanalysis. The police investigation and, especially, the final mockery of the judicial process in the
garage are occasions to explain these crimes by attributing them to a case of
the Oedipus complex. But it would be wrong for us to smile at this revelation. If Freud has become the deus ex machina par excellence of American
films, even those that could have been good, like Henry Hathaways Fourteen Hours [], this is much more than simply a puerile little trend. The
psychoanalytical explanation imposes itself today on Hollywood as imperiously as an article of the Hays Motion Picture Production Code [
]. We already knew that the criminal could not escape justice (that is
why, in Algiers, Pepe is killed by the policemen, because suicide would be a
way to escape them). Later it became necessary to explain his crimes by revealing that, at some point in the past, the criminal protagonist had fallen
on his head.
Im not kidding: between the years and , we were hardly able
to find a single murderer who didnt replicate the fate of other movie murderers by suffering a fall from a bike at the age of five (the exception that
confirms this rule is a film without concessions of any kind: Hitchcocks
Shadow of a Doubt []). This development is a response to the desire to
consider the criminal, as well as antisocial behavior in general, as inherently
pathological. The more seductive and apparently normal the criminal is,
the more indispensable it will be to confirm the existence of a hidden crack
in his past. But confirming is not explaining. So psychoanalysis offers the
scenarist the universal panacea used so often today. And Freuds psychoanalytical truth remains unquestioned in the sense that it is systematically
employed in the dnouement of nine American films out of ten.
This is truer now more than ever, when the triumph of justice implies
the solving of the human mystery posed by the crime. The true crime of the
criminal, the thing that has to be stamped out, is his difference from the
normal, average American. Before even good sense, then, its knowledge
of the Oedipus complex that everyone in the world wants to have; there is
no odious monster that cant be reduced to some unfortunate form of this
complex. In this way everything falls into place, the moral universe becomes once again a place without mystery, and Homo americanus can continue to live in a world where everyone has essentially the same chance of
happiness and social integration. Such an extreme aversion to psychological mystery is perhaps doing more damage to American filmmaking than
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
the kind of harm the institution of painstaking censorship did to eroticism. Actually, however, such psychologization is just the manifestation of
a yet another kind censorship, in another place: the Devil, after all, is not
American.
Have I strayed too far from my subject? Not hardly. I was saying that
the psychoanalysis featured in Joseph Loseys M would have demolished
anything remaining of Fritz Langs filmhad something remained. Under
Langs direction, Peter Lorre begs his judges; he even weeps before them,
but what he inspires is pity, not the kind of vain psychological comprehension that could be purchased at the nearest drugstore. Finally, Loseys film
clearly reveals the absurd mechanism of the remake that consists in copying the details while betraying the essentials. This solely exterior fidelity
to form is the excuse that permits rereleasing to the distribution market a
new film billed as an exact replica of a prestigious original. Yet, at the same
time, theres an effort to rectify in the new model everything that is out of
step with Hollywood movie mythology, including the very social setting in
which the events of the story take place.
It should be clear by now that the better a film is, the more its details are
charged with inner meaning and the more rigorously interdependent those
details become. The furniture in the Gabin characters attic room in Le jour
se lve is not an interchangeable part of the dcor; tragedy lurks there as intimately as it does in the heart of the protagonist. It wouldnt be possible
to touch that furniture without modifying at the same time the drama and
the characters as well. In any adaptation, the only way to remain faithful to
the original and eventually to equal it is to go all the way back to the source
and from there to follow the natural path to a new historical setting, as well
as a new social landscape. Nonetheless, as I have said, in spite of its monstrous absurdity, the practice of the Hollywood remake is alive and well.
S
N
Joseph Loseys M
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cahiers du cinma, June )
S
N
.
or against Orson Welless film Othello [], Im definitely
for. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze [] and I were pretty much the only
ones of this persuasion after the screening at Cannes, where Welles [
] was applauded and booed at the same time. I have to admit that I
wouldnt have awarded this picture the grand prize, which does not reflect
either its qualities or its defects. The special jury prize would have been
more appropriate in this instance. Yet Im afraid Welles may be destined to
be misunderstood in precisely this way.
After the insult suffered by Macbeth [, dir. Orson Welles] at the Venice Festival [where the film was abruptly withdrawn after being compared
unfavorably with Laurence Oliviers version of Hamlet, which was
also in the festivals competition], now a jury at Cannes is so impressed
against all probabilitythat it awards Othello the grand prize. We can certainly see why, but this otherwise excessive honor isnt addressed only to
what is good in Othello. The same jury would not have crowned Welless
Macbeth, which had its own virtues. Implicitly, the award is being given
to what is academic in Othellos artistic audaciousness: that is to say, to its
Eisensteinian side. But I put myself in the place of jurors who might well
have liked the film for other, better reasons. Will they be able to rekindle
the enthusiasm for Welles of those who may, as a result, discover his genius
anewthanks to William Shakespeare? Thats a real moral dilemma.
Whatever the case, Grand Prize winner or not, Othello seems to me to
be a fascinating work. Before any other praise, the quality of Welless adaptation must be recognized: in particular, its faithfulness in spirit, through
the craziest kind of boldness, to Shakespeares dramatic poetry. I dont
think there is another director in the world who could allow himself, with
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
out subjecting his work to ridicule, to cut so much from the original text
and replace it with spectacle whose attempt at visual equivalence is totally
warranted. It is manifestly absurd to pretend to imagine what Shakespeare
would have put in place of his verbal poetry had he shot movies instead of
writing tragedies, but we could ask ourselves if what Welles has done is at
the very least one of the possible solutions to this hypothetical question. I
think the answer is yes, and I dont think that this is a minor point. From
such a perspective, the comparison with Oliviers Hamlet is crushing. His
[Oliviers] mise-en-scne was an acceptable framework for Shakespeares
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
text, but it could never have been a visual substitute for it (its true, though,
that in this respect Oliviers Henry V [] was quite superior).
Using such a fundamental quality as a starting point, were free to distribute both praise and blame to Othello. Since my purpose here is not to
do a full-length critique of Welless film, Ill content myself with declaring what I believe to be its biggest success and its most acute failure. To
this end, Ill confirm once again that the solution to adapting drama to
film resides not in the performance of the actor, but in the conception of
the decor. The theatrical stage is a closed, centripetal universe oriented toward its own interior, like a clam. The movie screen, by contrast, is a centrifugal surface, a frame placed on one portion of the limitless universe of
natural creation. Dramatic texts are conceived to resonate in an enclosed
space; they irremediably disperse and dissolve when transferred to a natural setting. When passing from the stage to the screen, the text must therefore find a place that satisfies two contradictory qualities: that of cinematic
space, on the one hand, and of theatrical space, on the other.
Welles succeeds in this regard in a dazzling manner, as he recreates a totally artificial dramatic architecture, yet one composed, almost completely,
only of natural elements borrowed from Venice and the fortified Moroccan town of Mogador. Thanks to the editing and the camera angles (which
make it impossible for the mind to spatially organize the elements of the
decor), Welles invents an imaginary architecture adorned with every artifice, yet possessing all the simultaneously calculated and random beauty
that only real architecture can have with its natural stone, sculpted by centuries of wind and sunlight. Othello thus takes place out in the open but
absolutely not in nature. The walls, the archways, the corridorsthey all
reverberate, reflect, and multiply like mirrors the eloquence of this tragedy.
However, I am not able to admire without reservation Welless continuity cutting, which prodigiously divides the film into little pieces, like
the shards of a mirror shattered by someone who has gone crazy with a
hammer. Pushed to this extreme, such a stylistic bias becomes fatiguing.
But my principal disappointment derives from Welless acting in the role of
Othello; I must confess that it sometimes falls into exhibitionism without
having, it seems to me, the sort of enormous yet mocking navet that rendered the close-ups of his Macbeth admirable. Still, if theres a film worth
seeing again, its this one. I shall return to it.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
- :
(France-observateur, October , )
of cinema, the Western is the only one whose development
can be followed without interruption from the very origins of cinema until the present day, without any indication of a decline in its favor with the
public or, as a result, with the producers. Of the nearly four hundred films
produced every year by Hollywood, around ninety are Westerns. Its a fact
that the majority of this output is of highly inferior quality, shot over just
a few days with almost laughable means and featuring editing that is completed with stock footage. The infatuation of television with the Western, as
well as TVs consumption of cheap movies in general, is obviously bound
to drop the already low bar of these cinematic productions, whose intellectual and formal level approaches that of the Sunday newsreels. But the proliferation of such mediocre films at least showcases the popularity of Westerns, and their numbers do not exclude honorable products with sufficient
stylistic means and accomplished actors, around twenty or thirty of which
appear each year. It is in this latter category, which naturally has its own
hierarchy of quality, where we find nearly all the Westerns that make the
roundshowever brieflyon the Parisian circuit.
Whats most stunning, however, is not so much the permanence of the
Western genre but its fidelity to itself. Where comedy is concerned, for example, the burlesque style of Mack Sennett didnt survive at all beyond the
mid-s. From that period only Chaplin managed to persevere up until
Limelight [], yet at the cost of a series of radical evolutions to his style.
But American film comedy hasnt shined too brightly now for more than
ten years. The crime thriller, for its part, has changed its skin many times,
from Underworld [, dir. Josef von Sternberg] to Naked City [, dir.
Jules Dassin], paying homage to its noir ancestor along the way. In spite of
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
the evolution of film technique, beyond even the matter of individual taste
or the wider context of historical events, only the Western has remained
true to itselfto the essence of its dramatic or moral themes and formal
stylewithout interruption for nearly forty years. The Western cant be defined, then, only by the geographical or historical localization of its scenario. That is just the frame of an action whose limited variations are reduced in the final analysis to various combinations of intangible motifs
given life by characters that exist only to fulfill their function.
Sometimes, it must be said, the unconsciously Corneillian [a reference
to Pierre Corneille (), the French neoclassical dramatist often
called the founder of French tragedy] side of Westerns has been parodied.
Its true that a lot of these movies contain manifest analogies to Corneilles
Cid []. But on both sides, seventeenth-century French drama and the
twentieth-century Western, an implicit conception of women in relationship to ethical imperativein short, a sense of chivalrymay be found.
Being ambiguous, then, the parody serves at the same time to underline the
greatness of the Western by virtue of its allusive subject and style. Indeed, it
could well be said that in our day the Western constitutes the only authentic refuge for tragedy and the epic. For in it we find the very kind of transcendent moral ethos that serves as the basis for Corneillian drama.
It may seem paradoxical to talk about the greatness and seriousness of a
genre that passes more readily for something puerile and nave. In the theater as in literature, navet and courage may not go hand in hand anymore
after one or two centuries. But in film, one can still find, between and
, some admirable and important Westerns that are both nave and courageousand as anonymous as the eleventh-century Song of Roland (I remember one of them that Henri Langlois was quite proud of presenting at
the Cinmatque Franaise back in ). Without a doubt, it is necessary
to consider such navet as a constituent part of the Western: it wouldnt be
able to lose it without ceasing to be its courageous self, and this in fact has
become the fundamental problem of the genre in the last fifteen years of its
history.
We could consider Stagecoach [] as the high point in the evolution
of quality Westerns. What is wonderful about John Fords film is that it
combines the force of navet, of simplicity, with the advantages of intelligence. Admirably laid out, his scenario never overwhelms the themes that
it introduces, just as the characters, in spite of their richness, never overwhelm the roles that they fill like eggs in their shells. From this classic
point of equilibrium, it was surely inevitable that the crisis of the Western would itself evolve. We owe to it a series of remarkable films between
and , among them William Wylers The Westerner [], How
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ard Hughess The Outlaw (), and Fords My Darling Clementine [].
What these films have in common is precisely the avowal of the impossibility of navet. Each of them tries in its own way to surpass the traditional
Western, whether through irony, like The Outlaw, through psychology, like
The Westerner, or by means of brilliant formal variations, like My Darling
Clementine.
It is as if great directors were aiming here at reevaluating a genre that
had reached the critical point, at least among mediocre practitioners, where
oft-repeated tradition becomes tired convention. For the best artists, its
about staying on the same road but going in a slightly different direction.
Just as we have been able to talk about the metanovel, then, Id readily call
this type of film the meta-Western.
The producer Stanley Kramer [] and the director Fred Zinnemann [] give us a great example of the meta-Western today with
High Noon []. It certainly has been a long time since we sawin the
Western or any other genrean American film made with such vigor and
intelligence. I would even say that the films of John Huston couldnt compare with it. The marshal of a small town has married a young Quaker
woman; out of respect for the convictions of his wife, who opposes the violence that comes with his job, he plans to resign and leave the area. Its then
that he learns about the imminent return, on the noon train, of a criminal he had captured five years ago and who has just been pardoned by the
Northern authorities. Three members of his gang wait for him at the station, and they know that their first job will be to help their boss take revenge against the law officer who once jailed him. Its : in the morning. As of now, the marshal is no more: hes officially a civilian who has the
right to leave this whole sordid affair to his successor. Even better, the entire town wants it that way: theyd like him to depart immediately with his
wife, as intended.
However, the marshal must remain despite himself and his fear, against
the will of his fellow townspeople and his wife, who rebukes her husband
for breaking his promise to quit his post on the day of their marriage. At
first the marshal doesnt doubt that he can find the help he needs to face the
four bandits, but little by little he succumbs to the evidence that, whether
because of cowardice, self-interest, or even fellow-feeling (on the part of
those who encourage him to flee from a pointless fight), everybody shies
away. He ends up completely isolated, abandoned by everyone to confront
alone the four men sworn to kill him. Flight was still possible before the
train arrived, but backing off now would mean running away and affirming the futility of any resistance on the marshals part. The private and public reasons for sacrificing himself to the law then become revealed one af
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
ter the other, and because of them there is no acceptable course of action
except to go in vain to the death that awaits him on the noon train. The
marshal is Gary Cooper, whose old and weary mask slowly becomes one of
fear, loneliness, and despair. The man who played the eccentric but winning Longfellow Deeds in Frank Capras Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [] is
now just a long, vacillating silhouette in tall cowboy boots as he wanders
down deserted streets.
What I will criticize about High Noon, in spite of its evident and even
exceptional qualities, may be those qualities themselves. Without question,
this is one of the three best Westerns since Stagecoach (the other two being The Westerner and My Darling Clementine). But my admiration for it
is not without qualification. More precisely, my admiration is for the film
more than for its protagonist. I was certainly drawn in by the vigorous action, which respects the unities of time and place until it becomes a challenge to do so, but in the end my nerves and my intelligence were affected
more than my heart. At no moment did I feel goosebumps because of any
sincere, innocent attachment to the protagonist. Rather than as a Western in the shape of tragedy, as the critic Jacques Doniol-Valcroze described
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
High Noon, I see this film as a tragedy in the shape of a Westerna tragedy whose relationship to the traditional tragic themes of the Western is
similar to that of Jean Anouilhs Antigone to Sophocless classic drama
of the same name. No doubt adroitly, Zinnemann detours from its natural destination a dramatic universe of which only the appearance and artifice remain.
I well understand that we could add such an asset to the films capital.
But only if we suppose that Westerns couldnt survive as quality films except at the price of self-deceptionwhich, in the case at hand, turns out to
be nothing more than clever decadence. This is precisely what, in my opinion, is refuted by the twenty or thirty worthy Westerns produced each year,
of which I spoke above. I believe that, for the most part, the episode of the
meta-Western is ending and that we will see a return to the values of the
classical Western: that is, if the American studios dont sacrifice quality to
quantity by reducing the budgets for all of these films.
The last few months in Paris, we have been able to see two Westerns
very characteristic of the type of film in which adherence to the rules of the
genre is respected, but only through the first half, which naturally results
in a reduction in quality. In both of these pictures we find a subject similar, in dramatic as well as moral terms, to that of Zinnemanns High Noon.
They are The Gunfighter [, dir. Henry King], with Gregory Peck, and
Along the Great Divide [, dir. Raoul Walsh), with Kirk Douglas. In the
first, an aging gunfighter runs the risk, during a three-hour period, of being killed; love prevents him from fleeing his fate on time. In the second,
a sheriff stubbornly resists, against all apparent reason and moderation, an
angry mob that wants to lynch a cattle thief and suspected murderer; this
stubborn resistance on the sheriff s part eventually costs the lives of several
innocents and should cost him his life, as well.
Unlike in High Noon, the treatment of the scenarios in both The Gunfighter and Along the Great Divide sadly suffers from many concessions or
gaps, and each pictures mise-en-scne, sometimes admirable, is visibly cut
off in other places. There is no intellectual perspective, no detachment on
the part of either director from his subject such that we would be moved
to see something else, or something more than a Western: no psychological
subtlety, no social thesis, invites us to look beyond the pure game of combining traditional themes with standard devices.
I certainly admire Zinnemanns film, but I would have preferred these
two to it had they been perfectly executed.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
.
: ;
:
(Cahiers du cinma, July ; Cahiers du cinma, October )
S
N
May and June will be full of film programs sabotaged by a distribution network dumb enough not to know how to profit even from its free
trump cards: in the course of the last few weeks, films precisely like Giuseppe De Santiss No Peace under the Olive Trees [Non c pace tra gli ulivi,
] and John Brahms The Secret Sharer [, a segment of the film Face
to Face], taken from Joseph Conrads short story. The first one has been released only in dubbed form and in a small boulevard screening room, as
if it were just some quaint melodrama seasoned with eroticismwhich is
what it appears to be from a certain angle. Now, whatever we may think of
this Italian film, it is clear that it deserved, even under these conditions, the
attention of the critics. They themselves are guiltyof needing stimulation
and not finding itbut even they can be excused when films are released
on the fly, with completely unrecognizable titles (recall Lewis Milestones
A Walk in the Sun [], which was released in France as Commando de la
mort) at out-of-the way theaters.
The case of The Secret Sharer is even more typical: used as filler on a
program featuring Richard Fleischers The Narrow Margin [], the film
wasnt even advertised outside the theater where it was playing. The critics
didnt receive any information about it, either, when it should have had a
favorable bias from them before the fact because it was adapted from a story
by Conrad. But how could they have known? The formula of running two
medium-length films on the same program was original in its own right,
yet no promotional material underlined this fact. Its in this manner that
the best adaptation of Graham Greenes fiction, Brighton Rock [, dir.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
John Boulting], has itself gone unnoticed in Franceunder the asinine title Gang of Killers.
In the same way, nobody has had any idea of going to see Caged [],
an American film directed by John Cromwell []. Who would
have dared to dream up such a title? Indeed, this rhetorical question was
confirmed by an advertising campaign that seemed to be ashamed of it. For
my part, it was only on the last day of the films run that I noticed it was
by John Cromwell, and therefore I rushed to see it before it disappeared. In
the end, a film from the director of Abe Lincoln in Illinois [] and The
Enchanted Cottage [] had every chance of not leaving me indifferent to
its fate.
And it did not. Dealing with a subject that today is more or less blithely
ignoredthat of the social and moral malfeasance of prisons conceived in
a purely repressive fashionCromwell has been able to adopt a tone that
forcefully calls our attention to that very subject once again. The austerity
of the script is already quite unusual in itself: we get acquainted with the
heroine only upon her entry into prison, and we leave her upon her release.
Starting as an almost innocent woman, sentenced to one year for having
acted as a lookout during a heist in which her husband was killed, she is
implacably turned into a future criminal by a stupid and rotten-to-the core,
coercive regimea future criminal, moreover, who is greeted at the gates
of the prison on the day of her release by cohorts in a luxury car.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Certainly, since this is a small film of visibly limited means, the treatment of details isnt without its shortcomings. Moreover, the situations and
the characters are perhaps a bit too conventional: in the latter case, for example, the easy opposition between the good warden who wishes to apply better rehabilitative methods and the evil head of guards who is cruel,
corrupt, and protected by abominable politicians. But we can easily forgive such script concessions for the reality of the mise-en-scne, where John
Cromwells blunt but honest and convincing style can be found. Compositions nearly always in close shots, making faces essential to the story; a gray
and hard image purified through asceticism of all plastic beauty; the directing of the actors in the same restrained styleall of these qualities give the
film a unity of tone and style that we dont run into so frequently. Caged
deserved better than the silence it got, in any event. Go see it if it comes
your way. (Cahiers du cinma, July )
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
compare The Goddess to Sunset Boulevard [] would be making a serious error, even if both are harsh investigations of Hollywood alienation.
In Billy Wilders film, this alienation is defined entirely on the psychological and sociological levels, while the same condition in The Goddess makes
sense only from an ontological perspective.
I admit that Paddy Chayefskys scenario loses its way sometimes, and
overall I dont regard the film as a perfectly convincing enterprise, but the
very thing that annoys me about it seems to be worthy of esteem, if not
admiration, or in any case of interest in itself. We could rightfully chide
John Cromwell, though, for his choice of leading actress [Kim Stanley],
unknown in the cinema if apparently famous on Broadway. She plays admirably, in a style maybe a bit theatrical that otherwise doesnt displease
me; but she looks thirty-five years old when the scenario initially makes her
just sixteen, and she should have done a better job of acting out the younger
age. Even more annoying is the viewers obligation to believe the success of
this womanwho has no grace or intelligenceas a Hollywood star. We
cant discern how she has managed to rise to the top. But this relative implausibility has another inconvenience attached to it: because the character
exudes no more than stale sex appeal, the kind you find in some erotic routine, the spectators spirit is prevented from taking refuge in the traditional
categories of American cinema. He is forced to reflect about the character
on his own.
What troubles me most, I confess, is the main characters mental vacuum. Estranged [from family and friends] since her teenaged years, the heroine whose portrait Chayefsky paints is defined by that vacuum, which is
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
not only moral but also intellectual, and it has been so since birth or at least
since the girls adolescence. This portrait of an idol is only gilded plaster
for the Oscars. We would better understand the destruction of a character
for whom we could feel sympathy and admiration from the beginning. But
that has been done before many times (The Big Knife [], A Star is Born
[], The Barefoot Contessa []), hasnt it?
Moreover, Chayefsky refuses to avail himself of easy drama: Hollywood
here means not simply the obliteration of personality within the confines of
the Hollywood myth, but the promotion of nothingness itself. His major
theme, then, is evidently that of ennui. We find it in the secondary characters, especially in the heroines husbands. About the heroine herself, we
cant say that she actually feels ennui, since this condition is subsumed in
her, melded, inscribed in her very being. She hasnt got enough consciousness for that, just enough to become crazy. But she spreads ennui all around
her, like radiation from her existential disintegration, and Chayefsky studies its decaying effects on all those exposed to it.
Regarding John Cromwells admirable mise-en-scne, some critics have
reflexively complained that its just like television, first because of Chayefskys own television work but also because of the length of the fi xed closeup shots. But this is absurd. I dont pretend to know well the oeuvre of this
seventy-one-year-old director, to whom American cinema is indebted for
some its best psychological dramas. I still havent forgotten, after twelve
years, the use of the interminable close-up in Abe Lincoln in Illinois [],
which couldnt possibly have owed anything to television technique. Cromwell has always had a soft spot for this camera position; he may be a bit
clumsy in this, but he is very sure of the obtained effect. Whatever it may
be, the suffocating intensity in The Goddess of the sequence shot inside the
car (during the hysterical monologue of the girl, while the young man wonders if hes going to have the courage to kiss her) doesnt owe any of its effectiveness to TV style. It is to be judged only according to the technical
means of cinema.
Cromwell also offers to us, especially in the beginning of the film, shots
of more classic beauty; perhaps these are somewhat obsolete, but what a
pleasure to reencounter the magisterial science of atmosphere of the old
masters of American cinema: the lyricism of D. W. Griffith, nuanced, enriched, and sweetened by over thirty years of experience. It is possible that
the sequence depicting the young girl returning to school, and not finding anyone to share the happiness of her having passed the entrance exam
to the higher class, is a little sentimental, but I think more about the shot
where we see her calling out to her neighbor in vain. The harmony here
among the decor, the shot, and the sound takes us in right away, and this
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
one-second image imprints itself one ones memory with a burning intensity. So much effectiveness in simplicity may not be very modern, its true.
Today we prefer punching the stomach to touching the heart; let us be on
our guard, however, lest we lose still flavorful fruits by shaking the coconut tree too hard.
The Goddess is the first film with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky that
isnt defined solely by its script, even though it still remains determinant
here. It is possible that John Cromwells mise-en-scne doesnt perfectly
match the scenario, doesnt marry that scenario to the kind of penetrating softness found in The Bachelor Party, as directed by Delbert Mann.
But the relative autonomy of the mise-en-scne establishes a strange tension in The Goddess, contributing in the end to the unusual character of this
whole endeavor, which is puzzling in many ways but always stunning and,
in any case, much more worthy of reflection and interest than most ambitious American films. (Cahiers du cinma, October )
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Cahiers du cinma, October )
S
N
on the scene after the war, John Huston [] is certainly the one about whom we have written the mostexcepting Orson
Welles, of course. The new film criticism hasnt missed the chance to write
about an oeuvre that lends itself to exceptionality. The succession of ideas,
the intellectualism of stylenot usual in the American cinemathe thematic unity of Hustons oeuvre, and the calculated lucidity of the mise-enscne: all of these couldnt help but justifiably move the attentive viewer
and seduce the intelligent critic. To this we should now add the affinity of
the theme of the ultimate absurdity of human action with the great currents of postwar French literature. But this characteristic of Hustons work
was so obvious or superficial that it ended up becoming dubious. We were
left to wonder if the well-known subject of failure was truly essential to
this director, or, if it was essential to him, whether it wasnt of questionable
moral or dramatic quality. In the end, what really counts in art is style: that
is, the interiorization of the works theme or idea in its form.
Regarding style, Hustons is freely chosen and calculated but limited by
a certain austerity, without any natural lyricism or poetry to it. It could
pass for the style of an old Hollywood regular, trained in the studio yet a
bit smarter than the others, and turned into a director by way of a detour
from the screenwriting profession. In short, we see here the very argument
that could be used to lower Hustons talent to a secondary level, to deem it
impure. After The Red Badge of Courage [], that argument is even stronger. It certainly is true that this filmmakers temperament remains more
that of a scenarist than of a director, and that we could consider the predominance of the writer in him as a limitation.
Hustons style, even in its more ample manifestations, still remains too
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
cerebral, too lucid. It has some admixture in its composition that will probably always prevent it from truly rising to the level of the personal; instead,
it will remain confined to that general notion of style that is confused with
rhetoric. In this sense, Huston isnt Orson Welles or Jean Renoir or even
John Ford, even if we wanted him to be. His mise-en-scne is never anything but the apt and vivid shaping of a dramatic idea. The means that he
uses are by no means original, at least in their essence. His cutting, for its
part, remains classical to the point of being banal until its most heated moments. It follows that we cant regard Huston as a truly great director.
But it may suffice to admire him as a great film aficionado.
Since we are harangued these days into nodding our heads at the name
of Hitchcock, Ill say, in order to refine my thinking, that it seems evident
to me that the director of I Confess [] has a personal style, also that hes
an inventor of original cinematic forms, and in this sense his superiority
over Huston is indisputable. But I wont allow myself to consider The Red
Badge of Courage or even The African Queen [] as works any less worthy of esteem than Rope [] or Strangers on a Train []. In the end,
the movies subject has to count for something! When, for example, Roger
Leenhardt made The Last Vacation [Les dernires vacances, ], his audacity and inventiveness were assuredly not only formal. The value and novelty
of this work resided essentially in the fact that it expressed as cinema things
more refined and acute than usual, that it interiorized cinematic expressivity to the point of denying films spectacularity. I mean that the conquest
of film rhetoric has to some extent lost its fascination and that what matters
most now is an aesthetic hierarchy of subjects: after all, the depths of screen
language were plumbed only through the exploration of primary and essential themes.
To get back to Huston, when we compare the script of The African Queen
to the great majority of Hollywood productions, we cant avoid being pleasantly surprised by its astute boldness, its psychological self-consciousness,
and its relative subtlety. Therefore this film still retains a minimum number
of dramatic conventions completely absent from the admirable Red Badge
of Courage. The story of this picture is far too well known for me to revisit
it here. Let us just remember that the movie we are watching has been mutilated (by the studio, MGM) and reconstructed around an explanatory
commentary that tries hard but happily in vain to give the film a dramatic
unity and a classic, linear psychological progression. But this commentary
only succeeds in underlining, by contrast with it, the ambiguous layer of
the mise-en-scne. And even with the narration, The Red Badge of Courage
has been judged uncommercial: its distribution to American movie theaters
has been halted. It seems that this has occurred not so much for political
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
just the reply of the relativity of motive to those actions. By featuring Audie
Murphy in the central role, Huston isnt trying in bad taste to ridicule this
man, the most decorated soldier of World War II; but he is trying to doubly
affirm, through Murphy and the character he plays, that there isnt in the
end any objective proof of human heroism other than the number of ribbons and citations a soldier receives.
What undoubtedly places The Red Badge of Courage well above Hustons
other films is that the metaphysics of the picture, or at least its moral outlook, isnt explained by the dramatic structure of the scenario; nonetheless,
metaphysics or morality remains immanent in every image. It was the outcome of the action that permitted talk of failure on the part of the auteur of
The Maltese Falcon [] and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre [], for in
these movies Huston inscribed himself in the development of events, as opposed to letting the dramatic structure speak for itself or come to its own
conclusion. That is, the same mise-en-scne in either instance could have
led Huston to supply a happy ending instead of what we get; and failure
revealed itself in these films to be more a thesis than a theme. In The Red
Badge of Courage (and to a very large extent in The African Queen, whose
conclusion is mostly optimistic), the idea, if we can still speak about an
idea here, is internalized, and with the same stroke it is then superseded by
a moral dialectic that moves the films auteur beyond failure or pessimism.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
A lucid, implacably objective report on war and the psychology of the warrior, The Red Badge of Courage isnt a black and bitter film, though. As far
from pessimistic idealism as it is from lyrical illusion, it finishes more on
a note of positive stoicism, with an active skepticism that is not without
humor.
However great it may finally be, what makes for the aesthetic worth of
a film is less the ideas of its auteur than the way in which those ideas are
integrated into the mise-en-scne. Its true, as I indicate above, that this is
Hustons limitation, that he doesnt have a genuinely personal style. His editing itself is unoriginal, but that doesnt matter much in The Red Badge
of Courage because the mise-en-scne resides mostly in the intrinsic treatment of events as registered by the camera. The unprecedented precision of
his structuring of the battle and the exceptional verisimilitude achieved by
the films historical realism notwithstanding, Huston is generally opposed
to what we call composition. His framing of shots is never of the kind
to be found in military paintings (quite the opposite, it is necessary to remark, alas, of Pudovkins framing in Admiral Nakhimov [Admiral Nahimov, ]). The silver screen is not the stage for a theater of operations here
because the military event just cannot be regarded as spectacle. What characterizes a spectacle is not so much the scope or the intensity of the action,
but its physical arrangement and structure. Spectacular appearances themselves just exhaust the senses. Huston, by contrastand to repeatnever
cheats with long shots. His mise-en-scne is eminently interior, I wont say
psychological but novelistic; this is not spectacle but storytelling, indivisible
from the critical intelligence through which events are refracted.
If we wished to define the theatricality of a mise-en-scne, we could
compare it with the painting constructed according to classical perspectivethat is, with only one vanishing point at eye level that arranges the
outermost edges of objects in the form of an imaginary pyramid. The shot
would then demarcate the transparent base within, around which the universe of the event is arranged: coherent, closed, and self-sufficient. At the
same time, there exist mise-en-scnes that have nothing to express except
what they simply show, and among them are even some of Hustons, save
for the mise-en-scne in The Red Badge of Courage. In this picture, to the
contrary, the screen is just a section of the event, which Huston avoids placing in isometric perspective. Instead, it is endlessly crisscrossed by explosions from falling shellswhich we may or may not regard as important
just like asteroids from other worlds. Certain elements undoubtedly serve
as joints between dramatic nebulae, but we dont follow them along their
respective paths of travel. Im thinking of the artillery wagons that hurtle
down the road along which the wounded soldiers walk. Rather than racing
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
with the wagons here, we stumble along with the hero among the rotting
corpses of yet another forgotten battle.
This impossibility of referencing the shown action with an ideal action
fitted out with a global geometry finds its equivalent inside any one shot in
the directors refusal to highlight significant narrative details. For example, the relatively important character of the young lieutenant appears only
sporadically; we suddenly discover him at one point wounded and limping, but without our attention being drawn either to his appearance or to
the significance of his injury. Its because of details like these that The Red
Badge of Courage is perhaps the most revolutionary film yet in American
cinema. We understand the outrage of the adolescent viewers who decided
the fate of Hustons film, because he not only didnt organize his mise-enscne according to a simple and exhaustive dramatic mechanics, he also
required an active contribution from the audience to the mise-en-scne.
What he shows us doesnt make sense if we dont contribute some insight of
our own, the discerning fruit of an intellectual complicity.
This quality of the mise-en-scne should be defined as its realism. The
ambiguity, or, better, the uncertainty that it supposes in things and actions
is mostly a question of conscience as well as respect for people, objects, and
events in and of themselves. As a result, Huston eliminates any theatricality in the costumes, makeup, and acting. Whether beards are fake or real
may not be a good criterion of cinematic realism in general, but, at the very
least, such beards are certainly extremely important to the phenomenological realism of which The Red Badge of Courage partakes. One cant imagine
a film from the neorealists Rossellini or De Sica with wigs. Their scenarios, moreover, are set in contemporary times. Whats surprising in Hustons
film is precisely this feeling of contemporariness to the story, the idea not
that the past has been reconstituted but that, on the contrary, it has been
updated.
Certainly other directors have seen fit to take extreme care with the
truthfulness of their films dcor, costumes, and makeup, but more often this exactitude becomes one of the manifest objectives of the mise-enscneso much so that it in itself becomes highlighted or underlined. In
Hustons work, such exactitude is no more accidental, or inevitable, than
the rest: it is a necessary but never privileged attribute of the image. If it
had been emphasized in The Red Badge of Courage, for example, we would
have had to pay attention to the leg of the limping young lieutenant in a
corner of the screen. It is certainly possible to go wrong by employing total archaeological rigor, but the truth wouldnt be complete without the
beards; they are the sign, far more ineluctable than coincidental, of the indivisible realism of the films mise-en-scne.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Huston has now brought off one big project, The Red Badge of Courage,
and is planning to bring off another oneMoby Dick []after Moulin Rouge [] and Beat the Devil []. The second, Moby Dick, will probably succeed at shedding light on the meaning of the first, which, as I have
noted, was partially disfigured in postproduction. We may see that the notion of failure in the earlier film is resolved in a brilliant ethical light, in
which the momentary success of human enterprise becomes almost a matter of indifference. By comparison with The Red Badge of Courage, each
of Hustons previous pictures appears finally, if not as a caricature, then
pretty much as the drama of a moral idea that only ambiguity, or more precisely the cultivation of a novelistic mise-en-scne, could restore to its full
plenitude.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cinma travers le monde, )
S
N
note for Italian neorealism with the wonderful Two Cents
Worth of Hope [Due soldi di speranza, ] by Renato Castellani. Another
masterpiece opened the season, Umberto D. [], by Cesare Zavattini and Vittorio De Sica. Unfortunately, the film was released under
deplorable conditions at the end of September and was insufficiently supported by the critics, who were still napping after the holidays, so it enjoyed absolutely no success. Violently attacked in Italy for parapolitical reasons, Umberto D. consequently did not find the welcome in Paris that it
deserved. For this, shame on the critics children and grandchildren up to
the seventh generation!
In the Zavattini and De Sica oeuvre, Miracle in Milan [Miracolo a Milano, ] was a parenthetical work. It was an excursion into fantasy, related
to realism and in its service perhaps, but generally following a different
path from the one defined by Shoeshine [Sciusci, ] and Bicycle Thieves
[Ladri di biciclette, ]. With Umberto D., this director and screenwriter
return to pure neorealism, in which they attempt to eliminate all concessions to the traditional concept of cinematic dramaturgy.
Now an eccentricity of Zavattinis is his claim that Italian cinema must,
contrary to all evidence, transcend neorealism. This is a perilous and paradoxical position after the success of Bicycle Thieves, which represented the
pinnacle from which any artist could only descend. But Umberto D. proves
that the undeniable perfection of Bicycle Thieves does not delimit the neorealist aesthetic; indeed, for this reason Umberto D. may even be superior
to Bicycle Thieves. This latest film succeeds, rather than in the strict application of the laws of neorealist form, in creating an almost miraculous
equilibrium between neorealisms revolutionary conception of screenwrit
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ing and the exigencies of classical storytelling. Where one would never have
believed that such a compromise could exist, these film artists have arrived
at an ideal synthesis between the necessary rigor of tragedy and the spontaneous fluidity of daily reality. For Zavattini, however, this success did not
come without sacrificing a part of his aesthetic theory, which we all know
would create a cinematic spectacle of ninety minutes in the life of a man
to whom nothing ever happens. An impossible task, perhaps, except in a
theoretical film that would reflect reality like a two-way mirror, but such a
deeply aesthetic notion is as inexhaustible as nature itself.
From this point of view, Umberto D. tries to go, and succeeds in going,
much further than Bicycle Thieves did; two or three of its scenes, in fact,
more than suggest the complete neorealism that Zavattini visualizes. Disagreement will inevitably arise, because the films social themes and its sentiment may make some people consider it a plea for old-age pensions, while
others dismiss it as nothing but a populist melodrama. There will always be
the carping critic who wants to mock De Sicas faint heart, yet it is clear
that the real film here is much more than the sum of its parts.
First lets look at the films action. A retired bureaucrat, reduced to
half-misery and demoralized by the threat of losing his room, decides
against committing suicide because he cannot find a home for his dog or
muster up the courage to kill the animal, either. But this final scene is not
the pathetic conclusion (also, what conclusion are we talking about, since
the old man has to live on?) of a dramatic chain of events. If the events happen to be dramatic, they are so in themselves and not with regard to a
preestablished action. Granted, the succession of these events, sometimes
only moments, is not incoherent. One can see some progress in it, but this
progress is accidental as it were: the opposite of necessary or inevitable and
tragically transcendent. To wit: Umberto D. is suffering from angina, and
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
his illness fills up a lot of time in the film; it will land him in the hospital,
but his hospitalization has almost no consequences for the action and, after
his recovery, the protagonist finds himself in the same situation as before.
The basic unit of the film is thus not a scene, an event, a coup de thtre; its
mainspring is not even the protagonists character: the story is only a succession of concrete moments of life, none of which can be said to be more
important than the others.
Indeed, the story of Umberto D.if one can still speak in this instance
of a story or plotis as much about the times when nothing happens as
it is about dramatic events, such as the protagonists failed suicide. De Sica
dedicates more than one reel to showing us Umberto D. in his room, closing his shutters, arranging various objects, looking at his tonsils, going to
bed, taking his temperature. Too many pills for a sore throat, I have to
say! Enough pills for suicide . . . The sore throat plays its small role in the
plot, but the most beautiful sequence in the filmand one of the highest
achievements in the history of cinemais the awakening of the pregnant
little maid. Rigorously avoiding dramatic italicizing, the scene perfectly illustrates Zavattinis conception of narrative and hence of mise-en-scne.
Early in the morning, the young girl gets up, comes and goes in the
kitchen, drowns the ants that are swarming in the sink, grinds the coffee, closes the door with the tip of her toe . . . and all these irrelevant actions are reported to us with meticulous temporal continuity. This scene
is without any dramatic usefulness, as the camera limits itself to filming
the young woman during her habitual morning activities. Cinema becomes
here the very opposite of the art of ellipsis, which one can too easily think it
was made for. Ellipsis implies analysis and choice; it organizes facts according to the dramatic sense they must be submitted to. De Sica and Zavattini
try, by contrast, to divide the event up into smaller events, and those into
even smaller events, up to the limit of our perception of duration.
I mentioned to Zavattini that this last scene sustains our unflagging interest, whereas Umberto D.s bedroom scene does not succeed in the same
way. You see, he told me, that the aesthetic principle is not in question, but only its application. The more screenwriters reject genres of action
and spectacle and try to make a story conform to the continuity of everyday life, the more choosing from among the infinite events of someones
life becomes a delicate, problematic issue. The fact that you were bored by
Umberto D.s sore throat, yet moved to tears by my little heroines coffee
grinder, only proves that I chose the second time what I, and perhaps you,
had not conceived of before.
This is an uneven film, certainly, and one that does not satisfy the soul
as much as Bicycle Thieves, but Umberto D. is also a film whose weaknesses
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
are due only to its ambitions. Nonetheless, we should no longer be mistaken about the concept of realism in film art: the purpose of De Sica and
Zavattini is to make of cinema an asymptote of reality, in the process almost making of life itself a spectaclelife in itself at last, even as the cinema alters it. This places a film like Umberto D. not only in the forefront of
neorealism, but at the very edge of the invisible avant-garde, which I, in my
own small way, hope to promote.
The year began with a misunderstood masterpiece (De Sicas Umberto
D.), and it ended with an accursed masterpiece, Roberto Rossellinis Europe
(Europa , a.k.a. The Greatest Love, ). Just as critics had reproached
De Sica for making a social melodrama, they accused Rossellini of indulging in a confused, indeed reactionary, political ideology. They were once
again wrong for the most part, for they were passing judgment on the subject without taking into consideration the style that gives it its meaning and
its aesthetic value.
A young, rich, and frivolous woman loses her only son, who commits
suicide one evening when his mother is so preoccupied with her social life
that she sends him to bed rather than be forced to pay attention to him.
The poor womans moral shock is so violent that it plunges her into a crisis of conscience that she initially tries to resolve by dedicating herself to
humanitarian causes, on the advice of a cousin of hers who is a Communist intellectual. But little by little she gets the feeling that this is only an
intermediate stage beyond which she must go if she is to achieve a mystical clarity all her own, one that transcends the boundaries of politics and
even of social or religious morality. Accordingly, she looks after a sick prostitute until the latter dies and then aids in the escape of a young criminal
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
from the police. This last initiative causes a scandal, and, with the complicity of an entire family alarmed by her behavior, the womans husband,
who understands her less and less, decides to have her committed to a sanitarium. If she had become a member of the Communist party or had entered a convent, bourgeois society would have had fewer objections to her
actions, since the Europe of the early s is a world of political parties and
social organizations.
From this perspective, it is true that Rossellinis script is not devoid of
navet, even of incoherence or at any rate pretentiousness. One sees the
particulars that the author has borrowed from Simone Weils life, without
in fact being able to recapture the strength of her thinking. But these reservations dont hold up before the whole of a film that one must understand
and judge on the basis of its mise-en-scne. What would Dostoyevskys The
Idiot [] be worth if it were to be reduced to a summary of its plot? Because Rossellini is a true director, the form of his film does not consist in
the ornamentation of its script: the form is supplied by its very substance.
The auteur of Germany, Year Zero [Germania, anno zero, ]another
film in which a boy kills himselfis profoundly haunted in a personal way
by the horror of the death of children, even more by the horror of their suicide, and it is around his heroines authentic spiritual experience of such
a suicide that the film is organized. The eminently modern theme of lay
sainthood then naturally emerges; its more or less skillful development by
the script matters very little: what matters is that each sequence is a kind
of meditation or filmic song on this fundamental theme as revealed by the
mise-en-scne. The aim is not to demonstrate but to show. And how could
we resist the moving spiritual presence of Ingrid Bergman, and, beyond the
actress, how could we remain insensitive to the intensity of a mise-en-scne
in which the universe seems to be organized along spiritual lines of force,
to the point that it sets them off as manifestly as iron fillings in a magnetic
field? Seldom has the presence of the spiritual in human beings and in the
world been expressed with such dazzling clarity.
Granted, Rossellinis neorealism here seems very different from, if not
the opposite of, De Sicas. However, I think it wise to reconcile them as
the two poles of one and the same aesthetic school. Whereas De Sica investigates reality with ever more expansive curiosity, Rossellini by contrast
seems to strip it down further each time, to stylize it with a painful but
nonetheless unrelenting rigor, in short to return to a classicism of dramatic
expression in acting as well as in mise-en-scne. But, on closer examination, this classicism stems from a common neorealistic revolution. For Rossellini, as for De Sica, the aim is to reject the categories of acting and of
dramatic expression in order to force reality to reveal its significance solely
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
through appearances. Rossellini does not make his actors act, he doesnt
make them express this or that feeling; he compels them only to be a certain way before the camera. In such a mise-en-scne, the respective places
of the characters, their ways of walking, their movements on the set, and
their gestures have much more importance than the feelings they show on
their faces, or even than the words they say. Besides, what feelings could
Ingrid Bergman express? Her drama lies far beyond any psychological
nomenclature. Her face only outlines a certain property of suffering.
Europe gives ample indication that such a mise-en-scne calls for the
most sophisticated stylization possible. A film like this is the very opposite
of a realistic one drawn from life: it is the equivalent of austere and terse
writing, which is so stripped of ornament that it sometimes verges on the
ascetic. At this point, neorealism returns full circle to classical abstraction
and its generalizing quality. Hence this apparent paradox: the best version
of the film is not the dubbed Italian version, but the English one, which
employs the greatest possible number of original voices. At the far reaches
of this realism, the accuracy of exterior social reality becomes unimportant.
The children in the streets of Rome can speak English without our even
realizing the implausibility of such an occurrence. This is reality through
style, and thus a reworking of the conventions of art.
Michelangelo Antonioni belongs to the same artistic family as Rossellini, albeit with perhaps a more conscious intelligence of cinematic means.
Antonionis fame in France is not yet equal to his talent. His first film, a
tense and cutting work, which recalls the rigor of Bresson and the sensitivity of Renoir, was Story of a Love Aff air [Cronaca di un amore, ]. It revealed, in addition to its outstanding director, an astonishing actress: Lucia
Bos. Since then, Antonioni has made two very good films that have not
been released in France: The Lady without Camelias [La signora senza camelie, ], a satire on beauty pageants, and above all The Vanquished [I vinti,
a.k.a. Youth and Perversion, ], whose release in France might be prevented for stupid reasons of censorship.
The Italian critics themselves are divided and hesitant about The Lady
without Camelias, but I saw The Vanquished at the Venice Film Festival,
and the film completely fulfills the early hopes that I had about its director. Its purpose is to evoke the moral situation of postwar youth on the basis of three true stories, one Italian, one English, and one Frencheach of
which chronicles a senseless murder. The French portion is the one causing all the films troubles, as it is (too closely) inspired by the actual murder
on which its based. The three parts of The Vanquished are unequal, and the
Italian one could have been made by any director with a little talent, but
the French part is excellent and the English wonderful. The latter reaches
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
the extreme purity of a kind of stylized realism, stripped bare of any element borrowed from the charms of the edited or plastic image: this is a true
chess game of reality where the actors behavior and the environment in
which they are placed are the only signs of a hidden truth.
Italian cinema, however, was not as high on the honor roll of international film festivals this season as in the previous one. I must nevertheless single out among the films that have not yet been released in Paris an
appealing work by Mario Soldati titled The Wayward Wife [La provinciale,
], after a short story by Alberto Moravia. This endeavor is interesting,
for the Italians consider Soldati one of their best novelists, and his work in
the cinema, usually quite commercial, has had little to do so far with his
work as a talented writer. A strange fellow who looks like Groucho Marx,
he is indeed also the director of the comedy O.K. Nero [O.K. Nrone, ].
With this picture, it is a little as if Franois Mauriac were earning a living
by making a movie in imitation of the French comic strip The Stooges [Les
Pieds Nickels].
But in Italy writers and filmmakers dont live in separate worlds: I can
see a brief but significant confirmation of this in the six-minute cinematic
short titled It Is the Suns Fault [ colpa del sole, ], written and directed
by the novelist Alberto Moravia. It is a brief but grating love story set in
high society. Now, in The Wayward Wife, the novelist Soldati directs a short
story by the same Moravia, the author of Agostino []. Its title tells all.
This is the story of an Italian Emma Bovary, who married a professor who is
neither handsome nor rich, and who is blackmailed by a Romanian countesswho is more of a procuress than a countess. The provincial woman is
the too-beautiful Gina Lollobrigida. In view of the potential of its authors,
this interesting film, made with intelligence and a definite sense of novelis-
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
and that of sentiment, with any social element reduced to the role of settingactive, to be sure, but ultimately subordinated to a sentimental story
and to our interest in the two stars of the film, Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones.
That said, it would be profoundly unfair to treat Terminal Station as just
a mediocre or failed film. First, within the warped framework imposed by
the producer, De Sica has nevertheless been able to suggest psychological
and social truths that are movingly accurate and clinically sharp. I particularly like the young American nephew of the female protagonist, who is
so precisely yet discreetly typified with his proud, juvenile incomprehension. One can sense in this fourteen-year-old boywhom a dozen carabinieri trail behind like live toy soldiers in a kids worldthe frankness and
severity of a simultaneously liberal and puritanical civilization: the great
American one. The role of this secondary character, who embodies both
the moral and social conscience of the heroine, is a beautiful and intelligent creation. But beyond these partial successes, which would fully satisfy
many another filmmaker, Terminal Station evidences from beginning to
end an ease and class of mise-en-scne, and an elegant sensitivity, that are
the true marks of a great director.
With the De SicaZavattini collaboration, on the one hand, and on the
other, the Rossellini and Antonioni films, I have delineated the aesthetic
domain of neorealism, whose inclinations can be both extremely rigorous
and extremely contradictory. Between these two poles, the year has offered
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
us some other films that are not without their own concessions and are a
mixture of various influences. But although they are less purely representative of the neorealist school, they nevertheless possess value.
By order of merit, I should perhaps mention first The Road to Hope [Il
cammino della speranza, ], by Pietro Germi, a young filmmaker who
is one of the great hopes of the new Italian cinema. In this film a group of
miners and their families secretly leave their village in Sicilywhose sulfur
mines have just closed down, depriving all the workers of their jobsfor
a promised land where, they are told, there is work for everybody: France.
They sell what little furniture they have, collect their raggedy clothes, pay
the would-be smuggler who has offered to take them to the border and
sneak them across, and then they leave: a miserable army rich only in hope.
Abandoned halfway by their so-called guide and questioned by the Italian
police, who order them to go back to Sicily (compulsory residence in one
place is common in Italy), most of them decide to continue on with their
journey anyway. Those who did not give up arrive at the border, where professional smugglers, who are used to this kind of emigration, make them
cross at night during a snowstorm. At dawn, the Promised Land is before
them. The survivors may finally be able to find work as unskilled laborers,
or even, with a little luck, as miners.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Non c pace tra gli ulivi (No Peace under the Olive Trees,
a.k.a. Bloody Easter, ); director: Giuseppe De Santis.
dance by Lucia Bos, which recalls that of Silvana Mangano in Bitter Rice
(not to mention Eleonora Rossi Drago in Clemente Fracassis Barefoot Savage [Sensualit, ], which, like Bitter Rice, explores the same vein oflet
us call itagricultural eroticism); and, on the other hand, with the revolt
of the shepherds, whose gathered herds stream down the mountains into
the legs of the carabinieri. The villain deservedly ends up at the bottom of
a ravine.
If we limit No Peace among the Olives to its plot, this film is merely a
kind of peasant melodrama writ large, where nothing is spared: neither
the rape of the poor young shepherdess by the rich landowner nor the final triumph of a latent natural justice that is one step ahead of social justice. But it is obvious that the primal simplicity of this story is intentional
on the part of its author, who has conceived his film both as a fresco and
as an epic. Documentary realism is thus combined with narrative as well
as visual stylization. The care given to the otherwise realistic photography
proves my point, for each image is composed as a tableau: women strike
poses of Piets or of Madonnas; the actors look as though they had just
stepped out of a Michelangelo fresco; and the walk-ons themselves play the
role of the ancient chorus. To be sure, one must acknowledge that the result is somewhat grotesque. One is hard put to discover any synthesis between the formal ambitions of the mise-en-scne and the childishness of
the screenplay.
As for the presence of Lucia Bos, it has mostly to do with an erotic obsession that is purely its own justification. But in a hundred places of this
baroque endeavor, a cinematic genius that cannot leave us indifferent reveals itself. The film was released in Paris, by the wayin a small theater
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
on the outskirts of the citythree years after its making (and after it was
released in the French provinces) only in a dubbed version. It goes without
saying that this stupid exploitation has added quite a few misunderstandings to all those that the film already contained.
As though he had achieved with No Peace among the Olives the epitome
of his baroque delirium and had therefore freed himself from it, De Santis evidences in Rome, Eleven OClock [Roma, ore undici, ] a remarkable
sense of dramatic construction as it relates to the mise-en-scne. The film
was inspired by a true story, which unfortunately loses force on account of
the triviality of its theme. The staircase of a building has collapsed under
the weight of two hundred unlucky young women who have come to apply for a typists job. One is dead and many others are severely injured. The
film begins at dawn as the line of applicants is already forming. Almost imperceptibly, De Santis isolates eight or nine of the candidates, whose past
and reasons for being there we progressively learn. We will witness a few
hours from their individual destinies, which are more or less changed forever by the horrible accident.
In Rome, Eleven OClock De Santis and his screenwriters have skillfully
been able to avoid the artifice of films consisting of such sketches and to interweave the various, exemplary destinies they have chosen without interrupting the flow of the narrative. But the director plays the game of neorealism only partially here. Whereas his screenplay delves into the social
present for its essential component, the violence of the stairway collapse, he
nevertheless does not deprive the film of a skilled yet finally traditional dramatic construction. Neither does he want to deprive this endeavor of the
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
advantages of a spectacular cast: Lucia Bos, Carla del Poggio, Elena Varzi,
La Padovani, Raf Vallone, and Massimo Girotti are the impressive stars.
Almost at the same time, Augusto Genina was making another film
about the same true story: Three Forbidden Tales [Tre storie proibite, ]. I
shall mention it here only for the sake of thoroughness and because a comparison with the film by De Santis makes the concessions of Rome, Eleven
OClock appear like so many ascetic choices. A wily old filmmaker, Genina
is capable of the best (Heaven over the Marshes [Cielo sulla palude, ]) as
well as the mediocre. Three Forbidden Tales does not even try to hide the
fact that it consists only of sketchesthree of them, in factone being indecent, one provocative, and one melodramatic. The film is so skillfully
made that it verges on craftiness, but in the end its narrative strands are too
arbitrarily connected to the real tragedy that is the works pretext.
With Times Gone By [Altri tempi, ], Alessandro Blasetti has assuredly taken even less trouble than Genina to link up his seven sketches. But
at least he is honest about it. The sole common denominator of his film
is its evocation of the end of the nineteenth century. The tone varies, as
do the length and subject matter of the tales that Blasetti tells us with relentless vigor. Still, he is able to balance tragedy, realism, morality, sentiment, and irony, not to mention music and song. Moreover, he has a welcome preference for the comic touch, as displayed in the best of the stories,
The Judgment of Phryne. A mediocre lawyer who cant find clients is appointed to do pro bono work on a hopeless casethat of a young woman
who killed her mother-in-law with rat poison. He finds brilliant inspiration
in the rather low neckline of his client (Gina Lollobrigida): he will have her
plead guilty in the name of beauty, and in this small dusty court he will get
the same indulgence from the jury for her as the ancient Greek courtesan
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Phryne got from her jurors. Blasettis intelligence, which found in Vittorio
De Sicas acting talent (as the attorney) a charming complicity, was that
he chose to keep his lawyer a professional mediocrity, even in his final triumph. This is what gives the lawyers chance inspiration all its savor. One is
reminded here of the work of both Georges Courteline and Marcel Pagnol.
Or perhaps simply of the great tradition of Neapolitan farce, for which De
Sica will no doubt find renewed inspiration in his forthcoming film, Gold
of Naples.
Since I am dealing now with comic neorealism, I should not forget Cops
and Robbers [Guardie e ladri, ], which garnered its directors (Steno [Stefano Vanzino, ] and Mario Monicelli []) the prize for
best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival. In truth, I find this award
a little excessive (especially when one considers that Umberto D. did not
even make it to the honor roll). But the film did have humor and verve. It
provided its two stars, Tot and Aldo Fabrizi, who are the Italian Fernandel and Raimu, with something better than an excuse for silly antics: a substantial plot, one that even went quite far in the direction of satirical realism. A police officer (Fabrizi), who is also a father with a family, arrests the
Tot character, who is a thief and even more so a father with a family. The
prisoner escapes, and the policeman is forced to run after him. He catches
him but in the process makes the acquaintance of Tots family. Understanding being the first step toward love, our policeman takes a liking to
the prisoner, who will then himself have to drag this law enforcer back to
prison. Tot will even decide not to run away anymore, so as not to cause
the policeman any further trouble. This is the recognizable theme of an excellent social farce, which the screenwriters managed to stuff with thousands of little realistic details that are all absolutely credible.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
I did not want to end this chronicle of the neorealist year in film on
a negative note. But how can I keep silent about a film by Luciano Emmer, whose art documentaries had put him, at the age of twenty, in the
foreground of the worlds top documentary makers? His first feature film,
Sunday in August [Domenica dagosto, ], confirmed the promise that his
documentary shorts had shown, even though this picture, in my opinion,
had something a little too intellectual, too ingeniously aesthetic, about it to
leave me satisfied. It would be better for Luciano Emmers reputation if he
were to forget as soon as possible his second feature film, which is the disastrous result of an impossible coproduction. On the theme of the Italians in Paris, Emmer tries in vain to depict for the benefit of these two nations the material and psychological aspects of superficial tourism. But how
could he possibly have survived the handicap of a ridiculous and monstrous
dubbing, which makes the French speak Italian in the Italian version and
the Italians speak French (with a Marseilles accent!) in the French version?
The failure of Emmers second feature, Paris Is Always Paris [Parigi sempre
Parigi, ], on the French market will, I hope, serve as a lesson for producers who would still be attracted by such two-headed monsters.
Of course, the idea of such a book as Cinma travers le monde [Cinema Across the World, ] implies a bit of mental gymnastics, as the coincidences or absurdities of distribution prevent the film season in France
from coinciding with the film season throughout the rest of the world.
Therefore, I deem it necessary, after this review of the main films released
during the season (festival premieres included), to remind the
reader briefly of the oversights and anomalies of a current crop that sometimes recalls the state of King Ubus Poland. At least two films should have
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
been released a long time ago with all the acclaim that their merits deserve.
First, a film by Alberto Lattuada: The Overcoat [Il cappotto, ]. Adapted
from the famous short story by [Nicolai Vasilievich] Gogol, this film is
probably Lattuadas best and should have won the prize for best screenplay
at the Cannes Film Festival.
Second, if the French distributors knew their job well, they also would
not have failed to release a delightful little comic filmThe White Sheik [Lo
sceicco bianco]by the screenwriter Federico Fellini, presented at the
Venice Film Festival, and which I personally find superior to The Young
and the Passionate [I vitelloni, ] by the same author. The White Sheik has
been praised to the hilt by the Italians this year. It is a charming and sensitive satire on the success of comic strips in popular newspapers. The hero
of one of them, the White Sheik, seduces a young provincial woman who
is on her honeymoon in the big city; she then leaves her husband to go in
search of her mythic lover. The delightful and intelligent Brunella Bovo
(who played the little maid in Miracle in Milan) is the nave protagonist of
this wonderful little adventure.
It is equally the case that the same distributors who release first-rate
works years after their making flood the French market with third-rate Italian movies, which we could very well do without. Take, for instance, the
various grandsons of the Three Musketeers (including the current version), the many miserable imitations of Cabiria [], the low-budget versions of Quo Vadis? [], or even the many ridiculous melodramas that
have more in common with cheap romanticism than with neorealism. Any
defense of French national cinema has always argued against the American
B movies that invade our screens at the expense of native films or good foreign pictures. I would not hesitate to write that today we are also facing an
Italian peril. It is perhaps less wide-ranging and less powerful from an economic point of view, but it is far more depressing from an aesthetic perspective. For whereas American B movies very often retain some technical
virtues and a certain dramatic poetry that is characteristic of the Hollywood system, bad Italian movies, by contrast, are like bad French movies, if
not worse: they are moronic and shoddy; nothing saves them. If the Italian
cinema has occupied since the war a top ranking in world cinema, it owes
that ranking exclusively to its genuine works of art and not at all to its current commercial production, which is far worse than mediocre. But I trust
that intelligent advertising and smart exporting on the part of Italian film
distributors will remedy this situation.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
, ,
(Cahiers du cinma, January )
, ,
Venice Festival, I awaited with resignation the screening of
the American film The Little Fugitive []. There was no documentation
whatsoever about this independent picture. But there was only one possible
conclusion in relation to the screening hour, since, in spite of all the official
denials, its well known that the afternoon sessions are devoted to the lesser
films. Even the seats are cheaper. So the professional conscience sometimes
has an excuse to give in to Adriatic temptations. But, for once at least, perseverance and virtue have been rewarded, and those who saw The Little Fugitive were able to trouble with a sadistic insistence the consciences of those
absent from the screening.
Taking into account diplomatic contingencies, the judgment of the festival juries is, in the final analysis, not as bad as we may pretend. This year
the Golden Lion, or grand prize, was not awarded; the six films that won
the Silver Lion were in theory on the same artistic level. In fact, the order of the festival list of six contained an implicit hierarchy. Kenji Mizoguchis Ugetsu [Ugetsu monogatari, ] headed the list, as it should have,
since only the Golden Lion won by Akira Kurosawas Rashomon [] two
years earlier prevented the new Japanese film from getting it in . Federico Fellinis The Young and the Passionate [I vitelloni, ] came in second, which can be explained only by a somewhat misplaced chauvinism.
But The Little Fugitive was then named before John Hustons Moulin Rouge
[], Marcel Carns The Adulteress [Thrse Raquin, ], and Aleksandr
Ptushkos Sadko [The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, ], and it was in the end,
together with Ugetsu, the most applauded film of the festival.
So a small independent film without any famous actors, nearly an amateur film, slipped between the great Hollywood names almost clandes
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
over that of the child, who is the focus here. But under this label, the film
wouldnt garner anything but minor interest in its clever and gently touching script. It must be admitted, in any case, that its precisely the whimsical character of the subject that constrains The Little Fugitive and prevents
it from attaining the greatness of some classic films about children. Sidney
Meyerss The Quiet One [], for example, a lot less original in technique,
had quite a different and more powerful resonance all the same.
The socially documentary aspect of the film is more interesting. With
commendable skill, the filmmakers have avoided giving the nod to the picturesqueness of the decor, on the one hand, and to social realism over the
psychological realism of the childs behavior, on the other. The entire miseen-scne, in fact, is subordinated to the boys comportment. But on the
side, Ashley, Engel, and Orkin are visibly preoccupied with giving us a social document about Coney Island. To be honest, they must have seen Luciano Emmers Sunday in August [Domenica dagosto, ], certain British
documentaries, and maybe Robert Siodmaks People on Sunday [Menschen
am Sonntag, ] and Pl Fejss Lonesome [], too. And if they havent
seen all these pictures, then they have found their inspiration through the
medium of photo reportage, in the style of Life magazine, which they have
attempted here. If the film had been Italian or English, this aspect would
surely have seemed less surprising. Its originality is largely due to what it reveals to us: some aspects of American life that even the so-called neorealist
productions from Hollywood havent yet shown us. Beyond whatever gaps
a national cinema may have, we measure it in regard to its reflection of the
social domain, and I dont imagine that anything from the French cinema
is more exhaustive in this respect than The Little Fugitive.
But the radical novelty of Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkins
film comes less from its subject, as interesting as that may be, than from
the execution of the mise-en-scne. Not that this is by any means a formalist workon the contrary, all the critics have taken pleasure precisely
in defending it against its formal imperfections. Instead, at its most essential, the subject of The Little Fugitive is born out of the very structure of the
films narrative.
In light of its mise-en-scne, Id readily assume that The Little Fugitive was shot in mm and then enlarged to mm in the manner of The
Quiet One, also distributed by Joseph Burnstyn []. The sudden
death (from a heart attack) on the Paris-toNew York plane of this little old
hunchback, to whom America owes its knowledge of the best of postwar
European cinema, deprives us temporarily of the background information
wed love to have about the shooting of The Little Fugitive. Burnstyn declared in Venice, however, that the mise-en-scne demanded a lot of work
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
The Little Fugitive (); directors: Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin.
S
N
beforehand with the actors, and that the childs improvisation was just an
illusion. But Im more inclined to interpret such a declaration as Burstyns
judgment that any suggestion of the amateurish in connection with the
film would have risked harming its financial prospects.
In truth, it is quite possible that every scene demanded very long rehearsals as well as many takes, and it would be difficult to dissuade me
from the idea not only that Richie Andrusco was free to improvise the details of his characterization but also that all of the films interest lies therein.
Let us take as an example the sequence of the cans. Joey has tested his skill
at Coney Island against the traditional pyramid of dented cans, whose toppling by a single projectile shot is awarded a prize. Completely baffled by
not succeeding at so seemingly simple a game, the child practices with anything he can get his hands on and then returns to the stand to verify his
progress. Considered as an episode, an element of the action, this sequence
would still remain within the province of the classical scenario, but its dramatic interest in that regard is insignificant. All its charm, all the force of
its spectacle, comes from the accretion of detail.
So, detoured at one moment from his obsession with the cans by the
mysteries of cotton candy, Joey buys an enormous serving; but, immediately disappointed by the over-sugary concoction, he realizes that, once re
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
duced to the size of a small ball, it will serve as a perfect projectile with
which to continue his training. Certainly the idea of transforming a piece
of cotton candy into a projectile for a game may have come from the screenwriters. What couldnt have been foreseen in the script, however, is the evolution of Joeys mimicry, of his gestures while gathering up as much of the
cotton candy as possible, kneading it together, amassing at the edge of an
overpass a pyramid of used paper cups, and then demolishing it amidst the
legs of oblivious adult passersby. In other words, its probable that the scene
directions in the script described the event we see, but only to a certain degree before yielding to the pure improvisation of the actor. It would be better to say, for the rest, that the scenario yielded to life itself, because this
improvisation has nothing in common with the kind found in the commedia dellarte, which remains within the category of the theatrical play.
In The Little Fugitive the amalgam of dramatic order, its aesthetic organization, is assisted by the spontaneity of life. Probably the initiative of
the boy suggested a number of moments in the scenario, but, even if everything he did finally had been foreseen in a crude outline, every shot of his
actions, every point of view on them, couldnt have been planned in advance. In short, it is the awareness we have of this margin of indetermination that gives the film its charm. Cesare Zavattini has often spoken of the
(unrealizable?) film in which the director wouldnt know the ending, a film
as free as life itself. In this sense, The Little Fugitive is a case study in neorealism, not so much for its socially documentary aspect, which has never
really been essential to neorealism, nor for its on-location setting, but for
the way in which it approaches that scriptless film ideal wherein the drama
arises exclusively from the evolution of the present. Applied to childhood,
this perspective seems to me not only especially conducive, but also fundamentally necessary. If cinema exhibits any superiority over literature in
this domain, it is precisely because, since childhood is impenetrable to us
grown-ups, the observation of childrens behavior is the only seriousand
at the same time possibleway of knowing it.
After Ren Clments Forbidden Games [Jeux interdits, ], which radically demystified childhood, rendering it in its ontological and moral objectivity, Ray Ashley and his collaborators film constitutes an original, and
without doubt definitive, step forward in movies about childhood. Now,
alas, we can see such a classic of the genre as Nikolai Ekks Road to Life
[Putyovka v zhizn, ] or Gerhard Lamprechts Emil and the Detectives
[Emil und die Detektive, ; remade by others in , , , and
] only through the misty, rose-tinted glasses of a fairy tale.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Le parisien libr, March , )
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
But when the child refuses to leave him, he commits suicide in his burning cottage in order to relieve the childs future of the burden of its miserable past.
More than a story that could seem somewhat melodramatic, Children
of Hiroshima is an extraordinary meditation, a sort of realistic poem about
the singular tragedy of our time. Without hatred, without even resentment,
with, in my opinion, a politeness or courtesy of feeling that is but a superior form of wisdom, this film evokes the fearsomeness of the bomb, especiallyand possibly more terriblythe indelible terror with which it has
marked humanity. The burns on the face of this old beggar are but the hideous mask of our own anguish, an anguish borne of that which was supposed to deliver us from all anguish.
Will Japanese children be smitten for the sins of their fathers unto the
seventh generation? The old man answers this question in his own way
through his voluntary death. In this deeply moving film, which gives a lesson in dramatic sobriety to Western cinema, one will admire the paradoxical synthesis of horrid violence, sustained tragic intensity, and the most delicate reserve, of which the practice of hara-kiri is the traditional symbol.
Children of Hiroshima is truly a great film that is alsoalas!a film of
our times.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
- :
(Le parisien libr, February , )
S
N
ticular diet. Americans refer to them as the bread and butter of their cinema, understood in the sense that this is both a staple food
and a superfluous one. Westerns always provide, their success is assured,
some studios are specialized in their serial production, and every other studio sets aside for them a more or less substantial portion of its total budget.
We would be wrong, however, to believe that Westerns should be considered, a priori, a minor genre because of their popularity, and that therefore
they are unworthy of being taken seriously.
The yearly output of Westerns covers every level of production quality,
from the various low-level series to the great polished works that every studio tries to make every other time. There has also appeared a subgenre that
we could qualify as super-Westerns, played by seasoned actors and directed by prestigious filmmakers. Such was the case for High Noon [] as
well as for Shane [], and its the case now for Johnny Guitar [], starring Joan Crawford and directed by Nicholas Ray [].
We know that the themes, like the characters, of Westerns are only a few
and well codified. There is never an attempt to emphasize the background
or past of the story; instead its the details here and now that get foregrounded, together with a style of presentation that will combine surprise
with the recognition of classical, established situations. So we find once
more in Johnny Guitar the ranchers fear of the new immigrants that the
railroad will bring with it, the mistrust and even enmity on the part of the
first pioneers toward those who intend to transform their free plains into
parceled and plowed lands.
Vienna (Joan Crawford) is a former saloon singer, hardworking and
entrepreneurial, who has gambled on the prosperity the railroad and the
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
development of local agriculture could bring by building her own wellappointed saloon in the neighborhood of the future train station. Such insolence, combined with the favors of a handsome young adventurer, earns
her the jealousy and hatred of the daughter of a local banker recently murdered in the course of a stagecoach holdup. As much to protect herself as to
see once again the only man she has truly loved, Vienna summons Johnny
Guitar, a man more skilled in gunplay than in romance, and this rival,
whom the young adventurer dismisses, isnt looked upon favorably by anyone in town. Trapped between two jealousiesthe most ferocious naturally being that of the other womanthe Joan Crawford character will
have a bad day, escaping her own lynching only by a miracle and watching
her saloon be burned to the ground. She will save her life and her love in
the end, but only after a gun duel with her malicious female enemy.
It could have been feared that Nicholas Rays mise-en-scne would not
somehow be enough to detour the viewer, who wouldnt see anything in
this story except a pretext for traditional brawls. This young filmmaker
wanted to treat his scenario with elegance and refinement, as a tragedy of
jealousy and animosity. Rays screenwriter, however, hasnt always been able
to adapt to his intention, and its regrettable that the rigorous order of the
directors mise-en-scne contradicts, toward the end, the arbitrary nature
of events. Although we cant reproach Shane or High Noon, we can, on the
other hand, prefer Nicholas Rays work because of its intelligence and sensi
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
bility. His Johnny Guitar is rich with bright ideas of rare quality, and, with
a discretion that perhaps is missing in Hollywood, he knows how not to
transform those ideas into mere effects. This discretion and elegance of
expression are the marks of a distinguished filmmaker of whom we expect
a truly worthy film.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, April , ;
and Le parisien libr, December , )
, , ,
importance of a work like Rashomon [Castle Gate, ] are
deeply disconcerting for critics. This is because the film hurls the viewer
into an aesthetic universe that is absolutely Oriental. It does this, though,
through cinematic technique (photography and editing) that implies a
solid and by now ancient assimilation of the whole evolution of Western
cinema, so that the picture enters easily into what is otherwise a radically
foreign system at the same time as it retains an Oriental metaphysics, ethics, and psychology. Indian movies are slow; those from Egypt are elementary and therefore dont count: a series of filters seems to come between us
and the stories such films tell. These filters are not the same as physical or
emotional awkwardness; instead, they determine certain characteristics of
filmic technique: shot length, slowness of acting, simplicity in editing, the
absence of ellipses, and so forth. The filmic technique of Rashomon, by contrast, is far less alienating than that of any Soviet picture. The artfulness of
the staging and directing in this film thus implies not only technological
means of the same caliber as those of Hollywood but also total possession of
the expressive resources of the cinema. Editing, deep-focus shooting, framing, and camera movement all serve the narrative here with equal freedom
and proficiency.
And yet this story is specifically Japanese in subject matter if not structure. The action takes place during the Middle Ages. A rich traveler and
his wife are passing through a forest when a thief ambushes them. He subdues the man, ties him to a tree, rapes his wife before his eyes, and then
kills him. A woodcutter witnesses all of this. But during the trial of the
thief, captured a few days later, the three survivors of the eventthe thief,
the woodcutter, and the wifeeach relate a different version of what hap
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
pened. The film then presents us with the three successive versions, or
rather four. With astounding boldness, the filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa
[], also presents us with a version of the murder as told through
the medium of a witch speaking in the dead mans voice.
Nonetheless, nothing leads us to believe that the dead mans tale is
more accurate than the stories of the others. We are apparently dealing in
Rashomon, then, with a Pirandellian [a reference to the modernist drama
of Luigi Pirandello (), which often blurs the distinction between
illusion and reality] action, but one that also has a moral purpose: it serves
to illustrate not so much the impossibility of knowing the truth through
the vehicle of human consciousness as the difficulty of believing in the
goodness of man. For in each of these versions, one of the three protagonists in the dramathe thief, the rich traveler, or his wifereveals an evil
side. We can suppose that this radical phenomenon is fairly sincere, since
we know that Rashomons plot is based on some short stories by Rynosuke
Akutagawa, who committed suicide in .
I have spoken of Rashomons Japaneseness, and it so happens that certain aspects of the film are purely Japanese: first of all the action itself.
Can anyone imagine an American or European script based on such an au-
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
dacious situation as a wifes being raped before her husbands eyes? Second, the film is especially Japanese in its acting style. The influence of Noh
theater here is quite obvious. Yet the real problem, which only a specialist could resolve, is how and in what way the traditions of Japanese theatrical acting are adapted in Rashomon to filmic acting. But if the acting in
this picture is always perceived as excessive, it is never exaggeratednor is
it meant to be symbolic. In other words, the acting style is in the tragic vein
and yet it does not abandon psychological realism. It could not be more
different from the exaggerated acting, for example, of the silent expressionist cinema. The actor in Rashomon is simultaneously tragic and natural,
perfectly integrated with the real setting in which he tragically performs.
The basic problem of the tragic actor, thenwhich Western films have resolved only infrequently and uncertainly (in Nosferatu [], The Passion of
Joan of Arc [La passion de Jeanne dArc, ], Ladies of the Park [Les dames
du Bois de Boulogne, ], and Hamlet [])is not in question here. It is
resolved immediately.
In the same way, there is no break or dissonance between the acting
style and the cutting. If it were possible to argue that filmology is the
concern of philologists and logicians, a film like Rashomon would be the
perfect example. Is the language of film as self-encompassing as is human
reason? If so, we cannot say that Kurosawa is copying Western films here or
even that he is inspired by them. It would seem, rather, that he achieves the
same result through the fundamental unity and universality of screen vocabulary, grammar, and style. A traveling shot is a traveling shot, be it Japanese, French, or Americanbut there has to be a certain rhythm, speed,
and harmony between frame and camera movement endemic to the film
in question. The traveling shots in Rashomon, therefore, are no more imported than the acting.
There is an even more significant example relative to the use of sound:
the fourth version of the rich travelers murder, as we have seen, is told
through the words of the witch in a dance of possession. As the oracle
speaks with the dead mans voice, strongly off key and in a high pitch, the
effect, as might be expected, is hallucinatory. Such an original ideaWestern films themselves quickly lost interest in the expressionism of sound
implies a mastery of technology that is equaled only by the liberty with
which it is used.
How does it turn out, then, that all these reasons for admiring Rashomon
nevertheless do not result in my unqualified approval? This film implies the
past and future existence of a firmly established production system in Japan
with skilled technicians, well-trained actors, an entire body of national cin-
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
ematic talentin short, a situation much more comparable to that of England or France than to the one in Mexico. Thus beneath our admiration
for, and astonishment at, such a work should lie an uneasy feeling that we
are perhaps being deceived. For Rashomon, in its own way, is a serial film.
And wouldnt we have the same feeling after seeing a good American studio
product for the first time? At the hundredth viewing, let us say, we would
discover that cinematic language is, in the final analysis, only language,
and that a great film is something more. In a word, I suspect that hidden by
the apparent originality (relative to our ignorance) of Rashomon, there is a
certain banality of perfection that limits my aesthetic pleasure.
The Seven Samurai [Shichinin no samurai, ] itself might not be the
very best Japanese production: in the ratings given to Japanese films by
Japanese critics, for example, The Seven Samurai was rated third in ,
even as Rashomon was rated fifth in . There is undoubtedly more reason to prefer, over Kurosawa, the tender lyricism and subtle musical poetry of Kenji Mizoguchi [; director of The Life of Oharu, ,
and Ugetsu, ). Like Rashomon, The Seven Samurai exhibits a too-facile
assimilation of certain characteristics of Western aesthetics and the splendid blending of them with Japanese tradition. Moreover, there is in this instance a narrative structure of diabolical cleverness. For its progression is
arranged with an intelligence that is all the more disconcerting because it
respects the romantic approach at the same time as it spends perhaps too
much time and labor on the blossoming of the narrative itself.
Still, The Seven Samurai is one of the best films from the Japanese school
ever to have arrived in the West. Even though for several years now I have
been waiting for my admiration for Akira Kurosawa to wane, finally to expose my alleged navet of the preceding year, each new film of his confirms the feeling that I am in the presence of everything that constitutes
good cinema: the union of a highly developed civilization with a great theatrical tradition and a strong tradition in plastic art, as well.
As its title indicates without ambiguity, this picture belongs to the traditional, historical vein that has already given us Teinosuke Kinugasas remarkable The Gates of Hell [Jigokumon, ]. Every cross-cultural transposition being performed, The Seven Samurai is a sort of Japanese Western,
but one worthy of comparison with the most glorious examples of the genre
produced in the United States, especially the films of John Ford. For the
rest, this reference gives but an approximate idea of the film, whose scope
and complexity largely go beyond the dramatic boundaries of American
Westerns. Not that The Seven Samurai is a complex story in the way that
Kurosawas Rashomon isin fact quite the opposite is the case, its narrative
line being as simple as possible. This general simplicity is enriched, how
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
ever, by the fineness of the films details, their historical realism and human veracity.
To summarize the plot: a poor peasant village is regularly pillaged after
the yearly harvest by a gang of bandits, who never fail to return the next
time that the rice is gathered. The townsfolk finally decide to hire some
samuraimercenaries well-versed in the art of warin order to protect
themselves from the next raid. A wise old samurai accepts this commission
and recruits six cohorts here and there, each of whom inspires his trust for a
different reason. Afterward they endeavor to fortify the village so as to preemptively decimate their enemies. Nonetheless, the clash is brutal, for the
bandits are armed with weapons almost unknown in sixteenth-century Japan. When the fortieth, and final, bandit has bitten the dust, no more than
three samurai are left. But at least the peasants will now be able to plant
and gathertheir rice in peace.
The beauty and skill of this narrative arise from a certain harmony between the simplicity of the action and the wealth of details that slowly delineate it. This kind of narrative reminds one of Fords Stagecoach []
and Lost Patrol [], but in The Seven Samurai there is more romantic
complexity as well as more volume, and variety, in the historical fresco. As
we can see, these points of reference are very Western. The same holds
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
true for the otherwise extremely Japanese images, whose depth of field is
reminiscent of the cinematographic effects of the late and much-lamented
Gregg Toland [].
In conclusion, I cannot do any better than allow Akira Kurosawa to explain his artistic ambitions himself: Normally, an action movie can only
be an action movie. But how marvelous it would be if an action film could
at the same time paint a portrait of humanity! That has always been my
dream, ever since the time I was an assistant director. And for the last ten
years I have been wanting to reconceive historical drama from this new
point of view. Suffice it to say that The Seven Samurai itself is not unworthy of such an aim.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
, :
(Le parisien libr, January , )
,
of course an American, saw fit to blush in the pulpit, the latest film from Elia Kazan [], Baby Doll [], comes preceded by
a warning notice that seems to have been forced on the producers. Thankfully, the film, though its advance reputation is not unearned, is worth
more than the scandal it has caused. It is true that, on the simplest level,
the subject shows an audacity that belongs more to written language than
to images, but everything is done in the appropriate manner, and the films
toneat least this is the way it seems to medoesnt permit much offense.
Certainly even less when you consider the kind of offense that even the
slightest play by Georges Feydeau [] can cause.
Were in the South, in Cotton Country. Baby, a simple but coquettish
girl, has married the proprietor of a small cotton gin on the verge of being
driven out of business, along with a few others, by the more modern company belonging to a Sicilian entrepreneur named Silva Vacarro. In these
tough times, Archie Lee Meighan, the husband, has only one consolation,
even if it is a relative one: his marriage has remained unconsummated. But
Baby has promised him, against her childish prudishness, to really become
his wife the day she turns twenty, and this impatiently awaited day is approaching. Archie is becoming more irritated, however, as Baby shows less
and less enthusiasm. Overwhelmed by his wifes rebuffs, which are exacerbated by his financial troubles, the desperate Archie attempts a desperate solution: he sets fire to Silvas factory. Silva wonders where the hit came
from and decides to play a trick in order to find out. He keeps Archie busy
by giving him tons of cotton to gin, at the same time as he himself gets
closer to Baby in a curious seduction maneuver that has the real goal
however dubiousof getting her to accuse her husband in writing. Upon
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
returning home, Archie suspects something but cant be sure, with the result that he becomes half-mad with envy and jealousy. It will be necessary
for the police to intervene. But, in fact, who will say whether Baby Doll
has, or has not . . . ?
Like the plots of most of Tennessee Williamss plays, that of Baby Doll
leaves little for summary. The action happens mostly inside the characters
instead of externally, through events. As unusual as these human figures
may be, they seem natural in light of the dramatic climate Tennessee Williams creates for them. And the word climate has to be understood here
in its proper and figurative meaning. In the cinema, the author of A Streetcar Named Desire [] has never been better served than by Elia Kazan.
Even if the mise-en-scne of Baby Doll, shot in black and white in mm
format, doesnt show any exceptional luster, Im not far from preferring it to
that of Kazans On the Waterfront [] or East of Eden [].
Clever, lively, and full of humor, Baby Doll manages to exorcise the most
risqu elements from its sexual content, with the result that this school
for wives in Erskine Caldwell country becomes a beautiful piece of literature and of cinema. Naturally, Baby Doll is admirably acted, notably by Eli
Wallach, who gives the equivocal role of Silva an irresistible accent.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cahiers du cinma, March )
the director of Rashomon [Castle Gate, ] suffers, especially
at Cahiers du cinma, from prejudice in favor of the tender and musical
Mizoguchi, and shall limit myself for the moment to noting that it is precisely the current retrospective at the Cinmathque Franaise that has allowed us to revise our view of Akira Kurosawa, inadequately known in
France up to now by only two films: Rashomon and The Seven Samurai
[Shichinin no samurai, ].
Yet its virtually certain that both these films attest to an extremely skillful and deliberate Westernism. (This aspect is well analyzed and explained
in the outstanding little book by Marcel and Shinobu Giuglaris titled Le
cinma japonais, [Paris: ditions du Cerf, ].) Kurosawa belongs to a younger generation (he was born in , whereas Kenji Mizoguchi [] has just passed away at the age of fifty-eight); he is essentially a postwar director. He is visibly influenced by Western cinema from
the s and s, and perhaps even more so by American movies than
Italian neorealism. His admiration for John Ford, Fritz Lang, and Charlie Chaplin, in particular, is quite evident. The Western influence on Kurosawa is not just passive, however. He isnt merely concerned with integrating it into his work; he also understands how to profit from this influence
and use it to transmit back to us an image of Japanese tradition and culture
that we can assimilate mentally as well as visually.
Kurosawa succeeded so well at doing this with Rashomon that it could
be said this film opened the gates of the West to Japanese cinema. After
Rashomon, though, many other Japanese films have come our waymost
notably those of Mizoguchiwhich have revealed to us work that, if not
more authentic, is at the very least purer and more characteristic. Ever since
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
then, ingratitude toward Kurosawa has been easy to find, and, given that it
was already fashionable to tarnish the prestige of Japanese cinema with the
charge of the snobbery of exoticism, Kurosawas reverse exoticismthat is
to say, his concessions to the rhetoric of Western cinemaitself quickly became fair game. Such concessions on Kurosawas part were especially noteworthy in The Seven Samurai, which, on a secondary level, was no more
than a John Ford Western in a feudal setting.
I do not know whether it was the sum of prejudice against Kurosawa
partly shared by methat rendered some commentators blind to the films
of his presented at the Cinmathque Franaise, yet it seems to me always
good, at least for one critic, to come forward with a radically opposed view.
Im talking in particular about To Live [Ikiru, ], which one reviewer
has peremptorily dismissed by saying that it is the ultimate in absurdity,
whereas I find it to be perhaps the most beautiful, the wisest, and the most
touching of the current wave of Japanese films I have had the chance to see.
But let me underline right away that To Live has a contemporary setting, and that this fact alone radically alters the whole vexing problem of
influence. For a hundred profound reasons To Live is most assuredly a Japanese film, but what really strikes us and imposes itself on our minds is the
universality of its theme. More precisely, although To Live is as Japanese
as Langs M [] was German or Welless Citizen Kane [] was American, there is no need of mental translation from one culture to another to
be able to clearly read the general significance of this film in addition to its
particular inspiration. The internationalism of To Live isnt geographic but
geological: it arises from a subterranean moral layer where Kurosawa knew
it was to be found. Yet since the film is also about a man of our times, with
whom a relatively short airplane trip would bring us face to face, Kurosawa is within his rights, on occasion, to draw from the worldwide rhetoric of cinema to tell his story, even as James Joyce drew on the vocabulary
of all languages in order to reinvent English in his fictionan English that
could be said to be translated in advance and therefore be untranslatable.
This may be why To Live has been classed as one of the ten best national
films of by the Japanese critics, who had reservations about all the
samurai films that were sent to international festivals and especially about
Rashomon. This leaves me wondering whether, instead of considering Kurosawas cosmopolitanism in Rashomon and The Seven Samurai as a concession to marketabilityeven if it is of a superior qualitywe shouldnt consider such cosmopolitanism as a dialectical progression that points the way
forward for Japanese cinema. My personal taste still makes me prefer the
style of Mizoguchi, even as I prefer the purity of the Japanese music that
inspired him, but I must say that I surrender before the amplitude of intel
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Cahiers du cinma, March )
tention to Satoru Yamamuras film The Cannery Boat [Kaniksen, ], which finally premiered at the Vendme Theater in early
February and which represents a relatively original aspect of the already diverse Japanese film industry. I say relatively because the public already
has knowledge of some other Japanese films about social issues, such as
Kaneto Shindos Children of Hiroshima [Gembaku no ko, ]. However,
The Cannery Boat is more than a social picture; it undisputedly belongs
to a more precise genre known as the revolutionary film, for which Sergei
Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin [Bronenosets Potyomkin, ] may serve as
the archetype.
Yamamura [] isnt concerned with hiding what he owes to Soviet cinema and to Eisensteins film in particular: rather the opposite is true.
This cinematic influence doesnt wholly diminish the merits of The Cannery Boat, not only because it is completely justified by the subject matter,
but also because the spirit of comparison is imposed more by the contrasts
between these two films than by their similarities. The revolt aboard the
battleship Potemkin is by no means a kind of absolute reference point for
the taking of a maritime Bastille. Indeed, when the sailors of the Japanese
warshipcalled by radio to put down the mutiny on the crab-canning vesselclimb aboard, the nave enthusiasm of the striking sailors, who never
doubt that the government supports them, is doubly heartbreaking by contrast with the revolutionary fraternity of the Russian sailors and the citizens
who embrace them.
Anyway, the comparison with Eisensteins film cant be pressed too far,
as it is not required until the end, which also includes most of the best sequences in The Cannery Boat. The rest of the film, however, differs radi
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cahiers du cinma, June )
interesting film, Shadow [Cie, ), from the young director Jerzy Kawalerowicz []; even without sharing Franois Truffauts enthusiasm, I couldnt find this picture anything but interesting and
therefore awaited with great anticipation the Polish releases for this year.
In Warsaw I had seen Andrzej Wajdas first film, A Generation [Pokolenie,
], a somewhat unbalanced work but quite endearing, and one that, for
all its treating yet again of the subject of the resistance, didnt cheat with
the facts this time in the name of politics. Furthermore, love wasnt subordinated to the patriotic ideal here; it went hand-in-hand with that ideal.
Kanal [Sewer, ] reprises with more ambition, and in a symphonic dimension, the themes melodically sounded through the scale of the romantic couple in A Generation. No doubt that Andrzej Wajda [born ]
is sometimes undone here by the very amplitude and multifariousness of
his subject. Because of this, his success is even more uneven in Kanal than
it was in A Generation, but it is also more evident and significant. This time
we get a real measure of who the director is, and we optimistically look forward to his future works, especially if Wajda is able to get rid of what remains of the academic and the conventional in his conception of narrative
as well as character.
Like more or less every member of the young generation of Polish film
directors, Wajda is a disciple of Aleksander Ford [], whose expressive and dramatic formalism is not without kinship to its American equivalent (without at the same time possessing the American temperament). The
weak point of Kanal visibly resides in what the picture has in common with
Fords Five Boys from Barska Street (Piatka z ulicy Barskiej, ): the expressionistic use of decor within the framework of a very composed realism; a
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
plastic, dramatic, and psychological conception of the action that is actually more sensitive thanand even the opposite ofthe one the subject examined calls for. But the extreme sensitivity and the utter frankness of inspiration finally make this brilliant shell crack, and we hope that in the end
Wajda doesnt retain from such cinematic calligraphy anything except the
lesson in technique it entails.
Kanal tells us about the odyssey of a group of insurgents in Warsaw. Forced by German advances to abandon the suburb they had been defending, the survivors of a company of resistance fighters will trywithout any hope of succeedingto get to the center of the capital by passing
through its sewers. Almost all of them will disappear in this dark and revolting labyrinth, and the subject of the film is the behavior of each person
in the face of the probability of such a horrible death. The characters of this
new lost patrol, sadly, are of unequal or irregular verisimilitude, but I note
with pleasure that each ones personal psychology, as well as the psychology
of his or her relationships with the others, constitutes the films true focus.
According to my Polish friends, Kanals reaction against any political idealism in its characterization and dialogue itself leads in the end to a kind of
nonrealism. These characters talk about death, love, and heroism, but never
about the tactical and political issues of the Warsaw uprising, which made
up an important subject of discussions back in those days. It is also true
that such discussions from August of can hardly be reconstituted now.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(France-observateur, June , )
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
who treats his sharecroppers like serfs. But the war, with its erasure of social class, has revealed the oneness of the human race to him and the equality of men in the face of danger and death. His best comrades have been his
old sharecroppers. In Wacos company he will make new friends, who will
then be killed one after the other (including Waco) until Gifford becomes
almost the sole survivor of this group of soldiers who were holding down
an advanced position. Wounded, he will cross enemy lines to save his last,
grievously wounded comrade. When he finally gets back to camp, he is able
to warn his superiors about the position of the remaining Japanese units.
For the rest, the war is reaching its final moments.
To facilitate my analysis, I shall distinguish among three aspects
of this film.
The less important aspect in the end, but not a negligible one from the
point of view of the mise-en-scne, concerns the spectacular realism of the
wars reconstruction. It is particularly accomplished here. This is true of
both the large-scale scenes (the island landing, for instance) and the more
localized incidents (notably the shelling of Wacos headquarters by Japanese
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
mortars), yet there is nothing original in either of them, and we have already seen this sort of thing very well done before.
The ideological aspect of the scenario is certainly more significant, and
I shall distinguish the positive side of it from its negative one. As far as the
American cause goes, the films ideology is relatively sympathetic, albeit elementary and didactic in its treatment. On the other hand, we could also
admire, and almost without reserve, the critical realism of the film. The
quiet security with which American cinema unmasks at least some of the
flaws of American society, even if it doesnt question the nations basic principles, should not go uncredited. We would search in vain for an equivalent
elsewhere. No national army in the world would permit its censors to accept the exposure of the vices, the idiocy, or the incompetence of some of
its officers. In France, for example, special care is taken to ensure that no
superior officer is cast in a negative light on film.
It doesnt follow necessarily that Between Heaven and Hell is a great film.
Its mise-en-scne lacks a distinctive style, for one. Everything is well done
but without a personal tone. The script, moreover, lacks rigor and clarity of
intention. What is clear is nave, while what is mature is confused. In short,
we are quite far here from Attack or even The Men, even if the raw materials
of Between Heaven and Hell arent intrinsically inferior to those of the latter two films.
With Men in War, the spectator is immediately introduced to a
radically different undertaking. From the first images, style takes over and,
regarding ideology, one would search in vain for it here until the end. On
the other hand, Anthony Manns film shares with Richard Fleischers an
overriding feel for technical realism and the objective truths of war, but on
the scalealmost down to one person this timeof the patrol.
Were in Korea in . An infantry platoon finds itself surrounded by
the enemy, and the soldiers truck is out of commission. Their headquarters doesnt respond, either. Their only recourse is to get to Hill , which
is twenty-five kilometers away. So begins a harrowing march through the
tall grass of a scrubland, where the enemy has no doubt concealed snipers that could decimate the small and heavily weighed-down patrol. Suddenly a jeep shows up and the lieutenant stops it; its being driven by a sergeant whose only concern is to quickly reach a hospital, where he hopes to
get treatment for his colonel: the latter has been injured by a mine and sits
propped up against the window adjoining his seat. By unburdening the pla
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
toon of its equipment, this jeep will get the men to their goal, so the lieutenant requisitions it against the wishes of the sergeant. The colonel will
have to wait to be taken care of by medical personnel.
The platoon makes its way toward the hill in a straight column, but the
men fall, one after the other, to sniper bullets, mortar fire, or land mines.
During this long march the personalities and practices of the lieutenant
(Robert Ryan) and the sergeant (Aldo Ray) become evident through their
juxtaposition. The latter, instinctive and experienced, reacts to danger with
as much flair as cynicism; not less resolute, the lieutenant, by contrast,
maintains certain principles. Nevertheless, as the sole survivors of the illfated patrol, they will reconcile over the bodies of their comrades-in-arms
in an ending that isnt without reminders of the conclusion of Julien Duviviers Escape from Yesterday [La bandera, ].
Ill say this right away: this film displeased me, and I havent
reached the accord I normally share with Anthony Mann [].
It is not because the film is about the Korean War. The historical period
is objectively presented, and only a lack of objectivity could spoil this particular period setting. It could even be said that Manns enterprise here isnt
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
kind to the Americans. The Koreans just do their job, and less callously in
any case than the American officer who forces an enemy prisoner to march
in front so as to discover the minefields before his men step on them. Indeed, we could go so far as to abstract the conventionally jingoistic side of
the ending in order to make it say something else. No, whats missing from
Anthony Manns film is somehow the equivalent, as well as the opposite, of
the main weakness in Between Heaven and Hell.
The latter offers up both a nave thesis and a didactic one, as Ive indicated. Men in War, on the other hand, implicitly shows a complete lack
of social and historical judgment. As horrible and cruel as this war is, it is
treated by the director as a simple external condition, established a priori.
Men in War, in the end, is a Western transposed to the period of the Korean War. This is a particularly violent (if subtle) Western, without question, one where, as befits the genre, the action is tacitly presented as the primary valuenot the only one but the first, and the one that gives rise to
all the others. To be sure, Men in War, unlike Anthony Manns other Westerns, aspires to be more than just an adventure film. The men in those other
Mann movies certainly attract their share of interest, for the best Westerns
are based precisely on the clash of the personalities.
I agree that the clashes in Men in War are interesting and nuanced, but
they are completely independent of the political framing and historical conditions of the action. Thence stems my displeasure. If this war evokes anything in me, its primarily what is happening in Algeria right now, or, for
example, what happened during the American conflict with the Indians in
the previous century. In fact, its the Indians that Anthony Manns Koreans
remind me of. The war against the American Indians was definitely neither
particularly moral nor particularly intelligent, but the hindsight and especially the popularity of Westerns have turned it into a kind of accepted convention. We can think whatever we want about the historical justification
for the Korean Warexcept that we should not refuse to think about it.
And Ill admit that Anthony Mann takes it upon himself to make an indirect apology for this war by presenting it to us as something like an unrelieved fact of nature, a simple source of action.
--
Whatever objections I could make about the general spirit of the
film, they are less pronounced than my gripes concerning the mise-enscne. Without a doubt, Men in War is one of the films in which Anthony
Mann has worked out his shooting style with the most care. The choice of
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
black and white (for the first time since Winchester []) has allowed
him a certain formalism of framing and composition, both of them underlined by the superb cinematography of Ernest Haller.
Mann himself has confessed to his preference for shooting exteriors.
And in Men in War we find a perception of the very air through which the
character passespushed to expressionistic excess. Here, danger is found
at the level of the grass, where every single blade counts. The camera is almost always placed about fifty centimeters above the ground, and in its
movement it toys with the parallax of the tufts of vegetation, which are
thereby set in extraordinary relief. The presence of danger is thus identified
with the presence of grass. Does the camera show the mens feet, amidst the
grass, in close-up? Then well take three seconds to guess that the ground is
mined. So why from time to time abandon this almost subjective perspective to reveal to us, through reframing, the more distant dangers that the
films protagonists seemingly ignore? This procedure, together with some
others, is the equivalent of the classic panoramic shot revealing the Indians
in Stagecoach [].
It is here where the flaws in the mise-en-scne join and amplify those
in the screenplay. Lacking a genuine moral perspective of events, Anthony
Mann didnt know how to adopt and maintain a physical viewpoint. Giving primacy to the action, he has allowed himself to accept mere filmic devices to reference this incident or thatat the expense of the men themselves, who stop being the center of the mise-en-scne.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, September , )
[],
Vladimir Braun [], it wont suffice simply to say
that this film confirms the new look of cinema announced by Samson
Samsonovs The Cricket [] and Grigori Chukhrais The Forty-First [Sorok pervyy, ]. Rather curiously, a comparison can be made between
the latter film and Malva, whose action also takes place among Caspian
Sea fishermen and that similarly distrusts those insular passions that can
find physical embodiment only in nature. Let me quickly add that there
is no undressing in Malva to accompany the films externalized passions
and that the risqu quality of the films tone, its dramatic situations, and
its sexual content is less free than one might think. Still, Malva is a love
story without prudishness, though we should marvel at it less because of
that than because this love story constitutes the one and only interest in
the scenario. The characters in Malva ask themselves but one question:
how can we live freely and true to ourselves, despite our condition as destitute fishermen, or without that miserable conditions having a deleterious impact on our emotions? Even had it been well-dramatized in a hyperrealistic fashion in this particular social and geographic milieu, however,
Malvas sentimental adventure would still have an exclusively moral quality about it and therefore could easily be transposed to a completely different context.
Regarding the cinematographic form of this film, it is less brilliant than
that of The Forty-First though it seems to me to be more original. Its true
that the adaptation of Maxim Gorkys novella, the films source material, is quite clunky, but it does allow the mise-en-scneone totally
grounded in character as opposed to actionto flow freely. Everyone lives
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
for him- or herself in Malva, and the characters way of walking on the
sand, of dreaming at the edge of the water, of speaking but saying nothing,
matters a lot more in the end than the dramatic events themselves. Chief
among the performers, Dzidra Ritenberga won the award for best actress at
the seventeenth annual Venice Film Festival.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(Cahiers du cinma, October )
[ j, ] disappointed me. My admiration for the great Japanese filmmaker owes less to Rashomon [Castle Gate, ] or The Seven
Samurai [Shichinin no samurai, ] than to two sublime films sadly unknown in France: To Live [Ikiru, ] and The Idiot [Hakuchi, , from
the Dostoevsky novel]. Yet there is in Kurosawa [], without
a doubt, a temptation toward formalism to which he has completely succumbed in this curious adaptation of Shakespeares Macbeth to a Japanese
feudal setting.
Extraordinary images, impressive costumes, dazzling technical prowess,
and suffocating violence can be found herebut none of the moral and
metaphysical dimensions of Shakespeare so much present in Orson Welless
adaptation, for one, in spite of the latters cardboard decor. I must say that
I expected so much beforehand from Kurosawas new film, both because of
the personality of the director and because of the subject itself. Indeed, it
was a pleasure to see the transposition of Shakespeares tragedy to the Japanese Middle Ages, and we could hope that this setting would refresh the
plays look without betraying its spirit.
With The Idiot, Kurosawa had to solve otherwise difficult adaptation
problems, and we know that he overcame them in a spectacular fashion.
But this director always seems to be torn between two contradictory tendencies. He is a formalist, even an expressionist, in Rashomon or The Seven
Samurai, two films full of moments of courage, on the one hand, and moments of a sometimes too-intelligent synthesis of Eastern tradition and
Western aesthetics, on the other. These two films are the ones that have
made Kurosawas name renowned among us, for reasons that I myself find
to be a little irritating. Yet the same man is the maker of films in which
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
the moral thesis steers clearly away from formal concerns, so much so that
the work ends up waylaying us and we find ourselves lost, as in I Live in
Fear [Ikimono no kiroku, a.k.a. Record of a Living Being, ]. Not that this
means that in To Live and The Idiot there arent a number of similar, successful attempts at style funneled through the raging torrent of feeling.
Therefore its embarrassing to imagine that the same man who was the
maker of these two filmsa little influenced by Italian neorealism and a
lot by the great sentimentalism of the German-American cinema of the
s and shas also made such formalistic, feudal films as Throne of
Blood and The Seven Samurai, which are burdened by their mise-en-scne
as if by a samurais armor. Either I am missing something in this Japanese
Macbeth, or Throne of Blood illustrates quite well the limits of an integral
formalism that loses itself in mannerisms of the perfectly vapid and spasms
of the futilely violent. Fragments of intensity follow one upon the other, always dazzling yet at the same time monotonous and disconnected, because
they have been operating at the level of paroxysm from the very start. Admirable images (notably the riding sequences in the rain, reprised from The
Seven Samurai) stand juxtaposed against the emptiness, or more precisely
the conventionality, of the characters. So much is all this the case that we
cant help but imagine another dirt-cheap Macbeth like Welless version, with cardboard decor into which Shakespeares lyricism was nonetheless able to breathe life.
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Going against the line advanced by most critics, I would like to add, finally, two things: first, I can be disappointed by Throne of Blood without
losing any of my esteem for the same directors To Live and The Idiot; and,
second, I can admire the good films by Akira Kurosawa and love those of
Kenji Mizoguchi.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, December , )
S
N
[ , ],
Ray [], the director of Song of the Road [Pather
Panchali, ], which in my opinion was the revelation of the Cannes
Film Festival, has won the Golden Lion at Venice for . Ill say right
away that I am both delighted and miffed by this victory. Delighted, because I admire the second film almost as much as the first and I am happy
for the young and likeable Bengali team that won this award. But I can also
understand the irritation it causes in those who didnt like the first film and
as such dont share my enthusiasm. Having had jury-duty experience at festivals, I can see that the reasons for this choice may not be the best ones.
Last year, for example, the Japanese film The Burmese Harp [Biruma no tategoto, ], by Kon Ichikawa, failed to win for reasons moral and spiritual
but only secondarily cinematic. This year, Aparajito wins the prize for social, moral, andlet us call themaccessibly exotic reasons but not necessarily cinematic ones.
Though constituting a complete work unto itself, Aparajito is a sort of
Song of the Road and therefore the second of three films (Ray is preparing
the third and final installment even as I write) that, taken as a whole, will
be quite comparable to those of Mark Donskois Gorky trilogy []
from the Soviet cinema. Adapted, like Song of the Road, from Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhayas Bengali novel. Originally published in ,
Pather Panchali was the first novel written by the author to be published.
It was followed in by a sequel, Aparajito (itself influenced by Maxim
Gorky and Roman Rolland and consequently written in the grand international tradition of socialist fiction). This picture is almost impossible to
summarize, for its narrative is dreamy, relaxed, and highly subjective. It is
also frequently conceived from the point of view of a child, which means
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
the neorealist spirit, Bimal Roys Calcutta, The Cruel City [Do Bigha Zamin, a.k.a. Two Acres of Land, ], which has already been released in
Paris. But these otherwise valuable and exceedingly rare exceptions are but
nave and clumsy prattle compared to Song of the Road and Aparajito. If I
am to believe those more competent than I, Satyajit Ray is a new and still
unique phenomenon in the otherwise productive Indian film industry (as
we know, one of the most important in the world because of the very quantity of its output: films per year). Such productivity, alas, doesnt necessarily indicate any coming spring for the Indian cinema, which continues
to remain almost totally rooted in a sort of religious, social, and melodramatic music hall.
Satyajit Ray himself is now thirty-six years old, and, until Song of the
Road, he had been painter and designer. When he and a team of colleagues,
including the photographer who would become his assistant, Subrata Mitra, decided to adapt Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhayas novel of the same
name to the cinema, they had no cinematographic experience. This fact
beggars belief in the face of the quality and often mastery of their images,
as well as the directing of the actors. But these young filmmakers, lacking experience that they somehow acquired in a hurry, had something better: their love and knowledge of cinema, a kind of culture in itself, which
would serve them well. And if one of the criteria of modern cinema resides
in the novelistic quality of its narratives, its capacity to unite the objectivity of the image with the subjective modalities of language, Satyajit Ray is a
filmmaker to be cherished indeed.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
(France-observateur, December , )
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
fact that these Spanish guerrillas speak English like Frank Sinatra, and you
have an idea of the credibility of such a historical setting. I know that in
King Vidors War and Peace [], Natasha speaks the language of Shakespeare, but, although this solution is not ideal, the psychological richness of
Tolstoys universe, or what is left of it, distracts our attention from the linguistic anomaly, whereas the inanity of the heroes in The Pride and the Passion gives us plenty of cause to notice it.
Only one thing can be said in defense of Kramer, the director and producer of this film: the spectacular realism of some moments of bravery gives
the battle scenes or the cannon shots some presence as a result. There is very
little else to be said about a movie that intended to be much more. For the
rest, epic poetry, manifest lyricism, truth in character, and substance in direction were needed. Without Fred Zinnemann or Edward Dmytryk, then,
Stanley Kramer is decidedly nothing but a proud producer who goes astray.
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Cahiers du cinma, July )
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
fuses the French viewer. Indeed, Kurosawas film may be more in the spirit
of Jean Renoirs adaptation of Gorkys text (The Lower Depths [Les basfonds]) than of the original play itself, but the Japanese characters here have
nothing in common with those of Renoir. The Pepel figure (the thief, here
known as Sutekichi) in particular is not very likeable, and The Actor addled by alcohol is pitiable human dregs, very far from the noteworthy dementia captured by the actor Robert Le Vigan in Renoirs version. Anything else?
To be sure, Kurosawa has not adapted the film from Renoirs Lower
Depthsas Fritz Lang did his Human Desire [] from Renoirs The Human Beast [La bte humaine, ]so an honest critique should begin with
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
:
(Cahiers du cinma, October )
film from Philip Dunne []that is, after we
condemn it along with the genre to which it belongs; or, after admitting
the genre, we compare it to films like The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
[] or Peyton Place []. Ten North Frederick [] effectively proceeds
from the following specifically American sociological theme: the confl ict
between the demands of social success and those of self-respect. The hero of
the film, realizing the futility of what has hitherto constituted the purpose
of his life, now prefers to compromise his professional situation and possibly lose the esteem of his fellow citizens in order to finally be at peace with
himself. The subject isnt new but, before the war, it hadnt been broached
except in the world of comedy, and principally by Frank Capra. The biggest
theme in Hollywood then was mostly the optimistic one about the genuine chance for success that each American has in his or her life, just like the
French soldier with the field marshals baton in his cartridge pouch.
The bad conscience of cinema regarding the American way of life is a
relatively new phenomenon. Its not old in novels, however: precisely those
by John OHara, from whose book the film of Ten North Frederick was
taken. I havent read it, but Im amazed that OHaras admirable Appointment in Samarra [] itself has not yet been adapted to the screen. Its the
story of both the private and social decline of a man driven to suicide during a forty-eight-hour period for having thrown a whiskey glass at an important man whose face he cant even seem to recall. The unities of time
and action make Appointment in Samarra an exemplary model of sociological tragedy; Ten North Frederick, however, or at least the film by that name,
doesnt have such unity.
The first part is sociological and the second is rather more psychologi
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
love, and, if he does give up the young woman because of the seeming
madness of such a MayDecember romancewhich would make the girl
suffer one dayat least hell carry to his grave the knowledge of a happiness other than that of social success. His death will come soon: half a
suicide by alcohol, half a murder by the wife who was a cold witness to his
heavy drinking and who will find in her widowhood the prestige and dignity that her husbands decline had compromised.
Wed search in vain to justify this Ten North Frederick through its miseen-scne. A former scenario writer like Nunnally Johnson and Joseph
Mankiewicz, Philip Dunne doesnt seem to play the repressed director like
them. The only redeeming qualities of the film reside in the adaptation and
in the directing of the actors. The adaptation gives the impression of faithfulness to the source material and seems to do justice to the relative psychological subtleties of the novel; the directing of the actors, without question,
is classical but, for this genre, such a style works impeccably well. The ensemble is naturally dominated by a Gary Cooper in his best form and always a pleasure to watch. Suzy Parker is quite beautiful. But Christ, this
little Diane Varsi, with all the stubbornness of a modern young American
girl, she starts to get on my nerves!
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Bazin Bibliography
Bazin, Andr. Le cinma de la cruaut: Eric von Stroheim, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Preston
Sturges, Luis Buuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa. Paris: Flammarion, .
Reissued by Flammarion in .
. Le cinma de loccupation et la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions,
.
. Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague (). Paris: ditions de ltoile, . Reissued by Cahiers du cinma in the collection Petite Bibliothque ().
. Jean Renoir. Paris: ditions Champ Libre, .
. Orson Welles. Paris: ditions du Cerf, . Reissued by Ramsay Poche Cinma, Paris, in ; by Cahiers du cinma/ditions de ltoile in ; and then by
Cahiers du cinma again in the collection Petite Bibliothque ().
. Quest-ce que le cinma? In four volumes: . Ontologie et langage (); . Le cinma et les autres arts (); . Cinma et sociologie (); and . Une esthtique de la
ralit: Le noralisme (). Paris: ditions du Cerf, (reissued in a new
edition, ). Abbreviated edition, Quest-ce que le cinma? Paris: ditions du Cerf,
(in one volume containing twenty-seven of the original sixty-four articles; repr.
).
Bazin, Andr, and ric Rohmer. Charlie Chaplin. Paris: ditions du Cerf, . Reissued by Ramsay Poche Cinma, Paris, in , and then by Cahiers du cinma in
the collection Petite Bibliothque ().
Bazin, Andr, Serge Daney, Jacques Becker, Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Michel
Delahaye, Jean Domarchi, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean Douchet, Jean-Luc Godard, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Jacques Rivette, ric Rohmer, Franois Truffaut. La politique des auteurs: Entretiens avec dix cineastes. Paris: ditions Champ Libre, .
Reissued by ditions de ltoile in .
S
N
!1231/4.../256/.78
Author's Set
( )
Bazin wrote, in total, around twenty-six hundred articles, essays, and reviews, in Le parisien libr, Lesprit, France-observateur (Lobservateur), Cahiers du cinma, Radio-cinma-tlvision (Tlrama), L ducation nationale, Arts, D.O.C. ducation
populaire (Peuple et Culture), L cran franais, Les temps modernes, Cin-club, L information universitaire, L ge nouveau, Revue du cinma, Courrier de l tudiant, Posie , and
Revue des lettres modernes, among other journals, magazines, newspapers, and weeklies.
Because he made his living from journalism, Bazin would often review the same film
for multiple publications (occasionally within a day of each other)sometimes with
only minor variations, sometimes with major changes or additions; then, some time
later, he would publish an extended essay on the very same film in yet another journal or magazine. Although frowned upon today, such a practice was not uncommon
in the s and s: James Agee, for example, reviewed the same films for The Nation and Time. As late as the s, Stanley Kauffmann was reviewing the same films
for The New Republic and Playboy, but for the latter magazine he used a pseudonym.
(Bazins pseudonym was Florent Kirsch, an amalgam of his sons first name and his
wifes maiden name.) I have recorded all such instances of Bazins repeat reviews, for
the sake of openness, clarity, and comprehensiveness.
Some of the following citations are incomplete because I did not have every article
in hand as I was preparing this bibliography: a number of them therefore either do not
have a page range, or the volume or issue number is missing. In all cases, however, the
article can be located on the basis of the information provided.
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Cannes, les jeux sont faits: Les jurs auront choisir entre les grandes et les petites
nations. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Cannes, journe consacre au no-ralisme franco-amricain avec le Rififi et Marty
qui ont remport un vif success. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Cannes, Leslie Caron et Jacques Tati: Lili et Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Cannes on cherche encore le candidat la palme dor. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Cannes, o la France triomphe Bilan du festival international. Le parisien libr
(October , ).
Cannes, o lon attend toujours de bons films: Ptanque et pche la ligne occupent
le festival. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Cannes: Quand la haute couture fait concurrence au cinma. Le parisien libr
(October , ).
Cannes, triomphe de la couleur: Aff aire de vie ou de mort [A Matter of Life and
Death/Stairway to Heaven] et Henry V. Le parisien libr (September , ).
chacun selon sa faim. Radio-cinma-tlvision (October , ).
cor et cri [Hue and Cry]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
deux jours du palmars la France et lU.R.S.S. demeurent les seuls prtendants srieux. Le parisien libr (May , ).
lest dEden [East of Eden]: Si Gense savait. Le parisien libr (October ,
).
lest dEden [East of Eden] et Je suis un sentimental. France-observateur (November , ).
Jean Gabin, le prix citron de la tlvision. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February ,
).
Knokke-le-Zoute, Grard Philipe se passionne pour les films exprimentaux. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Locarno le premier film dun jeune ralisateur franais reoit le prix de la mise en
scne [Le Beau Serge]. Le parisien libr (August , ).
mi-course du Festival de Berlin: Le cinma franais entre en lice [Les Aventures de
Monsieur Pickwick (The Pickwick Papers); Capitaine Paradis (The Captains Paradise);
L o se dressent les chemines; Magie verte; Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot; Les enfants dHiroshima (Genbaku no ko); Les procs la ville-coupables (Processo alla citt);
OCangaceiro]. Le parisien libr (June , ).
lombre des potences [Run for Cover]. France-observateur (October , ).
lombre des potences [Run for Cover]: La violence ne paye pas. Le parisien libr
(September , ).
louest quoi de nouveau? Journes de Mulhouse (January , ).
propos de Crime et chtiment [Crime and Punishment]: Devrait-on enregistrer le direct? Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ), p. .
propos de Cannes (Histoire du Festival de ). Cahiers du cinma no.
(April ), pp. .
propos de lchec amricain au Festival de Bruxelles. Lesprit , no. (September
), pp. .
propos de Lespoir ou du style au cinma. Posie (August ). Partially
reprinted in Le cinma de loccupation et la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Venise (hors festival) Orson Welles ntonne plus que les pigeons. Le parisien libr
(August , ).
Venise Jour de fte donne le fou rire aux Italiens et affirme la supriorit de la slection franaise. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Venise un western manqu; le souper amricain mais un grand film: L homme tranquille [The Quiet Man]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
pas du mystre [ Paces to Baker Street]: Ou le crime a une odeur! Le parisien libr (February , ).
voir. Lesprit (February ), p. .
Abdulla le Grand. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Abondance de carme: Un tramway nomm dsir [A Streetcar Named Desire]. Franceobservateur (April , ). Partially reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris:
Flammarion, .
Abraham Lincoln [Abe Lincoln in Illinois]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Achille avec nous: Un homme quelconque. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Acquittement et condemnation. Lesprit (July ), p. ff.
Laction Cannes: La fin dun festival. Action, (May , ).
Laction au Festival de Cannes: Un Othello russe [Othello; Le petit carrousel de fte
(Krhinta); La fille en noir (To koritsi me ta mavra)]. Action, (April , ).
Lactualit ne se rduit pas aux sports; revenons encore sur les insuffisances du journal
parl. Radio-cinma-tlvision (September , ).
Ladaptation ou le cinma comme digeste. Lesprit , no. (July ), pp. ;
partially reprinted in the collection of essays Cinma et roman: lments dapprciation, Revue des lettres modernes no. (Summer ), pp. .
Ladieu aux armes [A Farewell to Arms]. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Ladieu aux armes [A Farewell to Arms]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (April , ).
Adieu Lonard. L information universitaire no. (October , ).
Adieu torero. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Adolph Zukor, inventeur des stars dHollywood: Comment vit et meurt la vedette.
Radio-cinma-tlvision (September , ).
Adolph Zukor inventeur des stars de Hollywood engagea Sarah Bernhardt et continue
croire au star-system. Radio-cinma-tlvision (September , ).
Laffaire Bel-Ami. France-observateur (December , ).
Laff aire Ciceron [Five Fingers]: Invraisemblable . . . mais presque vrai. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Laffaire de La bergre et le ramoneur. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Laff aire de Trinidad Rita [Aff air in Trinidad]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Aff aire de vie ou de mort [A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven]. Le parisien
libr (June , ).
Laff aire du collier de la reine. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Laffaire du court mtrage. France-observateur (February , ).
Laffaire du film des J [Les vaincus (I vinti)]. France-observateur (December ,
).
Les aff ameurs [Bend of the River]: Un western aperitif. Le parisien libr (December , ).
The African Queen: Une prodigieuse aventure. Le parisien libr (March , ).
The African Queen: Une singulire aventure, admirablement raconte. Radio-cinmatlvision (April , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Andr Cayatte a secou le public vnitien avec un film o la vengeance est un plat brlant [Oeil pour oeil]. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Andr Gide [Avec Andr Gide]. France-observateur (March , ), in Quest-ce
que le cinma? Vol. , Ontologie et langage (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. .
Andr Gide vivant! [Avec Andr Gide]. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Androcls et le lion [Androcles and the Lion]: Encore du chrtien! Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Andromaque la tlvision. France-observateur (March , ).
Lange des maudits [Rancho Notorious]: Fritz Lang et Marlne Dietrich. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Anna Karenine [Anna Karenina]: Un beau film qui manque dme. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Annapurna, Oiseaux exotiques [Water Birds], et Le grand Mlis: Un programme formidable. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Les anneaux dor [Golden Earrings]. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Une anne de cinma vue par lquipe de L cran franais. L cran franais (December , ).
Lanne funeste. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Les annes difficiles [Anni difficili] ou vie et msaventures dun lampiste. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Les annes sauvages [The Rawhide Years]: Doublement conventionnel. Radio-cinmatlvision (March , ).
Les annes sauvages [The Rawhide Years]: Western fluvial. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
Annie Rouvre est lue Miss Cannes . Le parisien libr (September , ).
Antoine et Antoninette. Le parisien libr , no. (September , ), p. .
Antoine et Clopatre. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Aparajito [LInvincible/LInvaincu]. Cahiers du cinma no. (October ).
Aparajito [LInvincible/LInvaincu]. France-observateur (December , ), p. .
Aparajito [LInvincible/LInvaincu]. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Aperus sur le cinma mexicain [Racines (Raices)]. L ducation nationale (April ,
).
Lappt [The Naked Spur]: Du trs bon western! Le parisien libr (July , ).
Appel dun inconnu [Phone Call from a Stranger]: Appel aux larmes. Le parisien libr
(October , ).
Lapport dOrson Welles. Cin-club , no. (May ), pp. , .
Aprs lamour. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Aprs le Festival de Cannes: Les grands thmes du cinma . Courrier de l tudiant (October , ). Reprinted in Le cinma de loccupation et la rsistance.
Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
Aprs le Festival de Cannes: Hollywood peut traduire Faulkner, Hemingway, ou
Caldwell. Courrier de l tudiant (November , ). Reprinted in Le cinma de
loccupation et la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
Aprs le Festival de Locarno, Le beau Serge accumule toutes les audaces. Franceobservateur (August , ).
Aprs-midi de taureaux [Tarde de toros]: minutes de vrit. Le parisien libr
(November , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Aprs le rose et le noir [Deux sous de violettes]. Cahiers du cinma no. (December
), pp. . Courrier de l tudiant (October , ).
Aprs le triomphe du Condamn mort quelques pronostics pour le palmars du me
Festival de Cannes. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Aprs vingt-quatre heures du Festival de Cannes jurs, journalistes et dlgus rsistent mal au marathon du cinma. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Aprs les vingt-quatre heures du Mans: Maigres rsultats pour les moyens employs.
Radio-cinma-tlvision (June , ), pp. .
Larc et la flute [En djungelsaga]. Cahiers du cinma no. (June ), pp. .
Larc et la flute [En djungelsaga]: Un documentaire la fois grandiose et familier. Le
parisien libr (May , ).
Arsne Lupin: Un film de Jacques Becker. L ducation nationale (April , ), in
Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile
[], ), pp. .
Arsenic et vieilles dentelles [Arsenic and Old Lace]. Le parisien libr (January ,
).
Lart la tlvision, une mission qui perd sur tous les . . . tableaux. Radio-cinmatlvision (October , ).
Lassassin a de l humour . . . Anglais [The Ringer]. Le parisien libr (January ,
).
Lassassin s tait tromp [Cast a Dark Shadow]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February , ).
Lassassin s tait tromp [Cast a Dark Shadow]: Le mariage ne paie pas! Le parisien libr (February , ).
Assassins et voleurs: Gai, gai assassinons-nous! Le parisien libr (February ,
), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions
de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Les assassins sont parmi nous/Les meurtriers sont parmi nous [Die Mrder sind unter
uns]. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Une assez triste journe . . . Le parisien libr (May , ).
Association criminelle [The Big Combo]: Srie noire amricaine. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
Assurance sur la mort [Double Indemnity] et Laura. Le parisien libr (August ,
).
Athna [Athena]. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Atoll K: Laurel et Hardy en exil. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Attaque [Attack]: En force. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Attaque [Attack]: Robert Aldrich. France-observateur (October , ).
Attention aux rats, Pierre Dumayet! Radio-cinma-tlvision (April , ).
Au cinma. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Au carrefour du sicle [The Beginning or the End]. Le parisien libr (December ,
).
Au chevet du grand malade: Le cinma franais se meurt; les studios sont ferms ou
tournent au ralenti. Le parisien libr (January , ), pp. .
Au-del de la fidlit: Mina de Vanghel. France-observateur (March , ).
Au-del du mal [Mi Klalah LBrahah]: Laissons-nous porter. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
t dcerns au Salaire de la peur pour les longs mtrages et Crin blanc pour les
courts-mtrages. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Au Festival de Cannes: Un grand film franais, Les Maudits, et le meilleur Walt
Disney: Dumbo. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Au Festival de Cannes: La Norvge est entre en lice avec des allumettes sudoises et
lAllemagne avec un film pacifiste mais la mi-temps les pronostics demeurent trs
incertains [La Flamme et Ludwig II: Glanz und Elend eines Knigs]. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Au Festival de Cannes: Notre capitale du cinma ne veut pas concurrencer Venise. Le
parisien libr (September , ).
Au Festival de Cannes: On solde avant inventaire des chefs-doeuvres imprvus. Le
parisien libr (May , ).
Au Festival de Cannes trois nations, trois grands films: La symphonie pastorale, La fleur
de pierre [Kamennyj cvetok], et The Lost Weekend. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Au Festival de Sao Paulo: Dcime par la grippe la dlgation franaise soutiendra-telle lassaut amricain? Abel Gance contre-attaque. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Au Festival de Venise [Les amants et En cas de malheur]. L ducation nationale (October , ).
Au Festival de Venise: Le cinma franais part favori et Orson Welles joue les fantmes. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Au Festival de Venise Hamlet et Oliver Twist triomphent. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Au VIIIe Festival de Cannes: Un palmars sans grandes surprises. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Au Festival International de Cannes La symphonie pastorale et The Lost Weekend se partagent les faveurs des experts. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Au loin une voile. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Au palmars de Cannes la production franaise affirme ses qualits La bataille du
rail remporte le grand prix international du meilleur film. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Au Palmarium: Continents perdus [Continent perdu (Continente perduto)]. Action,
(April , ).
Au petit bonheur. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Au seuil de l inconnu [On the Threshold of Space]: Science sans fiction. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Au sixime tage: La tlvision nest ni du thtre ni du cinma. Radio-cinmatlvision (May , ).
Au sixime jour [D-Day: The Sixth of June]: Consciencieux et ennuyeux. Radiocinma-tlvision (December , ).
Au troisime festival du film Berlin . allumettes illuminent une salle en plein
air [La jeune fille sur le toit; Manon des sources; Les aventures de Monsieur Pickwick
(The Pickwick Papers); Heureuse poque (Alti tempi); Les ensorceleuses; The Member of
the Wedding]. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Une auberge espagnole [Lauberge rouge]. Le parisien libr (October , ), in
Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile
[], ), pp. .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Lauteur de la Grande illusion na pas perdu confiance dans la libert de cration: Une
interview exclusive de Jean Renoir. L cran franais (November , ).
Autour du palmars de Cannes [Othello]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (May , ).
Lautre Festival de Cannes [Festival of Amateur Film]. Cahiers du cinma no.
(August ), pp. .
Avant de partir les Indes tourner son prochain film, le metteur en scne de La grande
illusion a retrouv pour quelques heures son Paris. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Lavant-garde nouvelle. Cahiers du cinma no. (March ), pp. . Partially reprinted in Plaquette Objectif (January , ).
Avec laffaire Weidmann Jean Prat russit un tour de force. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(November , ).
Avec le film italien de Castellani Les rves dans le tiroir, un jeune mnage dtudiants
passe sans brio son examen de no-ralisme. Le parisien libr (September ,
).
Avec Naufrage volontaire et Fort sacre le reportage film deviant une aventure spirituelle. Radio-cinma-tlvision (April ), pp. .
Lavenir du cinma franais. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Lavenir esthtique de la tlvision; la TV est le plus humain des arts mcaniques. Rforme, September , . Reprinted in Cahiers du cinma no. (), p. .
Laventure sans retour [Scott of the Antarctic]: Glace sans Esquimaux. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Les aventures dArsne Lupin de Jacques Becker. Le parisien libr (March ,
).
Les aventures de Till lespigle. France-observateur (November , ).
Les aventures de Till lespigle: Fanfan sans tulipe! Le parisien libr (November , ).
Les aventures du capitaine Wyatt [Distant Drums]: Un massacre. Le parisien libr
(December , ).
Les aventures de Perri [Perri]: Walt Disney romancier et pote de la nature. Le parisien
libr (April , ).
Laveu [Summer Storm]. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Baby Doll et le nouveau style amricain. L ducation nationale (January , ).
Back Street. Le parisien libr (November , ).
La bagarre de Santa-F [Santa Fe]: louest rien de nouveau. Le parisien libr
(October , ).
La bagarre de Santa-F [Santa Fe]: louest terne. Radio-cinma-tlvision (October , ).
Le baiser de minuit [That Midnight Kiss]. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Le baiser de minuit [That Midnight Kiss]: On peut tirer sur le pianist. Radio-cinmatlvision (August , ).
Le bal des cingls [Operation Mad Ball]: Les gaiets de lU.S. Army. Radio-cinmatlvision (December , ).
La balandra Isabel lleg esta tarde [Lamante creola]: Un mlo vnzulien. Le parisien
libr (January , ).
Baleiniers du ple sud et Le grand cirque de Moscou: Sur les pistes du monde! Le parisien libr (July , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Les bons sentiments ne font pas toujours du bon cinma: Tom Brown, tudiant [Tom
Browns School Days]; les mauvais non plus: La duchesse des bas-fonds [Kitty]. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Les bons sentiments sont-ils maudits lcran? [Lamour dune femme]. Radiocinma-tlvision (May , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Le bossu. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Le bouclier du crime [Shield for Murder]: Trop policier pour tre honnte! Le parisien
libr (April , ).
Le boulanger de Valorgue: Un pain rassis. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Boule de feu [Ball of Fire/The Professor and the Burlesque Queen]. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Boulevard du crpuscule [Sunset Boulevard]: Le crpuscule des stars. Le parisien libr
(April , ), p. .
Le bout de la route: La fin de tout. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Bouts de chandelle. Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Branquignol. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Bravo, Annick Morice! Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Bravo pour la Bravade [Les Bravadeurs]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (June , ).
Brelan das: Partie perdue malgr les dix des der. Le parisien libr (October ,
).
Brve rencontre [Brief Encounter]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
La brigade du suicide [T-Men]: Les mouches amricaines ne prennent pas les gangsters
avec du vinaigre. Le parisien libr (August , ).
La brigade du suicide [T-Men]: Les policiers sont de trop fines mouches. L cran franais (August , ).
Le brigand bien-aim [The True Story of Jesse James]: La clef du western o Nicholas Ray
ne sexprime gure. Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Le brigand bien-aim [The True Story of Jesse James]: La vrit sur les frres James. Le
parisien libr (July , ).
Brisants humains [Away All Boats]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (December , ).
Brisants humains [Away All Boats]: Les gars de la marine! Le parisien libr (December , ).
Bronco Apache [Apache]. France-observateur (February , ).
Bronco Apache [Apache]: Du nouveau lOuest. Le parisien libr (February ,
).
Bruxelles : Le festival mondial du film. Cahiers du cinma XV, no. (July ),
pp. .
Bruxelles fait un accueil assez froid aux Portes de la nuit. Le parisien libr
(June , ).
Bus Stop: Arrtez-vous! Le parisien libr (November , ).
Bus Stop de Joshua Logan. France-observateur (November , ).
Bus Stop: Grand film ou simple comdie? Radio-cinma-tlvision (November ,
).
a va barder [Give Em Hell]: Hors srie noire! Le parisien libr (April , ).
Cabiria [Le notti di Cabiria] ou le voyage au bout du no-ralisme. Cahiers du cinma
no. (November ), pp. , in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Une esthtique de
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
la ralit: Le no-ralisme (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. ; in Quest-ce que le cinma? (Cerf, , rpt. ; single-volume version), pp. .
Le cabotin et son compre [The Stooge]: On a souvent besoin dun plus drle que soi. Le
parisien libr (April , ).
Le caf du Cadran. Le parisien libr (September , ).
La cage aux filles/Le minorenni: Lhonntet paye parfois. Le parisien libr (January , ).
La cage dor [Cage of Gold]. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Le cad [The Big Shot]: Un film la gloire de Humphrey Bogart. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Calcutta, ville cruelle [Deux hectares de terre]: No-ralisme hindou. Radio-cinmatlvision (May , ).
Le calice dargent [The Silver Chalice]: Que dor, que dor! Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Californie en fl ammes [California Conquest]: Fume sans feu. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
Calme plat sur la Croisette: Ni La Provinciale (Italie) ni Awara (Indes) nont boulvers
le festival. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Camarade P./Elle dfend sa patrie. Le parisien libre, (November , ).
La camra explore le temps. Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Le camion qui crache les images: Cinma et culture. L cran franais (February ,
).
Le canard atomique [Mr. Drakes Duck]: La poudre est mouill. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
Les candidats au bac devant le problme film-roman [La symphonie pastorale, La fleuve,
et Le journal dun cur de campagne]: Elve Andr Bazin, rpondez. Radio-cinmatlvision (July , ).
Cannes: dfaut dun bon festival, un bon palmars. France-observateur
(May , ).
Cannes aura t le festival de lamour conjugal. Radio-cinma-tlvision (June ,
).
Cannes: Conclusions. France-observateur (May , ).
Cannes devient la capitale du cinma: nations sont reprsentes au festival international du film. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Cannes Festival : Psychanalyse de la plage. Lesprit , no. (November ),
pp. .
Cannes: Gaby Morlay a pleur sur Les amants du Pont Saint-Jean, mais le public na
pas march . . . par contre Le diable au corps fait courir Paris. Le parisien libr
(September , ).
Cannes . Cahiers du cinma XII, no. (June ), p. .
Cannes . Cahiers du cinma XIV, no. (June ), p. . Reprinted in Cahiers
du cinma no. (), p. ; Cahiers du cinma no. (), p. .
Cannes: Lor de Naples [Loro di Napoli]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (May , ).
Cannes va aussi au cinma: Boomerang, Crossfire, L vade [The Chase], Les jeux sont
faits [Second Chance], et Les maudits [The Damned]. L cran franais (September , ).
Cape et poignard [Cloak and Dagger]. Le parisien libr (January , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Capitaine sans loi [Plymouth Adventure]: Mais pas sans foi. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(December , ).
Capitaine sans loi [Plymouth Adventure]: Tempte dans les coeurs. Le parisien libr
(December , ).
Le Capitan. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Un caprice de Caroline: Comme on connat ses seins. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
La captive aux yeux clairs [The Big Sky]: Du Missouri. Le parisien libr (October , ).
La caravane hroique [Virginia City]: Eternelle pope. L cran franais (June ,
).
La carcasse et le tord-cou. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Carmen. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Carn et la dsincarnation [ Juliette ou la cl des songes]. Lesprit , no. (September ), pp. , in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague,
(ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Le carosse dor: Le thtre et la vie. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Carrefour de la mort [Kiss of Death]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Carrefour du crime. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Carrefour des passions [Gli uomini sono nemici]. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Le cas Claude Darget. Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Le cas du docteur Laurent. L ducation nationale (May , ).
Le cas Pagnol [Les lettres de mon moulin]. France-observateur (November , ),
in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Le cinma et les autres arts (ditions du Cerf, ),
pp. ; in Quest-ce que le cinma? (Cerf, , rpt. ; single-volume version), pp. .
Casque dor: contre la belle epoque. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Cavalcanti Paris. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Les caves du Majestic. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Ce bon vieux Sam [Good Sam]: Une bonne vieille formule de film. Le parisien libr
(November , ).
Ce droit qu la porte on achte en entrant . . . Peut-on siffler Les portes de la nuit? Le
parisien libr (December , ).
Ce joli monde. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Ce nest quun au revoir [The Long Gray Line]: Du souci pour les Cadets. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Ce nest quun au revoir [The Long Gray Line]: Esprons-le pour John Ford. Radiocinma-tlvision (August , ).
Ce pain tait-il si dur? [Le pain vivant]. France-observateur (April , ).
Ce que fut le tlcinma au Festival de Cannes [Soupe aux nids d hirondelle, Une le a
soif, et Ce serait eff rayant]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (June , ).
Ce soir les jupons volent: Mannequins . . . mais pas en cire. Le parisien libr
(June , ).
Cela sappelle laurore: Lumire de Buuel. Le parisien libr (May , ). Reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
Cellule [Cell Death Row]: Mort en sursis. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Les censeurs de la censure. France-observateur (January , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
De la difficult dtre Coco: Histoire vcue par Andr Bazin. Carrefour (March ,
), reprinted in Cahiers du cinma no. (January ), p. .
De lchelle de soie la grosse ficelle [Les amants de Vrone]. L cran franais
(March , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague,
(ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
De lexceptionnel . . . au quotidien: Monsieur Vincent et Antoine et Antoinette. Le parisien libr (November , ).
De la forme et du fond ou la crise du cinma. Almanach du thtre et du cinma
(), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions
de ltoile [], ), pp. .
De Mlis Orson Welles: Il neige sur le cinma. L cran franais (March ,
), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions
de ltoile [], ), pp. .
De lor en barres [The Lavender Hill Mob]: Une autre bonne comdie britannique.
Radio-cinma-tlvision (January , ).
De lor en barres [The Lavender Hill Mob]: La comdie anglaise. France-observateur
(January , ).
De Paris plein ciel Pacific . L cran franais (June , ).
De la politique des auteurs. Cahiers du cinma XII, no. (April ), pp. .
De quelle aide la qualit sagit-il. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February , ).
De Sica et Rossellini. Radio-cinma-tlvision (September , ), in Quest-ce
que le cinma? Vol. , Une esthtique de la ralit: Le no-ralisme (ditions du Cerf,
), pp. .
De Sica, metteur en scne [Miracle Milan (Miracolo a Milano), Voleur de bicyclette
(Ladri di biciclette), Umberto D., et Sciusci], from an article originally published
in Italian (Parma: Edizione Guanda, ) as De Sica regista, in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Une esthtique de la ralit: Le no-ralisme (ditions du Cerf, ),
pp. ; in Quest-ce que le cinma? (Cerf, , rpt. ; single-volume version),
pp. . First published in French as Note sur De Sica. Cahiers du cinma no.
(March ), pp. .
De Symphonie nuptiale [The Wedding March] La danse de mort: Stroheim perdu et
retrouv. L cran franais (June , ). Partially reprinted in Le cinma de la
cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
De Venise la Cte dAzur: Hier soir grand gala Cannes pour louverture du festival. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Le dcoupage et son evolution [Octobre (Oktyabr); La fin de St Petersbourg (Konets
Sankt-Peterburga); Fury]. L ge nouveau (July ); reprinted in modified form
in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Ontologie et langage (ditions du Cerf, ).
Dcouverte du cinma: Dfense de lavant-garde. L cran franais (December ,
), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions
de ltoile [], ), pp. .
La desse [The Goddess]: Lobsession de Hollywood. Radio-cinma-tlvision (September , ).
La desse [The Goddess]: Le portrait dune idole. Le parisien libr (September ,
).
Dfendre le cinma mais tout le cinma! Le parisien libr (December , ).
Dfense de Monsieur Verdoux. Les temps modernes , no. (December ),
pp. . Reprinted in Charlie Chaplin. Paris: ditions du Cerf, .
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Les diables de Guadalcanal [Flying Leathernecks]: Les diables ont des ailes. Le parisien
libr (September , ).
Les diaboliques: Clouzot plus fort que le diable. Le parisien libr (January ,
).
Dialogue sur Venise. L cran franais (September , ).
The Diary of a Chambermaid [Le journal dune femme de chambre]. Cahiers du cinma
no. (December ). Reprinted in Jean Renoir. Paris: ditions Champ Libre,
.
Dieu a besoin des hommes: Cest un film important par sa nouveaut. Radio-cinmatlvision (October , ).
Dieu est mort [The Fugitive]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Dieu seul le sait: Saint Robinson Crusoe [Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, Moby Dick, and
The African Queen]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Dimanche Pkin: Un film modle. Radio-cinma-tlvision (June , ).
Dimanche Pkin: Grand prix du court mtrage. France-observateur (December , ).
Direct en tlcinma. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ).
Le disque rouge [Il ferroviere]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Le disque rouge [Il ferroviere]. France-observateur (March , ).
Les dix meilleurs films de lanne. Cahiers du cinma no. (January ).
Les dix meilleurs films de . Cahiers du cinma no. (January ), p .
Les dix meilleurs films de . Cahiers du cinma no. (January ), p. .
Les dix meilleurs films de . Cahiers du cinma no. (January ), p. .
Les dix meilleurs films de . Cahiers du cinma no. (January ), p. .
Dix petits indiens [And Then There Were None]. Le parisien libr (February ,
).
Dix, rue Frederick [Ten North Frederick]. France-observateur (September , ).
Un documentaire en simili: Continent perdu [Continente perduto]. Lettres et mdecins
(August ).
Le doigt sur la gachette mauvais tireur . . . dlite. Le parisien libr (July ,
).
Dommage que tu sois une canaille [Peccato che sia una canaglia (Too Bad Shes Bad)]:
Dommage que tu sois une vedette! Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Dommage que tu sois une canaille [Peccato che sia una canaglia (Too Bad Shes Bad)]:
Vol, amour et fantaisie. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Don Juan: La rputation fait lhomme. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Le dos au mur. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Le dossier noir (Les dangers de linstruction!) dAndr Cayatte. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Dossier secret [Confidential Report]: Orson Welles ou la volont de puissance. Radiocinma-tlvision (June , ).
Dossier secret [Confidential Report]: Le secret de M. Arkadin. Le parisien libr
(June , ).
Double destin: Comptabilit en partie double. Le parisien libr (January ,
).
Double destin . . . ou double production. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February ,
).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Face au crime [Crime in the Streets]: Petite graine de violence! Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Le faiseur de pluie [The Rainmaker]: Adorable Katharine. Le parisien libr
(June , ).
Le faiseur de pluie [The Rainmaker]: Marchand despoir. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(June , ).
Un fait divers qui a la grandeur dune tragdie antique Voleur de bicyclette [Ladri di biciclette]. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Falbalas, Flicie Nanteuil, et Dernier mtro. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Les fanatiques. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Les fanatiques. France-observateur (November , ).
Les fanatiques: Suspense contre no-ralisme. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ).
Fanfan la tulipe: Un film de printemps. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Fanfan la tulipe: Grard Philipe irrsistible. Radio-cinma-tlvision (April ,
).
Fantasia. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Fantomas contre fantomas. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Le fantme de la rue Morgue [Phantom of the Rue Morgue]: Invisible sans lunettes! Le
parisien libr (January , ).
Farrebique a t prsent Cannes . . . mais officieusement. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
Farrebique ou le parodoxe du ralisme. Lesprit , no. (April ), pp. .
Fausse improvisation et trou de mmoire. Radio-cinma-tlvision (April , ).
Faut-il brler les livres de cinma? Cahiers du cinma no. (February ), pp. .
Faut-il croire en Hitchcock? France-observateur (January , ), pp. . Reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
Faut-il des feuilletons la tlvision? Intoxication et crtinisme! Radio-cinmatlvision (April , ).
Faut-il renoncer critiquer Limelight? Le premier classique du cinma. Radio-cinmatlvision (November , ).
Le faux coupable [The Wrong Man]. France-observateur (May , ).
Une fe pas comme les autres et Le ballon rouge: Pas si btes! Le parisien libr
(October , ).
La femme aux deux visages [Two-Faced Woman] et La maison des sept pchs [Seven Sinners]. Le parisien libr (April , ).
La femme de lanne [Woman of the Year]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Femme de feu [Ramrod]: Western et psychologie fminine. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Une femme disparat [The Lady Vanishes]: Qualit davant-guerre. Le parisien libr
(April , ).
La femme du planteur [The Planters Wife]: Malaise en Malaisie. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
La femme du planteur [The Planters Wife]. Cahiers du cinma no. (February ),
p. .
La femme et le rdeur [The Unholy Wife]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Une femme par jour. Le parisien libr (February , ).
La femme sur la plage [The Woman on the Beach]. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
L homme qui na jamais exist [The Man Who Never Was]: Histoire policire. Le parisien libr (February , ).
L homme qui na pas d toile [Man Without a Star]: Un film de fer. Le parisien libr
(November , ).
Un homme traqu [A Man Alone]: Tu viens shriff ? Le parisien libr (July ,
).
L homme tranquille [The Quiet Man]: Un film homrique! Le parisien libr (November , ).
Hommes et loups [Uomini e lupi]: Un loup chasse lautre. Le parisien libr
(April , ).
Les hommes grenouilles [The Frogmen]: Danse de mort sous les flots. Le parisien libr
(November , ).
Les hommes grenouilles [The Frogmen]: La guerre silencieuse. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(June , ).
Les hommes sans ailes [Muzi bez krdel]. L cran franais (August , ).
Honnte mtier [Le gorille vous salue bien]. Cahiers du cinma no. (October ),
p. .
La horde sauvage [The Maverick Queen]: Mais lordre triomphe! Le parisien libr
(January , ).
Horizons sans fin: Les bons sentiments font les bons films. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Hors des sentiers battus [The Goddess]. Cahiers du cinma XV, no. (October ),
pp. .
Htel des invalides. France-observateur (December , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ),
pp. .
Houdini le grand magician [Houdini]: Des illusions. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Huis-clos. France-observateur (December , ).
Huis-clos: Lenfer du dcor. Radio-cinma-tlvision (January , ).
Huis-clos: Un film curieux. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Huit heures de sursis [Odd Man Out]. Le parisien libr (August , ).
/ [Null Acht Fnfzehn]. France-observateur (June , ).
/ [Null Acht Fnfzehn]: Les tristesses de lescadron. Le parisien libr (June ,
).
La huitime femme de Barbe-Bleue. Radio-cinma-tlvision (June , ).
Les Hussards: Une tragdie drle. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Iawa de Bertrand Flornoy. France-observateur (January , ).
Iawa: Les hommes, ces inconnus. Le parisien libr (January , ).
L idiot. Le parisien libr (June , ).
L idole. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Il est minuit docteur Schweitzer: LAfrique ne vous parle pas! Le parisien libr
(November , ).
Il tait une petite fille. L cran franais (July , ).
Il tait une petite fille. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Il faut sauver le cinma franais: Avant deux ans notre production pourrait redevenir
prospre.
Le parisien libr (January , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Il faut sauver le cinma franais: Dabord de lordre dans la maison. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
Il faut sauver le cinma franais: Notre production nationale ne doit pas tre crase
par letat; la crise du cinma franais et responsabilits franaises. Le parisien libr
(January , ), pp. .
Il piu dopoguerra dei registi francesi. Cinema nuovo (Italy), . no. (January , ).
Il pleut toujours le dimanche [Once Upon a Dream]: Le cinma anglais est au beau fi xe.
Le parisien libr (July , ).
Il y a un an mourait Louis Salou. Le parisien libr (October , ).
L le sans nom: La svre beaut du nord. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Ils aiment la vie [Kanal]. Cahiers du cinma no. (June ), p. .
Ils aiment la vie [Kanal]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Ils aiment la vie [Kanal]. France-observateur (March , ).
Ils aiment la vie [Kanal]: Lhrosme, lamour et la mort! Radio-cinma-tlvision
(March , ).
Ils taient cinq: Ils sont beaucoup. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Ils ne voudront pas me croire [They Wont Believe Me]: Nous non plus. L cran franais
(December , ).
Ils ne voudront pas me croire [They Wont Believe Me]: Nous ny croyons pas non plus.
Le parisien libr (November , ).
Impasse maudite [One Way Street]: La concidence ne fait pas le destin. Radio-cinmatlvision (August , ).
Impasse maudite [One Way Street]: Destin et passage clout. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Les implacables [The Tall Men]: De lamour et des vaches! Le parisien libr (January , ).
Les implacables [The Tall Men]: Le coeur ny est pas. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February , ).
Il importe d tre constant [The Importance of Being Earnest]: Lesprit en rose. Le parisien
libr (January , ).
In memoriam: Jaubert et le cinma franais. Courrier de l tudiant (May , ).
Reprinted in Le cinma de loccupation et la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
Les incertitudes de la fidlit: Le bl en herbe. Cahiers du cinma no. (February
), pp. , in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague,
(ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Lincident Claude Mauriac. France-observateur (September , ).
L inconnu du Nord-Express [Strangers on a Train]: Un train denfer. Le parisien libr
(January , ). Reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion,
.
Les inconnus dans la ville [Violent Saturday]: quation plusieurs inconnues. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Une incroyable histoire [The Window]: Incroyable, mais impressionnante. Le parisien
libr (November , ).
LInde remporte le lion dor avec L invaincu [Aparajito]. Le parisien libr (September , ).
L inexorable enqute [Scandal Sheet]: Lassassin tait dans la maison. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Maitre de lhumour plus que de langoisse: Alfred Hitchcock tourne en France avec
Cary Grant. Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Le matre de la prairie [The Sea of Grass]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Les matres de la mer et toi ma charmante [Rules of the Sea and You Were Never Lovelier]. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Les matres fous. France-observateur (October , ), in Le cinma franais
de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ),
pp. .
Les matres fous: Les dieux que nous donnons aux noirs. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(November , ).
Le major galopant [The Galloping Major]: Un bon cheval. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Malombra. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Malraux indsirable. France-observateur (May , ).
Malva. Cahiers du cinma no. (October ).
Maman est la plage [Lets Dance]: Un mariage de raison. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Mamzelle Mitraillette [The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend]: Une irrsistible parodie de Western. Le parisien libr (November , ).
La mandragore: Une fille sans joie. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Mandy, un film par instants sublime. Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Mandy: Lorsque lenfant parat. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Manon. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Manon. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Manon: Grand prix probable du Festival de Venise. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Manon des sources. France-observateur (January , ).
Manon des sources: Roman fleuve. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Le manteau [Il cappotto]. France-observateur (April , ).
Le manteau . . . Enfin! [Il cappotto]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Marcel Armand: La consolation du voyageur. Lesprit , no. (July ).
Marcelin, pain et vin [Marcelino, pan y vino]: Miracle au couvent. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Margie. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Marguerite de la nuit: Diable! Diable! Le parisien libr (January , ).
Le mariage est une aff aire prive [Marriage Is a Private Aff air]. Le parisien libr
(December , ).
Marie Antoinette a ouvert le Festival de Cannes; le triste destin de la reine de France
na pas gay la soire inaugurale. Le parisien libr (April , ).
La Marie du port. L cran franais (July , ).
Marie la misre et Boule de suif. Le parisien libr (October , ). Reprinted
in Le cinma de loccupation et la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
Marie-Louise. Le parisien libr (March , ).
La marie du dimanche [June Bride]: Retour la comdie filme classique. Le parisien
libr (October , ).
La marie est-elle trop belle? [Les belles de nuit]: Un grand film de Ren Clair. Radiocinma-tlvision (November , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la
nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
The two articles referred to are Le rel et limaginaire [Crin Blanc], Cahiers du cinma no. (July ), pp. , and Montage interdit [Le ballon rouge; Une fe
pas comme les autres], Cahiers du cinma XI, no. (December ), pp. .
La montagne rouge [Red Mountain]: Altitude moyenne. Le parisien libr (January , ).
La monte au ciel [Subida al cielo]: Un admirable rve. France-observateur (August , ). Reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
La monte au ciel [Subida al cielo]: Quelques pas dans les nuages. Le parisien libr
(August , ).
Montparnasse . Le parisien libr (April , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Montparnasse . France-observateur (April , ).
Montparnasse . L ducation nationale (May , ).
Morne veille de clture au Festival de Cannes [Frontire invisible; The Hidden Room/
Obsession]. Le parisien libr (September , ).
La mort lcran. Lesprit , no. (September ), pp. .
La mort accuse [Night Beat]: Mauvais rquisitoire. Le parisien libr (July , ).
La mort dun commis voyageur [Death of a Salesman]: Un film bien sombre et parfois
bien lourd. Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Mort dun cyclist [Muerte de un ciclista], Les Mauvaises rencontres, et French Cancan.
Lesprit , no. (December ), pp. .
Mort dHumphrey Bogart. Cahiers du cinma XII, no. (February ), pp. , in
Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Cinma et sociologie; Troisime partie: Mythes et socit (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. .
Mort dun scnariste. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Mort du documentaire reconstitu: Laventure sans retour [Scott of the Antarctic].
France-observateur (May , ).
La mort en ce jardin de Luis Buuel. Le parisien libr (September , ). Reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
Mort ou vif. Le parisien libr (February , ).
Mort tous les aprs-midi [La course aux taureaux]. Cahiers du cinma no. (December ), pp. , in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Ontologie et langage (ditions
du Cerf, ), pp. ; in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague,
(ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Mouche! [Trois femmes, trois mes/Trois femmes]. Cahiers du cinma no. (September ), pp. .
Le Moulin du P [Il Mulino del P]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Moulin Rouge. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Le mouvement des cin-clubs en France depuis la libration. D.O.C. ducation populaire , no. (January ).
Mr. Lucky. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Mrs. Miniver et Rome, ville ouverte [Roma, citt aperta]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Le mur invisible [Gentlemans Agreement]. Le parisien libr (September , ).
La muraille dor [Foxfire]: Attention aux apaches! Le parisien libr (January ,
).
Un muse des ombres: Magie blanche, magie noire. L cran franais (December , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Pieds-plats [Un homme change son destin (The Stratton Story)]. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Les Pieds-plats [Un homme change son destin (The Stratton Story)]: Quand les dieux du
dimanche jouent au base-ball. L cran franais (May , ).
Le pige. France-observateur (July , ).
Le pige: Un mcanisme prouv. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Pierre le grand [Pyotr Pervyy]. France-observateur (February , ).
Pierre le grand [Pyotr Pervyy]: Un grand film. Le parisien libr (February ,
).
Pierre le grand [Pyotr Pervyy]: Toujours aussi grand. Le parisien libr (September , ).
La pierre philosophale [Parash Pather]: Un film indien dracin. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Pinocchio. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Le pire nest pas toujours sr: Lamour mne la danse et Fanfan la Tulipe. Franceobservateur (March , ).
Piti pour les animaux. Radio-cinma-tlvision (May , ).
Un pitre au pensionnat [Youre Never Too Young]: Pile ou face. Le parisien libr
(January , ).
Pittsburgh, lange bleu en ange gardien. Radio-cinma-tlvision (September ,
).
Pittsburgh: Bonne et mauvaise mine. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Une place au soleil [A Place in the Sun]: Soleil noir. Le parisien libr (April ,
).
Place au thtre: Surtout quand il convient admirablement la tlvision. Radiocinma-tlvision (November , ).
Plaidoyer pour un festival. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Plaidoyer pour Orvet. France-observateur (March , ).
Plaidoyer pour les vedettes: Les portes de la nuit. Radio-cinma-tlvision (September , ).
Le plaisir de Max Ophls. France-observateur (March , ).
Le plaisir . . . Pas trop nen faut. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Les plaisirs de lenfer [Peyton Place]. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Les plaisirs de lenfer [Peyton Place]. France-observateur (March , ).
Les plaisirs de lenfer [Peyton Place]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Plan amricain. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Le plan de Mr. Louvel. France-observateur (February , ).
La plus belle des vies: LAfrique nous parle! Le parisien libr (November , ).
Les plus belles annes de notre vie [The Best Years of Our Lives]: Appasionata. Le parisien
libr (October , ).
Les plus belles annes de notre vie [The Best Years of Our Lives] et le film social amricain. L cran franais (October , ), pp. , .
Le plus grand film de rsistance du monde: Pais. Le parisien libr (October ,
).
La plus jolie fille du monde: Pourrait donner davantage! Le parisien libr (November , ).
La pocharde: Arsenic et vieilles ficelles. Le parisien libr (May , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Pour un cinma impur: Dfense de ladaptation, extract from Cinma: un oeil ouvert
sur le monde (Lausanne: Guilde du Livre, ), in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. ,
Le cinma et les autres arts (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. ; in Quest-ce que le cinma? (Cerf, , rpt. ; single-volume version), pp. . A portion of this
piece, representing approximately more than a third of the text, appears in the collection of essays Cinma et roman: elements dapprciation, Revue des lettres modernes no. (Summer ), pp. .
Pour contribuer une rotologie de la tlvision. Cahiers du cinma no. (December ), pp. , .
Pour une critique cinmatographique. Lcho des tudiants, no. (December ,
), in Le cinma de loccupation et de la rsistance (Union Gnrale dditions,
), and in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Pour une critique cinmatographique (suite et fin). L cho des tudiants, no. (January ). Reprinted in Le cinma de loccupation et de la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
Pour en finir avec la profondeur de champ. Cahiers du cinma no. (April ),
pp. . Reprinted in in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Ontologie et langage (ditions du Cerf, ).
Pour une esthtique raliste. L information universitaire no. (November , ).
Le pour et le contre (Orson Welles). Cahiers du cinma no. (JulyAugust ),
pp. .
Pour favoriser les films de qualit il faut modifier la loi daide au cinma. Radiocinma-tlvision (July , ).
Pour un festival de lintelligence. Radio-cinma-tlvision (May , ).
Pour un festival trois dimensions [Cannes ]. Cahiers du cinma no. (May
), pp. .
Pour le meilleur et pour le pire ou le sot ly laisse. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ), pp. .
Le pour ou contre: Dix minutes de cinma. Cahiers du cinma no. (July ).
Le pour ou contre: Orson Welles. Cahiers du cinma no. (July ).
Pour plaire sa belle [To Please a Lady]. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Pour plaire sa belle [To Please a Lady]: Dplaisant mais intressant. Radio-cinmatlvision (January , ).
Pour le roi de Prusse [Der Untertan]: Un bon sujet. Le parisien libr (October ,
).
Pour ses dbuts de metteur en scne de thtre Jean Renoir rvle un nouveau Csar
Arlsiens. Arts (July , ).
Pour vous mon amour: La critique est Thse! Le parisien libr (March , ).
Pourquoi Michelangelo Antonioni a port lcran Laffaire des J [Les vaincus (I
vinti)]. Radio-cinma-tlvision (October , ).
La poursuite fantastique [Dragoon Wells Massacre] . . . sur sentiers battus. Le parisien
libr (June , ).
Prcieux Stakhanov: Un t prodigieux [Chtchedroe leto]. Lesprit , no. (March
), pp. .
Premier film franais de la comptition Les mauvaises rencontres de Alexandre Astruc
vont peut-tre ranimer le festivel de Venise. Le parisien libr (September ,
).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Premier film franais prsent (applaudi par les uns, siffl par les autres): Leau vive a
partag lopinion. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Le premier grand succs Venise est pour la France grce Jeux interdits de Ren
Clement.
Le parisien libr (September , ).
La premire des causes clbres: Une cause gagne. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ).
Premire dsillusion [The Fallen Idol]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
La premire lgion [The First Legion]: Miracles Hollywood. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Premire parisienne, hier soir: Un roi New-York [A King in New York]. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Premires impressions (critique plusieurs voix) [Le fil du rasoir (The Razors Edge) et
Lelisir damore (Elixir of Love)]. L cran franais (June , ).
Premires impressions sur Limelight de Charles Chaplin. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(November , ).
Les premiers outrages mais pas les derniers . . . Le parisien libr (November ,
).
Prsence de Jean Vigo. France-observateur (August , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile [], ),
pp. .
Le prsentateur et son public. L cran franais (November , ).
Prsentation un jury du film Silence de la mer. Le parisien libr (November ,
).
Prsentation de Tales of Manhattan [Six destins]. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Prsentation des Portes de la nuit. Lesprit (January ).
Prsentation par la fdration des cin-clubs, de Pais. Lesprit (January ).
Presenza della guerra [La harp birmane (Biruma no tatego); La traverse de Paris]. Cinema nuovo (Italy), , no. (October , ).
Le prsident [The Roosevelt Story]. Le parisien libr (February , ).
La princesse Georges. Radio-cinma-tlvision (January , ).
Princesse Sen. France-observateur (February , ).
Princesse Sen: Amour et samourais! Le parisien libr (February , ).
Le prisonnier de Zenda [The Prisoner of Zenda]: Deux rois, dont un as! Le parisien libr (November , ).
Prisonniers du marais [Lure of the Wilderness]: Dune prudente sauvagerie. Le parisien
libr (January , ).
Le prix Canudo. Cahiers du cinma no. (February ).
Le prix Delluc. France-observateur (December , ).
Le prix Louis Delluc et la qualit. France-observateur (December , ).
Le problme pour toute la tlvision: Vulgariser sans ennuyer ni trahir. Radiocinma-tlvision (February , ).
Le procs [Der Prozess]. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Procs de famille. Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Procs du Cinmascope: Il na pas tu le gros plan. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ), pp. , .
Le procs Paradine [The Fallen Idol]: Une belle machine qui manque dme. Le parisien
libr (December , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Rendez-moi ma femme! [As Young as You Feel]: Une agrable comdie. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Rendez-moi ma femme! [As Young as You Feel]: Nenterrons pas Capra. Radio-cinmatlvision (April , ).
Rendez-vous de Juillet: Un bon spectacle de Nol. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Rendons Csar [Bel ami]. France-observateur (January , ).
Ren Clair reoit un accueil triomphal Varsovie [Sous les toits de Paris]. Le parisien
libr (November , ).
Ren Clment et la mise en scne: En marge de Au del des grilles. L cran franais
(October , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague,
(ditions de ltoile [], ), pp. .
Ren Lucot a mis en scne le village des miracles avec intelligence. Radio-cinmatlvision (February , ).
Le renne blanc: Neige sanglante. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Renoir franais. Cahiers du cinma no. (January ), pp, .
Renoir nellarena. Cinema nuovo (Italy), , no. (September , ). Reprinted in
French in Jean Renoir. Paris: ditions Champ Libre, .
Renoir vu par Andr Bazin travers Le crime de Monsieur Lange et Le journal dune
femme de chambre. Cinma , (October ).
Le renouvellement des accords de Paris. France-observateur (September , ).
Rponse un lecteur. France-observateur (August , ).
Rponses L ge du cinma et Reflets du cinma. Cahiers du cinma no. (December ), pp. .
Rponses Georges Sadoul. France-observateur (October , ).
Rponses: Cet ge est sans piti. Cahiers du cinma no. (December ).
Rponses: De qui se moque-t-on? Cahiers du cinma no. (December ).
Un reportage sur lternit: La visite au Muse Rodin. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(November , ).
Reportages sportifs au journal tlvise. France-observateur (April , ).
Repos mi-course: Rflexions et pronostics sur dix jours du Festival de Bruxelles. Le
parisien libr (June , ).
Repris de justice [Avanzi di galera]: Libert sans . . . Caution. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Une Reprise: Quai des brumes. Le parisien libr (November , ). Reprinted
in Le cinma de loccupation et la rsistance. Paris: Union Gnrale dditions, .
Reprises [La fille du diable/La vie dun autre et dautres]. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
Reproduction interdite: Faux et usage de faux! Le parisien libr (February ,
).
Reproduction interdite: Faux film sur les faux tableaux. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(February , ).
Rsistance du chef-doeuvre [Limelight]. Lesprit , no. (February ),
pp. .
Responsabilits franaises, une aide la qualit pour dfendre la poule aux oeufs dor.
Radio-cinma-tlvision (December , ).
Le Retour [Homecoming]: Un grand sujet . . . Le parisien libr (July , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Le retour de Bulldog Drummond [Calling Bulldog Drummond]: Retour une tradition. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Le retour de Don Camillo [Il ritorno di Don Camillo]: Le rouge et le noir. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Le retour de Frank James [The Return of Frank James]. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
Retour de Manivelle. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Retours en arrire: Limelight. France-observateur (November , ).
Rvlation du Festival de Biarritz: Robert Montgomery sera-t-il un nouvel Orson
Welles? [Et tournent les chevaux de bois (Ride the Pink Horse)]. Le parisien libr
(August , ).
Je reviens de lenfer [Towards the Unknown]: Monte au ciel! Le parisien libr
(June , ).
Reviens petite Sheba [Come Back, Little Sheba]: Une vie de chien. Le parisien libr
(May , ).
Revoir Limelight. France-observateur (November , ).
Rvolte au crpuscule: Ce Crpuscule [Sundown] serait il celui de Hollywood? L cran
franais (December , ).
La rvolte des dieux rouges [Rocky Mountain]: Louest terne. Le parisien libr (November , ).
La rvolte [San Quentin]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
La revue des revues. Cahiers du cinma no. (September ), p. .
La revue des revues: France; Mdium, mai . Cahiers du cinma no. (June ).
La revue des revues: France; Positif, no. . Cahiers du cinma no. (June ),
pp. .
La revue des revues: France; Tl-Cin, no. , mars-avril . Cahiers du cinma
no. (June ).
La revue des revues: Italie; Bianco e Nero no. . Cahiers du cinma no. (October ).
La revue des revues: Jean Vigo nombre spcial de Positif. Cahiers du cinma no.
(August ), pp. .
Rhythme thique ou la preuve par le neuf. Cahiers du cinma no. (August ),
p. .
Richard III: Shakespeare et . . . Laurence Olivier. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Le rideau rouge: Le sang de la rampe. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Rien que la terre. France-observateur (July , ).
Rio Grande: Chevauches sans fantastique. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Rira bien . . . Radio-cinma-tlvision (October , ).
Rires au paradis [Laughter in Paradise]: Humour britannique. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(December , ).
Rires au paradis [Laughter in Paradise]: Sourires au fauteuil dorchestre. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Rires et ovations ont salu Mon oncle: Un grand film de Jacques Tati. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Rivire Rouge [Red River]: Un super Western. Le parisien libr (August , ).
Le rdeur [The Prowler]. France-observateur (January , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Sacha Guitry a fait confiance la tlvision comme il a fait confi ance au cinma en
. Radio-cinma-tlvision (January , ).
Les sacrifis [They Were Expendable]. Le parisien libr (April , ).
Les sacrifis [They Were Expendable]: Des vedettes (qui ne sont pas de Hollywood)
dans un John Ford qui vient un peu tard. L cran franais (April , ).
Sadko: Frie et gentillesse. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Sahara: Une technique excellente, de bons acteurs, un film de guerre naf. L cran
franais (June , ).
Un saint ne lest quaprs: La fille des marais [Cielo sulla Palude]. Cahiers du cinma
no. (May ), pp. , in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. , Une esthtique de la
ralit: Le no-ralisme (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. .
Saint Raphal. Radio-cinma-tlvision (August , ).
Le salaire du pch. France-observateur (January , ).
Le salaire du pch: Le journalisme ne paie pas. Le parisien libr (December ,
).
Les salauds vont en enfer: Bien fait pour eux! Le parisien libr (February ,
).
Sals Goms: Jean Vigo; ric Rohmer et Claude Chabrol: Hitchcock. Lesprit (October ).
Salka Valka. France-observateur (November , ).
Saludos amigos: Walt Disney la recherche de voies nouvelles. L cran franais
(February , ).
Sang et or [Body and Soul]. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Sans piti [Senza piet], ou lacadmisme de la ralit. Le parisien libr (July ,
).
Santiago: Jeanne dArc et les deux larrons! Le parisien libr (January , ).
Sao-Paulo a t surtout un festival de la culture cinmatographique. Cin-club (April
).
La sarabande des pantins [(OHenrys) Full House]: Marionnettes pour tous les gouts.
Le parisien libr (June , ).
Sauf pour le Grand Prix dcern au Voleur de bicyclette [Ladri di biciclette], palmars
de fantaisie Knokke-le-Zoute. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Savez-vous que. Le parisien libr (June , ).
Sayonara. Le parisien libr (March , ).
Sayonara: Madame Butterfly, . Radio-cinma-tlvision (April , ).
Scampolo scandale la cour [A Royal Scandal]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Scandale Cannes? Il ne faut jur de rien. Radio-cinma-tlvision (May , ).
Scandale dans le cinma franais. France-observateur (June , ).
La scandaleuse de Berlin [A Foreign Aff air]. Le parisien libr (April , ).
La science-fiction au cinma doit faire appel au fantastique mental. Radio-cinmatlvision (June , ), pp. .
Sciences daujourdhui. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ).
Un second Festival de Cannes aura lieu lan prochain. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
Le secret de Mayerling. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Le secret des eaux mortes [Lure of the Swamp]. Le parisien libr (November ,
).
Le secret professionnel: Thtre film. Arts (January , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Secrets de femmes [Three Secrets]: Trois mres pour un enfant. Le parisien libr
(July , .
Les secrets dOrson Welles: Interview exclusive [Macbeth and Citizen Kane]. L cran
franais (September , ).
Les secrets de Walt Disney [The Reluctant Dragon] et Folie douce. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
La selezione francese vista da Bazin: Una sconfitta giustificata. Cinema nuovo (Italy),
, no. (September , ).
Une semaine Cannes [Lor de Naples (Loro di Napoli)]. France-observateur
(May , ).
Une semaine de tlvision. Radio-cinma-tlvision (April , ).
La semaine du cinma sovitique: Sept nouveaux visages du cinma russe. Le parisien
libr (December , ).
La semaine du film franais Punta del Este a pris un bon dpart avec La sorcire. Le
parisien libr (March , ).
Une semaine voue au western [The Last Hunt, Shane, and Seven Men from Now].
France-observateur (July , ).
Senso: Beau comme la mort! Le parisien libr (February , ).
Senso de Luchino Visconti. France-observateur (February , ), in Quest-ce
que le cinma? Vol. , Une esthtique de la ralit: Le no-ralisme (ditions du Cerf,
), pp. .
Sensualita: Bl amer. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Les sentiers de la gloire [Paths of Glory]. Lesprit (October ).
Sept ans de rflexion [The Seven-Year Itch]: Attention Marilyn. Le parisien libr
(March , ).
Les sept femmes de Barberousse [Seven Brides for Seven Brothers]: Lamour danse! Le parisien libr (July , ).
Sept hommes abattre [Seven Men from Now]: Bon vent douest! Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Sept hommes abattre [Seven Men from Now]: Du beau, du bon, du vrai western.
Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Sept jours du cinma, quarante et une coproductions en . Radio-cinma-tlvision
(January , ).
jours de cinma. Radio-cinma-tlvision (April , ).
Sept jours de Venise. L cran franais (August , ).
Les sept samourais [Shichinin no samurai]. France-observateur (December , ).
Reprinted in Le cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
Les sept samourais [Shichinin no samurai]: Un western japonais! Le parisien libr
(December , ), p. .
Le me art tel quon lcrit: Avant-garde et mysticisme au cinma. Le parisien libr
(September , ).
Le me art tel quon lcrit: Quand le cinma se penche sur son pass . . . Le parisien
libr (September , ).
La septime croix [The Seventh Cross]. Le parisien libr (July , ).
Le VIIme Festival de Cannes aura t celui de la qualit international: Il aura consacr le triomphe du sujet sur la nouveaut des techniques. Le parisien libr
(April , ).
La septime porte. Le parisien libr (January , ).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Une Vie, dAlexandre Astruc. L ducation nationale (October , ), in Le cinma franais de la libration la nouvelle vague, (ditions de ltoile
[], ), pp. .
La Vie criminelle dArchibald de la Cruz [Ensayo de un Crimen]. Le parisien libr
(October , ).
La Vie criminelle dArchibald de la Cruz [Ensayo de un Crimen]: Une comdie inquitante et troublante. Radio-cinma-tlvision (October , ). Reprinted in Le
cinma de la cruaut. Paris: Flammarion, .
La vie de bohme. Le parisien libr (January , ).
La vie de Jsus: Et autres courts mtrages. Le parisien libr (April , ).
La vie de Oharu [Saikaku ichidai onna]. France-observateur (February , ),
pp. .
La vie de Oharu, femme galante [Saikaku ichidai onna]. Radio-cinma-tlvision
(September , ).
La vie de Oharu, femme galante [Saikaku ichidai onna]. Le parisien libr (February , ).
La vie de Oharu, femme galante [Saikaku ichidai onna]. Le parisien libr (December , ).
La vie dun honnte homme: Honnte mais pauvre! Le parisien libr (March ,
).
La vie de Thomas Edison [Edison, the Man]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
La Vie est belle [Its a Wonderful Life]. Le parisien libr (August , ).
La Vie est belle [Its a Wonderful Life]: Condamnation de Capra? L cran franais
(August , ).
Vie et mort de la surimpression I: propos de Ses trois amoureux [Le Dfunt recalcitrant (Here Comes Mr. Jordan); Ses trois amoureux (Tom, Dick, and Harry); Une petite ville sans histoire (Our Town)]. L cran franais (August , ), in Quest-ce
que le cinma? Vol. , Ontologie et langage (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. .
Vie et mort de la surimpression II: Les fantmes de Our Town [Une petite ville sans histoire]. L cran franais (August , ).
La Vie passionne de Clemenceau: Clemenceau par Clemenceau. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
La Vie passionne de Moussorgsky [Musorgskiy]: Ennuyeux en musique. Le parisien libr (July , ).
La Vie passionne de Vincent Van Gogh [Lust for Life]. L ducation nationale (February , ).
La Vie passionne de Vincent Van Gogh [Lust for Life]: La peinture lhuile. Le parisien
libr (February , ).
La vie recommence [La vita ricomincia]: Une bonne comdie de moeurs qui finit en
mlo. L cran franais (May , ).
Une vie sans joie ou Catherine. Cahiers du cinma no. (December ). Reprinted
in Jean Renoir. Paris: ditions Champ Libre, .
Viens avec moi [Come Live with Me] . . . Ne le suivez pas. Le parisien libr (December , ).
Vient de paratre: Une satire froce! Une interprtation brillante! Le parisien libr
(November , ).
Le village magique: Un habile tour de passe-passe. Le parisien libr (April ,
).
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Ville haute, ville basse [East Side, West Side]: Une interprtation exceptionnelle. Le parisien libr (August , ).
heures en quelques minutes. Radio-cinma-tlvision (August , ).
Violettes imperials: Deux sous de violettes pour un Empire! Le parisien libr
(December , ).
La Vipre [The Little Foxes] et Vivre libre [This Land Is Mine]. Le parisien libr
(July , ).
Virgile: Drle et de bon aloi. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ), p. .
Virgile: La foi qui sauve! Le parisien libr (November , ).
Visages de bronze. Cahiers du cinma no. (June ), p. .
Viva Zapata. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February , ).
Viva Zapata: Dune beaut trop sevre! Le parisien libr (January , ).
Vive la radio, bas le me Art; le cinma, la radio et le pch danglisme: Paradoxe
dun cinaste sur la radio. Radio-cinma-tlvision (February , ).
Vivre libre [This Land Is Mine]: La rsistance franaise lusage des Chinois. L cran
franais (July , ).
Vlamynck. Radio-cinma-tlvision (July , ).
Voici le burlesque, le genre qui fut majeur le premier se survit en se parodiant. Radiocinma-tlvision (August , ).
Voici la nouvelle B. B. telle que je lai vue Madrid ou elle tourne sous la direction de
Vadim Les Bijoutiers du Clair de lune. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Voit-on correctement les films dans les salles de quartier. France-observateur
(April , ).
Voiture , place . Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Volets clos [Persiane chiuse]: Les bas-fonds italiens. Le parisien libr (September , ).
Voleur de bicyclette [Ladri di biciclette], ou lpreuve victorieuse du noralisme italien.
Lesprit , no. (November ), pp. , in Quest-ce que le cinma? Vol. ,
Une esthtique de la ralit: Le no-ralisme (ditions du Cerf, ), pp. ; in
Quest-ce que le cinma? (Cerf, , rpt. ; single-volume version), pp. .
La Voleuse [A Stolen Life]. Le parisien libr (November , ).
Voulez-vous jouer avec vous? Radio-cinma-tlvision (March , ).
Vous pouvez voir ou revoir La Grande illusion de Jean Renoir grce la TV. Radiocinma-tlvision (October , ).
Le voyage Punta del Este. Cahiers du cinma no. (April ), pp. .
Le voyage de la peur [The Hitch-Hiker] et LAssassin sans visage [Follow Me Quietly]:
Deux films qui ne font pas le poids. Le parisien libr (October , ).
Le voyage de la peur [The Hitch-Hiker] et LAssassin sans visage [Follow Me Quietly]: La
quantit nest pas la qualit. Radio-cinma-tlvision (November , ).
Voyage en Italie [Lamour est plus fort (Viaggio in Italia)]. Monde Nouveau, September .
Les voyages de Sullivan [Sullivans Travels]. Le parisien libr (May , ).
Les voyages de Sullivan [Sullivans Travels]: Les aventures dun scnariste qui sest dguis en clochard; une rvolution dans la comdie Amricaine. L cran franais
(May , ).
Voyons un peu . . . o nous en sommes. Radio-cinma-tlvision (December ,
).
Le Vrai coupable. Le parisien libr (November , ).
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Andr Bazin and Italian Neorealism. Edited by Bert Cardullo. New York: Continuum,
.
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Bazin at Work: Major Essays and Reviews From the Forties and Fifties. Edited by Bert
Cardullo. New York: Routledge, .
The Cinema of Cruelty: From Buuel to Hitchcock. Translated by Sabine dEstre and
Tiffany Fliss. . New York: Arcade Publishing, .
Essays on Chaplin. Translated by Jean Bodon. New Haven, Connecticut: University of
New Haven Press, .
French Cinema from the Liberation to the New Wave, . Translated and edited by Bert Cardullo. New Orleans, Louisiana: University of New Orleans Press,
.
French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistance: The Birth of a Critical Esthetic. Translated by Stanley Hochman. Preface by Franois Truffaut. New York: Frederick Ungar, .
Jean Renoir. Translated by W. W. Halsey II and William H. Simon. New York: Simon
and Schuster, .
Orson Welles. Translated by Jonathan Rosenbaum. New York: Harper and Row, .
Los Angeles: Acrobat Books, .
What Is Cinema? Selected and translated by Timothy Barnard from the four volumes of
Quest-ce que le cinma? Montreal: Caboose Press, .
What Is Cinema? Selected and translated by Hugh Gray from the first two volumes of
Quest-ce que le cinma? Berkeley: University of Califomia Press, .
What is Cinema? Volume II. Selected and translated by Hugh Gray from the last two
volumes of Quest-ce que le cinma? Berkeley: University of California Press, .
Of Bazin at Workin Canadian Journal of Film Studies, . (): ; Sight and
Sound, . (August ): ; Film-Philosophy, . (August ); Film Quarterly,
. (Autumn ): ; Creative Screenwriting, . (): .
Of The Cinema of Crueltyin Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, . (Winter
): ; Library Journal, . (May , ): .
Of French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistancein Library Journal, . (December , ): ; Film Quarterly, . (): ; Afterimage, (January ):
; Films and Filming, no. (February ): ; Film Criticism, . (Winter ):
; Wide Angle, . (): ; American Film, (June ): +; Modern Language Journal, . (Winter ): .
Of Jean Renoirin Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, . (Winter ): ; Velvet Light Trap, . (March ): ; New York Times, September : ; Cinema Journal, . (): ; Film Heritage, . (): ; Film Quarterly, .
(): ; Focus on Film, no. (Autumn ): ; Sight and Sound, . (Winter
): ; Afterimage, (April ): ; Film Comment, (MayJune ):
; Christian Century, (June , ): .
Of Orson Wellesin Cineaste, . (): ; Library Journal, . (February ,
): ; Critic, . (July ): ; New York Times, July : Sec. , pp. +;
American Film, (October ): ; Focus on Film, no. (November ):
; Film Comment, . (November ): ; American Scholar, . (Winter
): ; Variety, no. (March/April ): ; Quarterly Review
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Aitken, Ian. Physical Reality: The Role of the Empirical in the Film Theory of Siefgried Kracauer, John Grierson, Andre Bazin, and Georg Lukacs. Studies in Documentary Film, . (): .
. And what about the spiritual life itself?: Distraction, Modernity, and Redemption; The Intuitionist Realist Tradition in the Work of John Grierson, Andr
Bazin, and Siegfried Kracauer. In Aitkens Realist Film Theory and Cinema,
. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, .
Alemany-Galway, Mary. Bazin: Phenomenology and Postmodernism. In AlemanyGalways A Postmodern Cinema: The Voice of the Other in Canadian Film, .
Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, .
Andrew, Dudley. Malraux, Benjamin, Bazin: A Triangle of Hope for Cinema. In
Film, Art, New Media: Museum without Walls? Edited by Angela Dalle Vacche,
. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, .
, and Herv Joubert-Laurencin, eds. Opening Bazin: Postwar Film Theory and Its
Afterlife. New York: Oxford University Press, .
Andrew, Dudley. What Cinema Is! Bazins Quest and Its Charge. New York: John Wiley & Sons, .
. Andr Bazin. Film Comment . (): .
. The Ontology of a Fetish. Film Quarterly . (): .
. Andr Bazin. In Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, vol. , edited by Michael Kelly,
. New York: Oxford University Press, .
. Bazins Evolution. In Defining Cinema, edited by Peter Lehman, .
New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, .
. Cinematic Politics in Postwar France: Bazin before Cahiers. Cineaste .
(): .
. Andr Bazin. New York: Oxford University Press, ; Columbia University
Press, ; Oxford University Press, .
. Andr Bazin. In Andrews The Major Film Theories, . New York: Oxford University Press, .
. Andr Bazin. Film Comment (March/April ): .
Armstrong, Richard. Andr Bazin. Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine
no. (February ): .
Aumont, Jacques. Andr Bazin and the Cinema of Transparency (). In Aesthetics
of Film, edited by Jacques Aumont, Alain Bergala, Michel Marie, and Marc Vernet,
translated by Richard Neupert, . Austin: University of Texas Press, .
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
. Andr Bazins Film Theory and Olivier Assayass Summer Hours (). Predella . (August ).
Daney, Serge. The Screen of Fantasy: Bazin and Animals. In Rites of Realism: Essays
on Corporeal Cinema, edited by Ivone Margulies, . Durham, North Carolina:
Duke University Press, .
DiIorio, Sam. Total Cinema: Chronique dun t and the End of Bazinian Film Theory. Screen . (): .
During, Lisabeth. Innocence and Ontology: The Truthfulness of Andr Bazin. In
European Film Theory. Ed. Temenuga Trifonova. New York: Routledge, .
.
During, Lisabeth, and Lisa Trahair. Belief in Cinema: Revisiting Themes from Bazin. Angelaki . (December ): .
Early, Michael. Andr Bazin. Performing Arts Journal . (Winter ): .
Eberwein, Robert T. Andr Bazin. In Eberweins A Viewers Guide to Film Theory and
Criticism, . Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, .
Fay, Jennifer. Seeing/Loving Animals: Andr Bazins Posthumanism. Journal of Visual Culture . (): .
Film International no. (November/December ). Special issue devoted to Bazin: Editorial: Andr Bazin at , by Jeffrey Crouse. Because We Need Him
Now: Re-Enchanting Film Studies through Bazin, by Jeffrey Crouse. What Is
Criticism? by Charles Warren. Godard and Bazin, by Diane Stevenson. Cinema as an Art of Potential Metaphors: The Rehabilitation of Metaphor in Andr
Bazins Realist Film Theory, by Mats Rohdin. Bazin as a Cavellian Realist, by
William Rothman. The View across the Courtyard: Bazin and the Evolution of
Depth Style, by Tom Paulus. Andr Bazin and the Preservation of Loss, by Karla
Oeler. The Best Years of Our Lives: Planes of Innocence and Experience, by Richard Armstrong.
France, Peter, ed. Andr Bazin. In The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French.
New York: Oxford University Press, .
Friday, Jonathan. Andr Bazins Ontology of Photographic and Film Imagery. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism . (): .
Galt, Rosalind. Its So Cold in Alaska: Evoking Exploration between Bazin and the
Forbidden Quest. Discourse . (): .
Gaycken, Oliver. [Bazins] Beauty of Chance: Gustav Deutschs Film ist. Journal of
Visual Culture . (December ): .
Giovacchini, Saverio. The Gap: How Andr Bazin Became Captain America. In
Across the Atlantic: Cultural Exchanges between Europe and the United States,
, edited by Luisa Passerini, . Brussels: Presses Interuniversitaires Europennes (P.I.E.)-Peter Lang, .
Glenn, Lauren N. Andr Bazin. Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities .
(Fall ): .
Gozlan, Grard. The Delights of Ambiguity: In Praise of Andr Bazin (). In
The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks, edited by Ginette Vincendeau and Peter
Graham, . . Reprint. London: BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, .
Grant, Michael. The Enduring Value of Andr Bazin. Film Studies no. ():
.
Gray, Hugh. On Interpreting Bazin. Film Quarterly . (): .
Greenhough, Alexander. Andr Bazin. Film Criticism . (Winter ): .
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Grist, Leighton. Whither Realism? Bazin Reconsidered. In Realism and the Audiovisual Media, edited by Lcia Nagib and Ceclia Mello, . Basinstoke, UK:
Palgrave Macmillan, .
Grnstad, Absjrn. Anatomy of a Murder: Bazin, Barthes, Blow-Up. Film Journal .
(Summer ): n.p.
Grosoli, Marco. Impure or Bastard? The Actual Place of Heterogeneity in Andr Bazins Writings. In In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy, edited by Sbastian Lefait and
Philippe Ortoli, . Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, .
. The Privileged Animal: The Myth of Childhood and the Myth of Realism
According to Andr Bazin. Red Feather: An International Journal of Childrens Visual Culture . (Fall ): .
. Rohmers Les amours dAstre et de Celadon as a Systematical Synthesis for
Bazins Space-Based Adaptation Theory. Film and Performance . (): .
Guglielmetti, Mark. Artificial Life, Andr Bazin, and Disney Nature. Philosophy of
Photography . (December ): .
Guiney, Martin. [Bazins] Total Cinema, Literature, and Testimonial in the Early
Films of Alain Resnais. Adaptation . (): .
Hao Jian. Andr Bazin in China: Spoken of and Forgotten. Contemporary Cinema
(China) (April , ).
Harcourt, Peter. What, Indeed, Is Cinema? Cinema Journal . (Fall ): .
Hediger, Vinzenz. The Miracle of Realism: Andr Bazin and the Cosmology of Film. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, .
Henderson, Brian. Bazin Defended against His Devotees. Film Quarterly . ():
.
. Reply to Hugh Gray. Film Quarterly . (): .
. The Structure of Bazins Thought. . In Hendersons A Critique of Film
Theory, . New York: E. P. Dutton, .
Hoberman, J(ames). The Myth of [Bazins] The Myth of Total Cinema. In Hobermans Film after Film: Or, What Became of st-Century Cinema?, . London:
Verso, .
Hock, Stephen. Stories Told Sideways Out of the Big Mouth: John Dos Passoss Bazinian Camera Eye. Literature/Film Quarterly . (): .
Horrigan, Bill. Andr Bazins Destiny. Jump Cut no. (December ).
Horton, Justin. Mental Landscapes: Bazin, Deleuze, and Neorealism (Then and
Now). Cinema Journal . (): .
Hu, Ke. Andr Bazins Influence and the Concept of Truth Film in China. Contemporary Cinema (China) (April , ).
James, Nick. A Priest and His Flock: The Critic Andr Bazin, Father Figure for New
Wave Directors. Sight and Sound . (May ): .
Jeong, Seung-Hoon. Andr Bazins Ontological Other: The Animal in Adventure
Films. Senses of Cinema no. (July ).
Jeong, Seung-Hoon, and Dudley Andrew. Grizzly Ghost: Herzog, Bazin, and the
Cinematic Animal. Screen . (): .
Jin, Danyuan. On the Philosophical Background of the [Bazinian] Theory of the
Long Take and Its Signification Today. Film and Theater (China) ().
Kauff mann, Stanley. Andr Bazin. In Kauff manns Before My Eyes: Film Criticism
and Comment, . New York: Harper & Row, .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Keathley, Christian. Andr Bazin and the Revelatory Potential of Cinema. In Keathleys Cinephilia and History, or, The Wind in the Trees, . Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, .
Kelley, Kathleen. Faithful Mechanisms: Bazins Modernism. Angelaki . (December ): .
Kline, T. Jefferson. The Film Theories of Bazin and Epstein: Shadow Boxing in the
Margins of the Real. Paragraph . (): .
Law, Jonathan. Stasis and Statuary in Bazinian Cinema. Critical Inquiry , Issue
Supplement S (July ): .
Le Fanu, Mark. The Metaphysics of the Long Take: Some Post-Bazinian Reflections. P.O.V. no. (December ).
Lesses, Glenn. Renoir, Bazin, and Film Realism. In Purdue Universitys Seventh Annual Conference on Film, edited by Marshall Deutelbaum and Thomas P. Adler,
. West Lafayette, Indiana: Department of English at Purdue University, .
Liu, Yunzhou. Philosophical Concepts in Bazins Film Theory. Contemporary Cinema (China) ().
Lowenstein, Adam. The Surrealism of the Photographic Image: Bazin, Barthes, and
the Digital Sweet Hereafter. Cinema Journal . (): .
Luo, Huisheng. Analyzing Total Realism: On Bazins Understanding of Film Aesthetics. Research in Literature and Art (China) ().
MacCabe, Colin. Bazinian Adaptation. In True to the Spirit: Film Adaptation and the
Question of Fidelity, edited by Colin MacCabe, Kathleen Murray, and Rick Warner,
. New York: Oxford University Press, .
MacCabe, Colin, and Sally Shafto. The cinema is not a bad school: Andr Bazin and
the Cahiers du cinma. In MacCabe and Shaftos Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at
Seventy, . . New York: Faber and Faber, .
MacCabe, Colin. Barthes and Bazin: The Ontology of the Image. In Writing the Image after Roland Barthes, edited by Jean-Michel Rabat, . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, .
Marie, Laurent. The Oak That Wished It Were a Reed: Georges Sadoul and Andr
Bazin. Paragraph . (): .
Mast, Gerald. What Isnt Cinema? Critical Inquiry . (December ): .
Matthews, Peter. Divining the Real: Andr Bazin, Father of Film Studies. Sight and
Sound . (August ): .
McConnell, Frank. The Critic as Romantic Hero: Andr Bazin. Quarterly Review of
Film Studies . (): .
McDonald, Neil. Two Kinds of Artistry [Renoir and Bazin]. Quadrant, . (November ): .
Michelson, Annette. What Is Cinema? Performing Arts Journal, . (May September ): .
Monaco, James. Mise en Scne: Neorealism, Bazin, and Godard. In Monacos How
to Read a Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond, . . Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, .
Morgan, Daniel. Bazins Modernism. Paragraph . (): .
. Rethinking Bazin: Ontology and Realist Aesthetics. Critical Inquiry .
(): .
Mullarkey, John. The Tragedy of the Object: Democracy of Vision and the Terrorism of Things in Bazins Cinematic Realism. Angelaki . (December ): .
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Musser, Charles. The Clash between Theater and Film: Germaine Dulac, Andr Bazin, and La Souriante Madame Beudet. New Review of Film and Television Studies
. (Summer ): .
Nelson, Thomas Allen. Andr Bazin. Film Criticism . (Fall ): .
Nettelbeck, Colin. Bazins Rib? French Women Filmmakers and the Evolution of the
Auteur Concept. Nottingham French Studies . (Autumn ): .
Ng, Jenna. The Myth of [Bazins] Total Cinephilia. Cinema Journal . ():
.
Nolan, Steve. Andr Bazin: the Parameters of Cinematic Protestantism. In Nolans
Film, Lacan, and the Subject of Religion: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Religious Film
Analysis, . New York: Continuum, .
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey. Andr Bazin. Film Quarterly . (Summer ): .
Oeler, Karla. Murder outside the Poetics of Montage: Andr Bazin and Jean Renoir.
In Oelers A Grammar of Murder: Violent Scenes and Film Form, . Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, .
Offscreen.com . (July ): Focus on Andr Bazin.
Offscreen.com . (February ). Special issue devoted to Bazin.
Perkins, Victor F. Minority Reports. In Perkins Film as Film: Understanding and
Judging Movies, . London: Penguin, .
Phillips, James. The Fates of Flesh: Cinematic Realism Following Bazin and Mizoguchi. Angelaki . (December ): .
Powrie, Phil, and Keith Reader. : Andr Bazin and the Politique des Auteurs. In Powrie and Readers French Cinema: A Students Guide, . London:
Bloomsbury, .
Quigley, Paula. Realism and Eroticism: Re-reading Bazin. Paragraph . ():
.
Reisz, Karel, and Gavin Millar. Andr Bazin. In Reisz and Millars The Technique of
Film Editing, . . Reprint. Burlington: Elsevier Science, .
Ricciardi, Alessia. The Italian Redemption of Cinema: Neorealism from Bazin to Godard. Romanic Review . (May ): .
Roberge, Gaston. An Exercise in Film Appreciation or the Magnificent Andr Bazin. In Roberges Another Cinema for Society. Calcutta, India: Seagull Books, .
.
Rohmer, ric. Andr Bazins Summa. . In Rohmers The Taste for Beauty. Trans.
Carol Volk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, . .
Rosen, Philip. Subject, Ontology, and Historicity in Bazin. In Rosens Change
Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory, . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, .
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Andr Bazin and the Politics of Sound in Touch of Evil. In
Rosenbaums Discovering Orson Welles, . Berkeley: University of California
Press, .
. Andr Bazin. Sight and Sound . (): .
Roud, Richard. Andr Bazin: His Fall and Rise. Sight and Sound . (Spring ):
.
. Face to Face: Andr Bazin. Sight and Sound . (): .
Rushton, Richard. Realism, Reality, and Authenticity [: Andr Bazin]. In Rushtons
The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality, . Manchester, UK: Manchester
University Press, .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Sarbiewska, J. Motion and Stillness in the Image: Relations of Herzogs Films and Baroque Painting in the Light of Andr Bazins Theory. Kwartalnik Filmowy (Film
Quarterly, Poland) (): .
Sarris, Andrew. The Aesthetics of Andr Bazin. In Sarriss The Primal Screen, .
New York: Simon and Schuster, .
Schoonover, Karl. An Inevitably Obscene Cinema: Bazin and Neorealism. In
Schoonovers Brutal Vision: The Neorealist Body in Postwar Italian Cinema, .
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, .
Sellier, Genevive. Andr Bazin, Film Critic for Le parisien libr (): An Enlightened Defender of French Cinema. Paragraph . (): .
Sesonske, Alexander. Andr Bazin. Georgia Review . (Winter ): .
Sinnerbrink, Robert. Cinematic Belief: Bazinian Cinephilia and Malicks The Tree of
Life. Angelaki . (December ): .
Smith, Douglas. Revisiting Andr Bazin. Paragraph . (): .
. Reading The Robe: Bazin and Widescreen. Paragraph . (): .
. A World That Accords with Our Desires?: Realism, Desire, and Death in
Andr Bazins Film Criticism. Studies in French Cinema . (): .
. Moving Pictures: The Art Documentaries of Alain Resnais and HenriGeorges Clouzot (Benjamin, Malraux, and Bazin). Studies in European Cinema .
(): .
Smith, Greg M. Reflecting on the Image: Sartrean Emotions in the Writings of Andr
Bazin. Film and Philosophy (): .
Song, Ze-shuang. Criticism on Andr Bazins Film Theory. Journal of Mianyang Normal University (China) April .
Stafford, Andy. Bazin and Photography in the Twenty-First Century: Poverty of Ontology? Paragraph . (): .
Staiger, Janet. Theorist, yes, but what of?: Bazin and History. Iris (France) . ():
.
. Andr Bazin. Wide Angle . (): .
Stob, Jennifer. Cut and Spark: Chris Marker, Andr Bazin, and the Metaphors of
Horizontal Montage. Studies in French Cinema . (January ): .
Thomas, Paul. Sorcerers Apprentice: Bazin and Truffaut on Renoir. Sight and Sound
. (Winter ): .
Tian, Song. Achievement and End of the [Bazinian] Myth of Total Cinema. Contemporary Cinema (China) ().
Tincknell, Estella, and Ian Conrich. Film Purity, the Neo-Bazinian Ideal, and Humanism in Dogma . P.O.V.: A Danish Journal of Film Studies no. (December
): .
Tredell, Nicolas. Touching the Real: Bazin and Kracauer. In Tredells Cinemas of
the Mind: A Critical History of Film Theory, . . Reprint. Cambridge, UK:
Icon Books, .
Tudor, Andrew. Aesthetics of Realism: Bazin and Kracauer. In Tudors Theories of
Film, . London: Secker & Warburg, .
Turk, Edward Baron. Andr Bazin. French Review . (March ): .
Valle, C. A. A Tribute to Andr Bazin. Media Development . (): .
Vaughan, Hunter. Andr Bazin. In Film, Theory, and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers,
edited by Felicity Colman, . Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press,
.
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Andrew, Dudley. Realism and Reality in Cinema: The Film Theory of Andr Bazin and Its Source in Recent French Thought. PhD diss., University of Iowa, .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Ballif, Mark, et al. Responsibility and Art: Sartre, Bazin, Levinas, and Renoir. A
University Scholars Project, Brigham Young University, .
Bodon, Jean-Richard Ren. Andr Bazins Charlie Chaplin: An Annotated Translation
and Analysis of Text Based on Methods Derived from De la politique des auteurs.
PhD diss., Florida State University, .
Brubaker, David Adam. Andr Bazins Realism: The Metaphysics of Film Reception.
PhD diss., University of Illinois-Chicago, .
Henderson, Brian Robert. Classical Film Theory: Eisenstein, Bazin, Godard, and
Metz. PhD diss., University of California-Santa Cruz, .
Hodgkinson, S. Rapt in Plastic: Word and Image in the Criticism of Andr Bazin.
M.Phil. thesis, University of Kent at Canterbury, .
. Andr Bazin: Text, Context, and Reception. PhD diss., University of East
Anglia, .
Jennings, Terry. Andr Bazin and the politique des auteurs. MA thesis, Flinders University of South Australia, .
Kori, Igor. Suspended Time: An Analysis of Bazins Notion of the Objectivity of the
Film Image. PhD diss., University of Stockholm, .
Nogales, Pamela C. The Problematic Legacy of Andr Bazin. BA thesis, School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, .
Penley, Mary Constance. The Rhetoric of the Photograph in Film Theory: Kracauer,
Bazin, Metz. PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, .
Rifkin, Stephen J. Andr Bazins Ontology of the Photographic Image: Representation, Desire, and Presence. PhD diss., Carleton University (Canada), .
Schoonover, Karl. Forms and Figures of Realism: Body as Example and Metaphor
in the Writings of Andr Bazin. In Schoonovers The Visual Made Visible: Neorealism and the Graphic Image. PhD diss., Brown University, . .
Sokol, Robert A. The Failure of Andr Bazins Realist Film Theory to Address the Perceptual Realism of Painted Sets, Mattes, and Backgrounds in Orson Welless Citizen Kane: A Cognitive and Ecological Perceptual Study. MA thesis, University of
Kansas, .
Testa, Bart. The Development of a Realist Film Theory: Andr Bazins Pilgrimage
from Technology to Theology. MA thesis, St. Michaels College, .
Trope, Zipora Sharf. A Critical Application of Andr Bazins Mise-en-Scne Theory in
The Last Laugh, Grand Illusion, and The Magnificent Ambersons. PhD diss., University of Michigan, .
Wood, Naaman Keith. Bazins Neorealism and Neorealistic Film Music Practices.
In Woods Musical Ellipses: Theoretical and Critical Perspectives on Music and
Film. PhD diss., Regent University, . .
Younger, James Prakash. Bazins Ontological Argument. MFA thesis, York University (Canada), .
S
N
Bibliography
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Film Credits
Intolerance ()
Director: D. W. Griffith
Screenplay: D. W. Griffith, Anita Loos, Tod Browning, Hettie Grey Baker, and
Mary H. OConnor
Cinematographer: G. W. Bitzer
Editors: D. W. Griffith, James Smith, Rose Smith
Music: Joseph Carl Breil, Carl Davis ()
Production Designers: D. W. Griffith, Walter L. Hall
Costume Designer: D. W. Griffith
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, silent, and in black and white
Cast: Constance Talmadge (the mountain girl), Mae Marsh (the dear one), Fred Turner
(her father), Robert Harron (the boy), Alfred Paget (Prince Belshazzar), Sam De
Grasse (Arthur Jenkins), Lillian Gish (woman who rocks the cradle), Frank Bennett (King Charles IX of France), Josephine Crowell (Catherine de Medici), Henry
Lawrence (Henry of Navarre), Lawrence Lawlor (judge), Vera Lewis (Mary T. Jenkins), Ralph Lewis (the governor), Margery Wilson (Brown Eyes), Elmer Clifton
(the rhapsode), Miriam Cooper (the friendless one), Douglas Fairbanks (drunken
soldier)
La roue (The Wheel, )
Director: Abel Gance
Screenplay: Abel Gance
Cinematographers: Gaston Brun, Marc Bujard, Lonce-Henri Burel, and Maurice
Duverger
Editor: Marguerite Beaug, Abel Gance
Music: Arthur Honegger, Robert Israel ()
Art Director: Robert Boudrioz
Running time: minutes
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
et son matre, by Denis Diderot, which was finished in but not published in
French until )
Cinematographer: Philippe Agostini
Editor: Jean Feyte
Music: Jean-Jacques Grnewald
Art Director: Max Douy
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Maria Casars (Hlne), lina Labourdette (Agns), Paul Bernard (Jean), Lucienne Bogaert (Agnss mother), Jean Marchat (Jacques)
La bataille du rail (Battle of the Rails, )
Director: Ren Clment
Screenplay: Ren Clment and Colette Audry
Cinematographer: Henri Alekan
Editor: Jacques Desagneaux
Music: Yves Baudrier
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Jean Clarieux (Lampin), Jean Daurand (railway worker), Jacques Desagneaux
(Athos), Franois Joux (railway worker), Pierre Latour (railway worker), Tony Laurent (Camargue), Robert Le Ray (station chief), Pierre Lozach (railway worker),
Pierre Mindaist (railway worker), Lon Paulon (deputy station chief), Fernand
Rauzna (railway worker), Marcel Barnault (railway worker), Michel Salina (the
German)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Macbeth ()
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
of Denmark), Norman Wooland (Horatio), Felix Aylmer (Polonius, Lord Chamberlain), Terence Morgan (Laertes), Jean Simmons (Ophelia)
Stalingradskaya bitva (The Battle of Stalingrad, )
Director: Vladimir Petrov
Screenplay: Nikolai Virta
Cinematographer: Yuri Yekelchik
Music: Aram Khachaturyan
Art Director: Leonide Mamaladze
Costume Designer: Vasili Kovrigin
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Aleksandr Antonov (Colonel Popov), Mikhail Astangov (Adolf Hitler), Nikolai Cherkasov (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), Aleksei Dikij (Joseph Stalin), Vladimir
Gajdarov (Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus), Nikolai Komissarov (Field Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel), Boris Livanov (General Alfred Jodl), Nikolai Ryzhov (Lazar Kaganovich), Maxim Schtrauch (Vyacheslav Molotov), Viktor Khokhryachov (Georgi
Malenkov), Viktor Stanitsyin (Winston Churchill), Konstantin Mikhailov (Averell Harriman)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Sunset Boulevard ()
Director: Billy Wilder
Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr.
Cinematographer: John F. Seitz
Editors: Doane Harrison, Arthur P. Schmidt
Music: Franz Waxman
Art Directors: Hans Dreier, Hans Meehan
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: William Holden (Joe Gillis), Gloria Swanson (Norma Desmond), Erich von
Stroheim (Max von Mayerling), Nancy Olson (Betty Schaefer), Fred Clark (Sheldrake), Lloyd Gough (Morino), Jack Webb (Artie Green), with Cecil B. DeMille,
Buster Keaton, and Hedda Hopper as themselves
Cyrano de Bergerac ()
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Caged ()
Director: John Cromwell
Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld
Cinematographer: Carl E. Guthrie
Editor: Owen Marks
Music: Max Steiner
Art Director: Charles H. Clarke
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Eleanor Parker (Marie Allen), Agnes Moorehead (Ruth Benton), Ellen Corby
(Emma Barber), Hope Emerson (Evelyn Harper), Betty Garde (Kitty Stark), Jan
Sterling (Jeta Kovsky), Lee Patrick (Elvira Powell), Olive Deering (June Roberts),
Jane Darwell (isolation matron), Gertrude Michael (Georgia Harrison), Sheila
MacRae (Helen)
Il cammino della speranza (The Road to Hope, )
Director: Pietro Germi
Screenplay: Pietro Germi, Federico Fellini, and Tullio Pinelli, from the novel Hearts
on the Edge
(Cuori sugli abissi), by Nino Di Maria
Cinematographer: Leonida Barboni
Editor: Rolando Benedetti
Music: Carlo Rustichelli
Production Designer: Luigi Ricci
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Raf Vallone (Saro), Elena Varzi (Barbara), Saro Urz (Ciccio), Saro Arcidiacono
(the accountant), Franco Navarra (Vanni), Liliana Lattanzi (Rosa), Mirella Ciotti
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Betty Stockfeld (Lucy Barville), Jean Galland (Claude Beauchamp), William Tubbs
(Spencer Borch), Jean Toulout (Herbert Barville), Yette Lucas (Madame Leroy),
Jean Riveyre (Julien), Grgoire Gromoff (Igor), Jean-Pierre Vaguer (Ernest)
M ()
Director: Joseph Losey
Screenplay: Leo Katcher, Fritz Lang, Norman Reilly Raine, Waldo Salt, and Thea von
Harbou
Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo
Editor: Edward Mann
Music: Michel Michelet
Art Director: Martin Obzina
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: David Wayne (Martin W. Harrow), Howard Da Silva (Inspector Carney), Martin Gabel (Charlie Marshall, crime boss), Luther Adler (Dan Langley), Steve Brodie (Lt. Becker), Raymond Burr (Pottsy), Glenn Anders (Riggert), Norman Lloyd
(Sutro), Walter Burke (MacMahan), John Miljan (Blind Baloon Vendor), Roy
Engel (Police Chief Regan), Janine Perreau (the last little girl), Leonard Bremen
(Lemke), Benny Burt (Jansen), Bernard Szold (building watchman), Robin Fletcher
(Elsie Coster), Karen Morley (Mrs. Coster), Jim Backus (the mayor), Jorja Curtright
(Mrs. Stewart)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
lieutenant), Royal Dano (the tattered man), John Dierkes (the tall soldier), Arthur
Hunnicutt (Bill Porter), Tim Durant (the general), Andy Devine (the cheery soldier), Robert Easton (Thompson)
Guardie e ladri (Cops and Robbers, )
Director: Mario Monicelli, Steno
Screenplay: Vitaliano Brancati, Aldo Fabrizi, Ennio Flaiano, Ruggero Maccari, Mario
Monicelli, Steno, and Piero Tellini
Cinematographer: Mario Bava
Editor: Adriana Novelli
Music: Alessandro Cicognini
Production Designer: Flavio Mogherini
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Tot (Ferdinando Esposito), Aldo Fabrizi (Brigadieri Bottoni), Pina Piovani
(Espositos wife), Ave Ninchi (Giovanna, Bottonis wife), Rossana Podest (Bottonis daughter), Ernesto Almirante (Espositos father), Carlo Delle Piane (Libero,
Espositos son), Gino Leurini (Espositos brother-in-law), Aldo Giuffr (Espositos
partner), William Tubbs (Mr. Locuzzo, the tourist)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Cast: Carlo Battisti (Umberto D., or Umberto Domenico Ferrari), Maria Pia Casilio (Maria), Lina Gennari (Antonia, the landlady), Alberto Albani Barbieri (Paolo,
the landladys fianc), Ilena Simova (the lady in the park), Elena Rea (the nun at the
hospital), Memmo Carotenuto (patient at the hospital)
Europa (Europe ; a.k.a. The Greatest Love, )
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Screenplay: Roberto Rossellini, Sandro De Feo, Mario Pannunzio, Ivo Perilli, and
Brunello Rondi
Cinematographer: Aldo Tonti
Editor: Jolanda Benvenuti
Music: Renzo Rossellini
Production Designer: Virgilio Marchi
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Ingrid Bergman (Irene Girard), Alexander Knox (George Girard), Ettore Giannini (Andrea Casatti), Teresa Pellati (Ines), Giulietta Masina (Passerotto), Marcella
Rovena (Mrs. Puglisi), Tina Perna (Cesira), Sandro Franchina (Michele Girard),
Giancarlo Vigorelli (judge), Maria Zanoli (Mrs. Galli), William Tubbs (Professor
Alessandrini), Alberto Plebani (Mr. Puglisi), Alfred Brown (hospital priest), Gianna
Segale (nurse), Antonio Pietrangeli (psychiatrist)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
High Noon ()
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Screenplay: Carl Foreman and John W. Cunningham
Cinematographer: Floyd Crosby
Editor: Elmo Williams
Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Production Designer: Rudolph Sternad
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Gary Cooper (Marshal Will Kane), Thomas Mitchell (Mayor Jonas Henderson),
Lloyd Bridges (Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell), Katy Jurado (Helen Ramrez), Grace
Kelly (Amy Fowler Kane), Otto Kruger (Judge Percy Mettrick), Lon Chaney Jr.
(Martin Howe), Harry Morgan (Sam Fuller), Ian MacDonald (Frank Miller), Eve
McVeagh (Mildred Fuller), Morgan Farley (Dr. Mahin, Minister), Harry Shannon
(Cooper), Lee Van Cleef (Jack Colby), Robert J. Wilke (Jim Pierce), Sheb Wooley
(Ben Miller)
Roma ore undici (Rome, Eleven OClock, )
Director: Giuseppe De Santis
Screenplay: Cesare Zavattini, Giuseppe De Santis, Basilio Franchina, Rodolfo Sonego,
and Gianni Puccini
Cinematographer: Otello Martelli
Editor: Gabriele Varriale
Music: Mario Nascimbene
Production Designer: Lon Barsacq
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Eva Vanicek (Gianna), Carla del Poggio (Lucinna), Massimo Girotti (Mando),
Lucia Bos (Simona), Raf Vallone (Carlo), Elena Varzi (Adriana), Lea Padovani
(Caterina), Delia Scala (Angelina), Irene Galter (Clara), Paolo Stoppa (Claras father), Maria Grazia Francia (Cornelia), Naudio Di Claudio (Mr. Ferrari), Armando
Francioli (Romolo)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Cast: Brunella Bovo (Wanda Cavalli), Leopoldo Trieste (Ivan Cavalli), Alberto Sordi
(Fernando Rivoli), Giulietta Masina (Cabiria), Fanny Marchi (Marilena Velardi),
Ernesto Almirante ( fotoromanzo director), Ettore Margadonna (Ivans uncle)
Gembaku no ko (Children of Hiroshima, )
Director: Kaneto Shind
Screenplay: Kaneto Shind, from the novel by Arata Osada
Cinematographer: Takeo Ito
Editor: Zenju Imaizumi
Music: Akira Ifukube
Art Director: Takashi Marumo
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Nobuko Otowa (Takako Ishikawa), Osamu Takizawa (Iwakichi), Niwa Saito
(Natsue Morikawa), Chikako Hosokawa (Setsu, Takakos mother), Masao Shimizu
(Toshiaki, Takakos father), Yuriko Hanabusa (Oine), Tanie Kitabayashi (Otoyo),
Tsutomu Shimomoto (Natsues husband), Taiji Tonoyama (Owner of a ship)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
flieg (Franz Liszt), Werner Finck (Wisbck, the artist), Ivan Desny (Lieutenant
Thomas James), Hlna Manson (Lieutenant Jamess sister)
East of Eden ()
Director: Elia Kazan
Screenplay: Paul Osborn, from the novel by John Steinbeck
Cinematographer: Ted D. McCord
Editor: Own Marks
Music: Leonard Rosenman
Art Directors: James Basevi, Malcolm C. Bert
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in color
Cast: Julie Harris (Abra), James Dean (Cal Trask), Raymond Massey (Adam Trask),
Burl Ives (Sam the Sheriff ), Richard Davalos (Aron Trask), Jo Van Fleet (Kate),
Albert Dekker (Will Hamilton), Lois Smith (Anne), Harold Gordon (Gustav Albrecht), Nick Dennis (Rantani)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Cast: Maria Schell (Gervaise Macquart Coupeau), Franois Prier (Henri Coupeau),
Jany Holt (Mme Lorilleux), Mathilde Casadesus (Mme Boche), Florelle (Maman
Coupeau)
Elena et les hommes (Paris Does Strange Things, )
Director: Jean Renoir
Screenplay: Jean Renoir and Jean Serge
Cinematographer: Claude Renoir
Editor: Borys Lewin
Music: Joseph Kosma
Production Designer: Jean Andr
Costume Designers: Rosine Delamare, Monique Plotin
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in color
Cast: Ingrid Bergman (Elena Sokorowska), Jean Marais (Gnral Franois Rollan),
Mel Ferrer (Le Comte Henri de Chevincourt), Jean Richard (Hector), Juliette
Grco (Miarka), Pierre Bertin (Martin-Michaud), Frdric Duvalls (Gaudin), Renaud Mary (Fleury), Jacques Morel (Duchne), Albert Rmy (Buchez)
Giant ()
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
Cast: Robert Ryan (Lt. Benson), Aldo Ray (Sgt. Montana, Joseph R. Willomet), Robert Keith (The Colonel), Phillip Pine (Sgt. Riordan, radio man), Nehemiah Persoff
(Sgt. First Class Nate Lewis), Vic Morrow (Cpl. James Zwickley), James Edwards
(Sgt. Killian), L. Q. Jones (Sgt. Davis), Scott Marlowe (Pvt. Meredith), Adam Kennedy (Pvt. Maslow), Race Gentry (Pvt. Haines), Walter Kelley (Pvt. Ackerman),
Anthony Ray (Pvt. Penelli), Robert Normand (Pvt. Christensen), Michael Miller
(Pvt. Lynch), Victor Sen Yung (Korean sniper)
Malva ()
Director: Vladimir Braun
Screenplay: Nikolai Kovarsky, from the novella of the same name by Maxim
Gorky
Cinematographer: Vladimir Vojtenko
Music: Igor Shamo
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in color
Cast: Dzidra Ritenberga (Malva), with Arkadi Tolbuzin, Anatoli Ignatyev, Pavel
Usovnichenko, and Gennadi Yukhtin
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
the composer), Teresa Berezowska (Halinka), Jan Englert (Zefir), Kazimierz Dejunowicz (Capt. Zabawa), Zdzislaw Lesniak (Maly), Maciej Maciejewski (Lt. Gustaw), Adam Pawlikowski (SS man)
Donzoko (The Lower Depths, )
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni, from the play of the same name
by Maxim Gorky
Cinematographer: Kazuo Yamasaki
Editor: Akira Kurosawa
Music: Masaru Sat
Production Designer: Yoshir Muraki
Costume Designer: Yoshiko Samejima
Running time: minutes
Format: mm, in black and white
Cast: Toshir Mifune (Sutekichi, the thief), Isuzu Yamada (Osugi, the landlady),
Kyko Kagawa (Okayo, Osugis sister), Ganjir Nakamura (Rokubei, Osugis husband), Minoru Chiaki (Tonosama, the former Samurai), Kamatari Fujiwara (The
actor), Akemi Negishi (Osen, prostitute), Nijiko Kiyokawa (Otaki, the candyseller), Kji Mitsui (Yoshisaburo, the gambler), Eijir Tno (Tomekichi, the tinker),
Bokuzen Hidari (Kahei, the pilgrim), Kichijir Ueda (Shimazo, the police agent)
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
Film Credits
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
)34(3+5222'65(278
Author's Set
S
N
)34(3+5222'65(278