Description
Book SynopsisThe uprising which shook France in May 1968 also had a revolutionary effect on the country’s most prominent film journal. Under editors Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni,
Cahiers du cinéma embarked on a militant turn that would govern the journal's work over the next five years. Inspired by Marxist and psychoanalytic theory, the "red years" of
Cahiers du cinéma produced a theoretical outpouring that was seminal for the formation of film studies and is still of vital relevance for the contemporary audiovisual landscape.
The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinéma (1968-1973) gives an overview of this period in the journal’s history and its aftermath, combining biographical accounts of the critics who wrote for
Cahiers in the post 1968 period with theoretical explorations of their key texts.
Trade Review"Daniel Fairfax’s book is an impressive work that casts new light on the history of
Cahiers du cinéma. Thanks to exhaustive archival research, Fairfax re-establishes the coherent yet complex trajectory of the journal. It is an exemplary study: the outcome of true dedication, astute critical sensibility and a great passion for film."
- Francesco Casetti, Yale University
"During its 'red years,' the core contributors to
Cahiers du cinéma rethought cinema in ways that have had lasting influence for contemporary film studies. This is an extraordinarily comprehensive work that not only yields a tremendous amount of information and theoretical nuance, but also offers new ways of understanding
Cahiers in its Marxist phase."
- Philip Rosen, Brown University
Listen to author Daniel Fairfax in conversation with Annie Berke, the Film Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, on the New Books in Film podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2yh5YCxk3ChglwhdSHZYZr
Table of ContentsVolume I: Ideology and Politics Acknowledgements
A Note on Translations
Introduction
Part I Theories of Ideology
1. "Cinema/Ideologie/Critique": An Epistemological Break?
2. Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni: Crossed Lives
3.
Décalages: "
Young Mr. Lincoln de John Ford"
4. "La Vicariance du Pouvoir" and the Battle of
Othon 5. "Technique et Ideologie" by Jean-Louis Comolli
6. Afterlives of the Apparatus
Part II Engagements with Politics
7. The Radicalization of
Cahiers: 1963-1969
8.
Cahiers du cinéma and the Rapprochement with the PCF: 1969-1971
9.
Cahiers du cinéma’s Turn to Maoism: 1971-1973
10.
Cahiers du cinéma and Jean-Luc Godard
11.
Cahiers du cinéma in the "Post-
gauchiste" Era: 1973-1981
12. Bernard Eisenschitz: Cinema, Communism and History
13. Jean-Louis Comolli: A Theoretical Practice of Political Cinema
Volume II: Aesthetics and Ontology Part III Questions of Aesthetics
14. Encounters with Structuralism
15. Beyond Structuralism: Film Form and
Écriture 16. Re-reading Classical Cinema
17. The Defense and Critique of Cinematic Modernism
18. Encountering the World Through Cinema
19. The Film Aesthetics of Jacques Aumont
20. Two
Ciné-fils: Pascal Kane and Serge Daney
Part IV Encounters with Ontology
21. The Bazinian Legacy
22. Jean-Pierre Oudart and Suture
23. Realism and Psychoanalysis in Pierre Baudry
24. Partial Vision: The Theory and Filmmaking of Pascal Bonitzer
25. The Brain is the Screen:
Cahiers du cinéma and Gilles Deleuze
26. Film Ontology in the Age of "New" Media
Conclusion
Index of Names Cited
