Francois Truffaut and Jean Genet

2011-08-06T10:47:00.001-04:00

This is my translation of the entry for Jean Genet from Le Dictionnaire Truffaut edited by Antoine de Baecque and Arnaud Guigue. Noel Herpe provided this entry and it appears on pages 178-179.

Jean Genet is, first off, the great literary mirror of Truffaut, a child, if not criminal, at least, unloved and made to feel guilty by all the forms of bourgeois order...In the state of rebellion and aimlessness that is his right after the war, when he has just become seduced by another anarchic self-exaltation, that of Sacha Guitry's Le roman d'un tricheur, we learns that the young man selected the author of The Thief's Journal as a writing master, through a process of psychological identification where an autobiographical undertaking takes shape. This double dimension is plain in this 1951 letter to Robert Lachenay:
"I have sent...an article 'Jean Genet, My Comrade'. I don't know if it will be published because of established morality...If you somewhere happen on The Thief's Journal...read it...it simply is overwhelming, a little like J-J Rousseau (whom I have not read!).
The article wasn't published, but sent to Genet by Gallimard, young man scored a cordial invitation from the writer to pay him a visit...It is the beginning of a friendship which presents slightly the libertarian side of Bazinian messianism: while the apostle of Travail et Culture helped Truffaut to be (re)born in cinephile engagement, Genet cultivate alternatively his desire for encounter and his hatred of dogma.

Undergoing a moral crisis on the threshold of his 40s, he threw himself into this double renewal, "...when I saw you entering my room, I thought I saw myself, almost an hallucination, when I was 19. I do hope that you will preserve, for a long time, this severity of regard and this unaffected, and a little unfortunate, way of expressing yourself."
Genet remained a careful standard for Truffaut throughout his military and guardhouse ordeals, sending him letters, books and other things. There developed between them an odd doomed bond, as if both of them recognize in the other his aura of depression - and wanted to make of it an epical glory through a number of acts which would establish their independence class="clickable">.
For Truffaut, in custody as an army deserter, the first of these acts transpires by the keeping of an intimate journal in the manner of Genet, in which the diarist is already beginning a mise-en-scene of his interiority.
"We go to the showers in handcuffs. The first time I was embarrassed since we must cross through the hospital and people stared us down. Then I was ashamed of my shame, for doesn't the Genetienne posture command me to take pride in meriting handcuffs? So, now, before going to the showers, I light a cigarette and set my mouth into a satisfied smile with a touch of aggression."
Beyond this mimicry, Truffaut, in his polemics, practices Genet's lessons most violently by passing from the role of pariah to that of arbiter of precedences; by inverting the hierarchy, the chronicler inflicted on the cinematic establishment the perverse transmutation which the writer reserved to the marginal of society...And one finds this symbolic transgression in The Four Hundred Blows - even if, Antoine Doinel is categorically not a child criminal. Even if, Genet, likewise, distanced himself from Truffaut, accusing him of being a "vainglorious joker", preferring to stay on the other side of the barricade.

Translation of a review of "Claude Chabrol, Par lui-même et par les siens" by Serge Toubiana

2011-04-22T10:09:00.004-04:00

Recently published in France, Claude Chabrol, Par lui-même et par les siens collects interviews given by Chabrol to journalist Michel Pascal in the last year of his life along with interviews with others who were close to him. What follows is a translation of a review published by Serge Toubiana, the director of the Cinémathèque Française, on his blog.

It is true, the cover is rather ugly. Even too ugly. It is only just about that Claude Chabrol’s face, drawn as a man-fish, are recognizable swimming in a fishbowl. Strange metaphor. Curious idea, while it would have been so much simpler, and, doubtlessly, more effective, to illustrate the cover of the book Claude Chabrol, Par lui-même et par les siens which has just appeared from the publisher Stock with a recent photo of the filmmaker.
The book was begun during Chabrol’s life by Michel Pascal. The latter did not permit his name to be listed on the cover even though he was the originator of the book. It was, he writes in his preface, it was right after the death of Eric Rohmer, on January 11, 2010 that Chabrol finally made up his mind to undertake the dialogue with a view towards publication. “What about me telling you the my real life story?” he said to him. To read this book, which is easily read and not with emotion, one wonders, was Chabrol getting himself ready for an autobiography? are the things, or aspects of his life that we are unmindful of? did he not, himself prefer his labor, his films, his body of work, to his own life? I thought that I pretty much knew everything about the man, only son of a bourgeois family, his father a pharmacist and a member of the Resistance, his severe, authoritarian mother who kept her son at a distance, and vice versa. “I was not enamoured of her, as François Truffaut. There was without doubt an issue of affection between us. I loved her at a distance trying to wipe away a tear. Madeleine was her name, and, with her, it was pure Catholicism, the appearance of strictness and honesty, the typical bourgeois of the late 19th century holding herself straight up.”
In his films, Chabrol did not settle the score with his mother, that is not a theme running through his work. The impression is that he settled the business in choosing to become a film director. The rest, the Catholic religion, the bourgeois morality, Paul Gégauff, who was his accomplice and scenarist, (perhaps of Chabrol’s best films, Les Bonnes Femmes, Que la bête meure) but also, in a sort of way, his “brain-washer” played a crucial role in the intellectual evolution of the filmmaker, “Without Gégauff, my personal evolution would have been slower and not as joyful. I. doubtlessly, would have succeeded at the same ends, but with much more difficulty. He blew apart the deadbolt at my Judeo-Christian core. He incarnated the freedom that I did not know how to gain all by myself.” No more beautiful homage.
As opposed to others - for example, Truffaut, often cited in this book -, Chabrol did not make films to tell his life-story. And nevertheless... Reading this book, conceived by Michel Pascal, begun with Chabrol and seen through to its conclusion, beyond the death of the filmmaker last September, with the participation of his family - we will come back to this - helps us to understand better how, in the work of the singular person that Chabrol was, things become interwoven. This is borne out, first off, by the frankness with which Chabrol expresses himself when he summons up his own life, through diverse passages which are as much short chapters recounted with a quick spirit and a great deal of humor. One has the feeling that Chabrol is finally letting the mask fall away, that he is no longer looking, as he had so often done, for refuge in a hearty laughter in order to sidestep the heart of the matter.
What emerges, and those who like his films - which I do, while appreciating the human qualities of the man - already know are two things. An unbelievable intelligence in its strategy of the most sophisticated mechanisms that are able to animate the human being, with their defenses, their fears, their buried desires, and also, a taste for joy. The intelligence is something readily shared among filmmakers of Chabrol’s caliber. As for joy, that’s something else. Can it be said that Godard has a taste for joy? I do not believe so. Truffaut? That’s complicated, Truffaut liked his work, his independence, but he bore on his frail shoulders all the worry of the world. Chabrol had a unbelievable capacity for reasoning, for making his sense of logic understood. He quickly found his point of equilibrium, between a relatively stable private life, that of a loving father of a family surrounded by his own, and a rigorous management of his work. Chabrol, speaking of his vision of the world: “My vision of the world was forged between 1955 and 1964, after my military service. I began by noting the bullshit around, I had true radar. I was in the clutches of a frightening spiral of events for I realized the errors being committed by people who had the same opinions as I...” The most important question regarding Chabrol is, how did he conceive this absolutely unique strategy, so different from that of his “New Wave” friends, of “making films ‘theme and variation’”. He tells Michel Pascal, “a pre-meditated act”. And he applied himself, without ever a deviation, making compromises from time to time, but without abandoning the essential: the joy of making these films, films that he choose to undertake. “There is nothing abject in venturing into all fields. I do not see why filmmakers could not be like painters who have the right to make bad canvasses, if only to deepen their art. I am not like Truffaut who wished that all of his films were equals among each other, and who was successful in that way. I wanted to film, whatever happened.”
When you understand that in his work, the taste for joy is the fundamental core, the cornerstone which pulls in all the rest, things follow naturally. Chabrol shot film after film, preserving intact in it his sense of the provocative, a logical rigor, worthy of that of a chess player, in the construction of his mise-en-scene, a continuing and replenished pleasure of exploring the Human Comedy (Balzac, Simenon). He lived a an orderly life, in turn with three women, each of whom will bear witness with intelligence and generosity in the work: Agnès Goute, his first wife, the mother of Jean-Yves and Matthieu, Stéphane Audran, the mother of Thomas, and Aurore, with whom Chabrol lived for more than thirty years, his associate and script supervisor, the mother of Cécile, who was adopted by Chabrol as his own daughter and was his assistant director.
Chabrol, in the last chapter of his remarks, evokes his wanderings. The word is new in his language, you suddenly sense in him something like fatigue - he had just passed the age of 80 -, the fear of running out of steam, of no longer being in a physical situation to make films. The last interview with Michel Pascal dates from August 2010. The man no longer has all of his robustness, he says things very gentle, and deserved, about Gérard Depardieu, with whom the meeting was late but happy (Bellamy). And Chabrol concludes thusly, “Such that they will give me three pennies and a little bit of so that I can show my wanderings, I will continue.”
Aurore Chabrol recounts her encounter with Chabrol at the beginning of the 70s (Juste avant la nuit, a masterpiece). Her testimonial. as those of others who figure in the book (Agnès Goute, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Yves Chabrol, Matthieu Chabrol, Cécile Maistre and Isabelle Huppert) is touching, most sincere and of course, intimate. But it is also in the image of the person, that is to say, droll: “I spiffed him up with nicknames that he more or less appreciated. His favorites were Hercule Poivrot, and the Ayatollah Khomédy. He lived happily, extolling the revolution but detesting the conflicts, forgiving the fly-by-night characters whose laziness or acquiescence he was a victim of... He was an egoist with a heart of gold. And rare were those who succeeded in paying a restaurant tab in his presence. He didn’t lend, he gave.“
To read this books is assuredly to spend some time in private with Chabrol, with him and those close to him, Which permits us to better know this man who spent part of his time making us believe that he was keeping his secrets. The other part of his time, he spent doing his work, a veritable œuvre, to help us better understand human reality.

Claude Chabrol, Par lui-même et par les siens, avec Michel Pascal ; Stock.

Claude Chabrol intime published on Le Blog de Serge Toubiana

Truffaut "presents" Sacha Guitry

2010-07-24T18:37:00.012-04:00

As Criterion prepares to release its Eclipse box-set "Presenting Sacha Guitry", I thought I might share this quote from François Truffaut’s (writing as Robert Lachenay) review of Guitry’s Si Versailles m'était conté which appeared in the April 1954 issue of Cahiers du Cinema.

They [the critics] cold-shoulder him, preferring Rene Clair. I, not able to bear a repeat viewing of Belles des nuits, can freely watch and re-watch Faisons un rêve..., Les Perles de la couronne and Le Roman d’un tricheur . La Poison would make a less dishonorable Delluc than something so dreadfully boring as the likes of Les Fâcheux modernes. (Cahiers du Cinema April 1954 page 64)

Two of the three Guitry films which Truffaut can “watch and rewatch” Les Perles de la couronne and Le Roman d’un tricheur are included in the Eclipse set. La Poison is a Guitry from 1951, a year - and the only year other than the war years - in which no Prix Louis Delluc was awarded. Les Fâcheux modernes better known as Les Casse-pieds took the Delluc in 1948. In the last sentence quoted, Truffaut plays with the French language as “casse-pied” = “boring”.

Prelude to a 10 best films list: Cahiers January 1957

2010-06-13T21:17:00.004-04:00

This is a translation of the forward published for the "10 Best Films of the Year" for the year 1956, published in the January 1957 issue of Cahiers du Cinema.

The publications of these lists of the "10 Best Films of the Year" asks for a certain number of observations.
1. They are made up from films presented in Paris in the course of the year 1956, their date of production might be older.
2. They are not made up of either a list Cahiers, or a list Conseil des dix, or of a range of all reviews. The chosen mix is in keeping with the wish to attain a kind of objectivity in making several trends to the exclusion of those frankly anti-Cahiers. Thus, lists by friends, but often in disagreement with us...and among each other.
3. We beg pardon for not being able, due to space limitations, to publish all the responses received. Those omitted have only been so inasmuch as they duplicated others nearer at hand.
4. Just about every response cited the difficulty of keeping to only ten titles in a year particularly bounteous and were accompanied by supplementary titles which we can not publish for fear of bending a rule strictly observed by several others. That said, we acknowledge that this choice presents insoluble cases of conscience and we well know that it is with much soul-searching that many have had to fine-tune among films which they valued. The reader might amuse himself by locating the inevitable bias and the exact criterion which has lead a few to give to their list a significance of tendency rather than of classification. In the ensemble of supplementary responses, it emerges that most would have wished to utilize 20 to 25 selections.
5. Let's also report that several mentioned Night and Fog as "beyond competition"; this work, according to them, cannot, by its nature and its object, enter into competition with other films.
6. We urge our readers to address to us, before February 1st, their own lists whose results we will be happy to compare with the present list.

Cahiers du Cinema 12 best films of all-time from 1958

2010-06-10T21:36:00.004-04:00

In 1957, in preparation for an event at the Brussels World Fair of 1958 called the "Confrontation of the Best Films in the World", the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique sent out to 150 critics world-wide an invitation to submit their list of the 30 most important films in the history from the beginning of film till 1955. Cahiers du Cinema published a study of those lists and they also conducted an in-house survey of 17 regular Cahiers critics in their December 1958 issue. Their list of the 12 best films up until 1958 is as follows:

Sunrise (F W Murnau)
The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
The Birth of a Nation (D W Griffith)
Mr Arkadin (Orson Welles)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
L’Atalante (Jean Vigo)
The Wedding March (Erich Von Stroheim)
Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock)
Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)

They went on to explain:
We have adopted a method of balloting considerably different from that of Brussels. Before our choices were directed towards the work, a first ballot designated in order of importance 12 auteurs. We eliminated in the first vote:

13) Max Ophuls
14) Fritz Lang
15) Howard Hawks and Buster Keaton
17) Ingmar Bergman
18) Nicholas Ray
19) Norman McLaren and Robert Flaherty
21) Luis Bunuel and René Clair
23) Luchino Visconti and Alexander Dovchenko

1955 Best Films and Reviews Cahiers du Cinema

2009-03-29T22:14:00.003-04:00

In 1955, Cahiers du Cinema printed 54 film reviews covering 51 films. Two of the films reviewed -- Rebecca and Hallelujah -- were vintage Hollywood productions. All but one of these reviews were published in the Les Films section. Federico Fellini's La Strada was considered of such an importance that its review appeared in the front Le Sommaire section of the March 1954 issue. The "notes on other films" section was discontinued temporarily. On 17 occasions, the reviewer of the film cited the film on his 10 Best Films list, while on 29 occasions, the film was not recognized in the reviewer's list. Eight reviews were filed by reviewers who did not contribute a list. Twenty-eight of the films made at least one list.
Once again Cahiers published 17 Best-Films lists.
The three older generation Cahiers regulars -- André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Pierre Kast
Seven younger generation Cahiers regulars -- Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut and Eric Rohmer (By the end of 1955, Maurice Scherer had pretty much abandoned signature in his Christian name in favor of the nom de plume "Eric Rohmer".)
The other six posting lists were: critic/teacher Henri Agel, film director and theorist Alexander Astruc, novelist/playwright Jacques Audiberti, producer Pierre Braunberger, critic and future director Ado Kyrou, critic Claude Mauriac, and director Alain Resnais. Once again, Jacques Audiberti was the only participant born in the 19th Century, but this year Pierre Braunberger joined in the the 50-something category. Claude Mauriac and Henri Agel were the only 40-somethings.
The convention here will be for the film title to be in green, the reviewer to be in red, whether or not he listed the film to be in white, followed by an enumeration in magenta of those who had listed the film.

Jan 1955
Les Diaboliques André Bazin NO Jacques Audiberti, Claude Mauraic

Romeo and Juliet Jacques Siclier No List (1954 list) André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Claude Mauriac, François Truffaut
Le Dernier Pont Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Jacques Audiberti, Pierre Braunberger
The Desert Rats Philippe Demonsablon NO (1954 list) Claude Chabrol
Okasan Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO (1954 list) Henri Agel, Jacques Audiberti, Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Kast, Alain Resnais

February 1955
Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves François Truffaut NO
On the Waterfront Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
Dial M for Murder Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Charles Bitsch, Jean-José Richer
Le Pain vivant Claude Chabrol NO

March 1955
Le Sommaire
La Strada André Martin No List Henri Agel, Alexander Astruc, Jacques Audiberti, André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Kast, Claude Mauraic, Alain Resnais, Jean-José Richer, Eric Rohmer
Les Films
Sabrina Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
Apache/Push Over Claude Chabrol NO/NO François Truffaut (Apache), Jacques Rivette (Apache), Jacques Audiberti (Apache), Alexander Astruc (Apache)

Rebecca Claude Chabrol NO

April 1955
Johnny Guitar Robert Lachenay (François Truffaut) YES Charles Bitsch, Philippe Demonsablon, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette
Rear Window Claude Chabrol YES Alexander Astruc, Pierre Braunberger, Charles Bitsch, Philippe Demonsablon, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Alain Resnais, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, François Truffaut
Rififi Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Kast, Ado Kyrou, Jean-José Richer
Destination Gobi Philippe Demonsablon NO

May 1955
French Cancan André Bazin YES Alexander Astruc, Pierre Braunberger, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Eric Rohmer
Voyage in Italy Maurice Scherer (Eric Rohmer) YES Henri Agel , Alexander Astruc, André Bazin, Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut
Le Sel de la Terre Willy Acher No List Henri Agel, Ado Kyrou, Alain Resnais
La Tour de Nesle Robert Lachenay (François Truffaut) NO

June 1955
A Star is Born Charles Bitsch NO Eric Rohmer
Vera Cruz François Truffaut NO Ado Kyrou
This is Cinerama André Bazin NO
The Gold of Naples André Bazin YES Pierre Kast, Alain Resnais
A Far Country Philippe Demonsablon NO

July 1955
The Barefoot Contessa Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES
The Barefoot Contessa François Truffaut YES
The Barefoot Contessa Philippe Demonsablon YES
The Barefoot Contessa Claude Chabrol YES Henri Agel, Alexander Astruc, Charles Bitsch, Claude Mauraic, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais
Hill 24 Doesn't Answer Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
Magnificent Obsession Philippe Demonsablon NO
The Romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai Willy Acher No List
Battle Cry Claude Chabrol NO

August-September 1955
Marty Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
08/15 André Martin No List
Human Desire Philippe Demonsablon YES Jacques Rivette
Them Fereydoun Hoveyda No List
World for Ransom Philippe Demonsablon NO

October 1955

Death of a Cyclist Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Jacques Audiberti, Pierre Kast, Ado Kyrou

Kiss Me Deadly Charles Bitsch NO Alexander Astruc, Claude Chabrol, Pierre Kast, Ado Kyrou, François Truffaut

November 1955

Les Mauvaises Rencontres Jacques Rivette YES Henri Agel, Jacques Audiberti, André Bazin, Charles Bitsch, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Alain Resnais, Jean-José Richer, François Truffaut

Run for Cover Philippe Demonsablon NO

Comicos Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES

December 1955

Les Grandes manoevres Jean-José Richer NO

Land of the Pharoahs (the direction) Jacques Rivette YES

Land of the Pharoahs (the screenplay) Claude Chabrol NO Charles Bitsch

Hallelujah Eric Rohmer NO

La Pointe courte Annette Raynaud No List

The White Sheik Pierre Kast YES Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger, Alain Resnais

Lourdes and its Miracles Henri Agel YES Claude Mauriac

The Big Knife Jean-José Richer YES Alexander Astruc, Jacques Audiberti, André Bazin, Charles Bitsch, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Eric Rohmer, François Truffaut

Man without a Star Philippe Demonsablon NO

Der Letzte Akt - La Fin d'Hitler Jacques Siclier No List

Reviewed January 1956 and cited for 1955
Lola Montès François Truffaut YES
Lola Montès Philippe Demonsablon YES Henri Agel, Alexander Astruc, Jacques Audiberti, André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Claude Mauraic, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer
Ordet Eric Rohmer YES Henri Agel, Alexander Astruc, André Bazin, Charles Bitsch, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette
To Catch a Thief Jean-Yves Goute (Claude Chabrol) YES Charles Bitsch, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer
The Blackboard Jungle Jean Domarchi No List
The Blackboard Jungle Philippe Demonsablon YES Claude Chabrol, Ado Kyrou
The Man from Laramie André Bazin YES
Raices Pierre Kast YES Ado Kyrou, Jean-José Richer

Reviewed February 1956
East of Eden François Truffaut YES Jacques Audiberti, Alain Resnais
The Barefoot Contessa/Lola Montès Jacques Siclier No List (see above)

Films not reviewed but cited
Continente perduto -- This Italian documentary which won a Jury Special Prize at Cannes and a Grand Silver Plaque at Berlin in 1955 was cited by Henri Agel.
Donne proibite -- cited by Jacques Audiberti
The Seven Samurai and The Creature from the Black Lagoon -- both cited by Ado Kyrou
Prehistoric Women -- cited by Alain Resnais

1954 Best Films and Reviews Cahiers du Cinema

2009-03-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

Compiling the post on Joseph Mankiewicz and Cahiers du Cinema, I became intrigued that nearly every reviewer of a Mankiewicz film in the decade 1955-1965 went on to place the film on their 10 best film list for the year. Knowing the old dictum that at Cahiers, it was the person who liked the film the most who wrote the review, I have decided to examine the relationship between reviewer and 10 best lists as published by Cahiers. As chance would have it the first year for which Cahiers published lists was 1954 and that year, 1954, was the first year that Cahiers which had been founded in 1951 was the magazine which people usually intend when they refer to Cahiers du Cinema.

In 1954, films were reviewed in a section headed "Les Films". Most reviews were at least 2 pages in length. Occasionally, shorter reviews (about 1 column in length) were published in a subsection headed "Notes on other films".

This first set of "10 best films" of 16 lists was published in the January 1955 issue of Cahiers du Cinema.
Participating were:

Older generation of Cahiers regulars: André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast

Younger generation of Cahiers regulars: Claude Chabrol, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, Maurice Scherer (Eric Rohmer), François Truffaut

Others: critic Henri Agel, novelist/critic Jacques Audiberti, producer Pierre Braunberger, critic Ado Kyrou, critic Claude Mauriac, director Alain Resnais, screenwriter Annette Wademant. Truffaut's close friend, Robert Lachenay, whose name Truffaut was using as a pen-name, is also credited with a list. Since there is a 3 film intersect between the Truffaut list and the Lacheny list, my speculation is that the list is that of the real Robert Lachenay and not of the pseudo "Robert Lachenay". Of these, only Rivette and Kast would contribute lists every year (1954-1968) in the first cycle of Cahiers "10 best films lists".

Cahiers du Cinema published 45 full reviews of 46 films in the Les Films section; one film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was reviewed by two critics and inone review, François Truffaut considered three films. On 12 occasions, the reviewer put that film on his ten best list, on 23 occasions the reviewer left the film off his list and no list was provided by the reviewer 12 times. All told 29 films of the films reviewed show up on at least one list. One must bear in mind that films reviewed in January and in February may have been considered as 1953 films.

As a side note, it is interesting to note the youthfulness of this group: Jacques Audiberti (55 years old) was the only individual who was beyond the age of 50. Pierre Braunberger (49 years old), Henri Agel (43 years old) and Claude Mauriac (40 years old) were the only others beyond 40. Almost half (7) were less than 30 years old.

The convention here will be for the film title to be in green, the reviewer to be in red, whether or not he listed the film to be in yellow, followed by an enumeration in magenta of those who had listed the film.
Reviews credited to Robert Lachenay were written by François Truffaut. I am unable to confirm the identity of the reviewer FL. There are a handful of articles published by Cahiers in the first 3 years credited to a Frédéric Laclos. I was unable to run down the identity of this "Frédéric Laclos" as a Google search for that term retrieves a few hits for a young baker with that name and few others for the articles published in that name in Cahiers. I suspect that it was a pen-name, but, that is only speculation.

January 1954
Les films

The Little Fugitive André Bazin NO

The Big Heat François Truffaut NO

Lili Philippe Demonsablon no list

Moulin Rouge Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Les Orgueilleux Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

February 1954

Le Blé en herbe André Bazin NO Annette Wademant, Pierre Braunberger
Angel Face Jacques Rivette NO

La Red Robert Lachenay/ François Truffaut NO/NO

Julietta Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Notes on other films

The War of the Worlds Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

The Heart of the Matter FL No list

The Glass Managerie FL No list

Peter Pan Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
Virgile FL No list

The Magic Box FL No list

Strange Desire of Mr. Bard Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Sadko Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Blackbeard the Pirate Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Ado Kyrou, Robert Lachenay

Sensualidad Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

La Rage au corps Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Girls in the Night Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

Le Peintre reveron Lotte Eisner No list

Monsieur Robida Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Les Forceurs de Banquise Philippe Demonsablon No list

March 1954

Ruby Gentry Philippe Demonsablon No List Robert Lachenay, François Truffaut, Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer)

The Life of O'Haru Philippe Demonsablon No List Henri Agel, Jean-José Richer

April 1954

Touchez pas au grisbi François Truffaut YES André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Claude Mauriac, Alain Resnais, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer), Annette Wademant

From Here to Eternity Jean-José Richer NO Jacques Audiberti, André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Mauriac

Roman Holiday Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES Pierre Braunberger, Annette Wademant
Children of Hiroshima Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES

Notes on other films

L'Ennemi public No. 1 FL No list

Le Defroque Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Si Versailles m'etait conté Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO Jacques Audiberti

May 1954

L'Amour d'une femme Jean-José Richer YES

I Vitelloni André Martin No list Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Ado Kyrou, Alain Resnais, Jean-José Richer, Annette Wademant

It Should Happen to You Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut YES/YES Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette, Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer), Annette Wademant

Il Capotto Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Henri Agel, Jacques Audiberti, Claude Mauriac, Alain Resnais

Notes on other films

Beneath the 12 Mile Reef Jean-José Richer NO Jacques Rivette

How to Marry a Millionaire Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Annette Wademant, Pierre Braunberger

Thunder in the East Jean-José Richer NO

White Witch Doctor Jean-José Richer NO

A Personal Affair Claude Chabrol NO

Never Let Me Go Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

Lure of the Wilderness Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

Return to Paradise Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

La Guerra de Dios Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

Mam'zelle Nitouche Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

La Revoltes de Lomanach Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Les Intragantes Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Le Guerisseur Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

La neige etait sale Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

The Masterson Affair Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

Trouble in the Store Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

June 1954

Monsieur Ripois Pierre Kast YES Henri Agel, Jacques Audiberti, André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Claude Mauriac, Alain Resnais, Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer)

Monika Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer)

The Wild One Pierre Kast YES Henri Agel, André Bazin, Pierre Braunberger, Ado Kyrou, Claude Mauriac, Alain Resnais

Destinees Jean Mitry No list

The Blue Gardenia Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer) YES Claude Chabrol, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut

Notes on other films

Flesh and the Woman Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Sang et lumière Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Traviata '53 Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut YES/NO

Pain, amour, et fantasie Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Jacques Audiberti, Pierre Braunberger, Annette Wademant

Secrets d'alcove Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Treasure of the Golden Condor Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

Dangerous Crossing Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

The San Francisco Story Jean-José Richer NO

So Big Jean-José Richer YES François Truffaut

The Glass Web Jean-José Richer NO

Remains to Be Seen Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut YES/NO

Le Secret d'Helene Marimon FL No List

Act of Love Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

Les femmes s'en balancent Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO

The Stranger Left No Card Jean-José Richer NO

Quai des blondes Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

July 1954
Gate of Hell Jean-José Richer NO Henri Agel, André Bazin, Ado Kyrou, Claude Mauriac, Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer)
La Provinciale Jean Domarchi No List Claude Mauriac
El Michel Dorsday No List Henri Agel, André Bazin, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Ado Kyrou, Jean-José Richer, Annette Wademant, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut
L'Affaire Maurizius Jean-José Richer NO
La Lupa Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO Pierre Braunberger, Ado Kyrou
Notes on other films
Par ordre du tsar Jean-José Richer NO
Glinka Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
Flight to Tangier Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

August-September 1954
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer) YES Claude Chabrol, Robert Lachenay, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Jean Domarchi No List (see above)
Robinson Crusoe Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES André Bazin, Claude Chabrol, Pierre Kast, Claude Mauriac, Jean-José Richer, Jacques Rivette
River of No Return/Prince Valiant/King of the Kyber Rifles François Truffaut YES/NO/NO Claude Chabrol(River of No Return), Robert Lachenay(River of No Return), Jacques Rivette(River of No Return), Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer) (River of No Return)
Boots Malone Philippe Demonsablon No List
Notes on other films
Orage Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
The Bandwagon Philippe Demonsablon No List Alain Resnais, Ado Kyrou
Les Infidèles Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO
The Glass Wall Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO
Les Amants de la Villa Borghèse Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO
The Secret Conclave Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO
Crime Wave Robert Lachenay/François Truffaut NO/NO

October 1954

No reviews

November 1954
L'Air de Paris Jean Desternes No List
The Caine Mutiny Jean-José Richer NO
Three Coins in the Fountain Jean-José Richer NO
Executive Suite Philippe Demonsablon No list Jean-José Richer

December 1954
Le Rouge et le noir André Bazin NO Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Ado Kyrou
Mogambo Etienne Loinod(Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) NO Maurice Scherer(Eric Rohmer)
Châteux en Espagne Jacques Doniol-Valcroze YES André Bazin, Claude Mauriac, Alain Resnais
Escalier du service Jacques Doniol-Valcroze NO
Les Lettres du mon Moulin André Bazin NO
Father Brown Etienne Loinod(Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) NO Henri Agel
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T Remo Forlani No list Pierre Kast, Annette Wademant

Notes:
Some films cited in 1954 lists were not reviewed by Cahiers until 1955, they are:
Renato Castellani's Roméo et Juliette reviewed in January 1955 by Jacques Siclier who supplied no list for 1954. Cited by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Claude Mauriac, and François Truffaut
Miko Naruse's Okasan reviewed in January 1955 by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze who did not list the film. Cited by Henri Agel, Jacques Audiberti, Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Kast, and Alain Resnais.
Robert Wise's The Desert Rats reviewed in January 1955 by Philippe Demonsablon who did not contribute a list for 1954. Listed by Claude Chabrol.
Vsevolod Pudovkin's The Return of Vasili Bortnikov (French title La Moisson) was not reviewed, as such, in the pages of Cahiers du Cinema. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze had written about the film in a piece he contributed to the June 1953 issue describing a trip he had taken to the Soviet Union. He listed the film. Michel Mayoux wrote about the film in a mini-Pudovkin tribute in the August/September 1953 issue. He provided no list for 1954. Besides Doniol-Valcroze, Henri Agel listed the film.
Although John Huston's Beat the Devil was released in France in August 1954, it was not reviewed in Cahiers until February 1960 when Luc Moullet considered it a review with 4 other films. Cahiers co-editor Jacques Doniol-Valcroze posted the film to his 1954 lists as did Pierre Kast, Ado Kyrou and Alain Resnais.

The High and the Mighty was never reviewed in Cahiers; it appears on the 10 Best films (1954) lists of Claude Chabrol and Annette Wademant.
The Roberto Rossellini-Ingrid Bergman sketch from the film Siamo Donne was cited by both Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut.
The unreviewed MGM musical I Love Melvin was listed by Jacques Rivette.
Byron Haskin's The War of the Worlds was reviewed in February 1954 but was not selected on any list; his The Naked Jungle went unreviewed, however, it does appear on the lists of both Claude Chabrol and Robert Lachenay.
Robert Lachenay would cite three films that were neither reviewed by Cahiers nor listed by any other panelist: No niego mi pasado, Thunder Bay and Les Corsaires du Bois du Boulogne.
Ado Kyrou listed the unreviewed La Nave delle donne maledette.
Finally, the documentary Naufrage volontaire was not reviewed by Cahiers; a not surprising circumstance given that the film was apparently never finished. However, this did not prevent François Truffaut from listing the film 11th on his Ten Best list.

2009-03-09T22:14:00.003-04:00

From the review of Bob the Gambler published by Cahiers du Cinema in October 1956 and signed Jean-Yves Goute. (page 56, my translation)

"I never cease wondering why [Henri] Decaë is not formally recognized as one of the best directors of photography in France. The reasons given to me for this seem to me to be too petty and abject to be true. Yet it is that Decaë has a lot to do with the success of Bob the Gambler. The imagery is sharp without being lifeless, beautiful without being affected, and alluring without being mannered. Some little strokes are rather pleasing to the eye and to the senses like a beautiful phrase which does not trifle. Exactly suiting an intelligent, poetic and fascinating chronicle such as Bob the Gambler."

Jean-Yves Goute was a pseudonym which Claude Chabrol used on a few occasions. A little more than a year after this review appeared, Chabrol began filming his first feature Le Beau Serge with Decaë as director of photography. Decaë lit Chabrol's first four features, before Jean Rabier, an assistant of Decaë's, would become Chabrol's DP. Rabier would shoot virtually everything that Chabrol directed between Les Godelureaux in 1961 and Madame Bovary in 1991. Decaë would also work with François Truffaut on The Four Hundred Blows and film Godard's sketch for the film The Seven Deadly Sins in 1962, one of only two times in the early 60s when Rauol Coutard was not the DP for Godard. (The other time it was Jean Rabier who shot Godard's sketch for RoGoPaG.) Decaë also shot Louis Malle's first two features, Les Amants and Ascenseur pour l'échafaud and also 3 more films in the 1960s. And he continued to be Jean-Pierre Melville's cinematographer of choice.

Cahiers du Cinema and Joseph Mankiewicz 1953-1964

2009-01-28T09:54:00.002-05:00

Jean-Luc Godard's film career was launch in June 1950 when he published his first review - a critique of Joseph L Mankiewicz's Dragonwyck - in the second issue of Eric Rohmer's Gazette du Cinema. So here is paragraph one of article one in the career of J-L G. (from Godard on Godard edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne (their translations, excerpts pages 13).

One day I went along to admire one of Ernst Lubitsch's last productions. It was Dragonwyck, a curious film in which characters from melodrama plagiarize themselves with (h)auteur and gesticulate with a solemnity equalled only on occasion by the severities of William Wyler. In France we have not yet seen The Late George Apley or Escape. But after Somewhere in the Night, the recent release in Paris of The Ghost and Mrs Muir, A Letter to Three Wives and House of Strangers suffices to to establish Joseph Mankiewicz as one of the most brilliant of American directors. I have no hesitation in placing him on the same level of importance as that held by Alberto Moravia in European literature.

Julius Caesar
Reviewed in the December 1953 issue of Cahiers de Cinema by Jean-José Richer in a double review with David Bradley's 16mm version of the Shakespeare's work from 1950. Richer's critique discusses Shakespeare for two long paragraphs before it mentions Mankiewicz (or Bradley). (page 46, excerpt my translation)
Mankiewicz is described as the "celebrated director revealed by A Letter to Three Wives" and confirm by All About Eve. Richer then goes on to say:
A seeming absence of imagination can conceal a most rich inner meaning. And, it is necessary to be on guard against hasty conclusions. Mankiewicz is not Welles; and it pleases him to cast out from the tragedy its spells, to disregard its penumbras, to shun the unformed, everything in short which fascinates the latter - in order to press it in a sharp lighting. Nothing prevents it.

The Barefoot Contessa
The July 1955 issue of Cahiers du Cinema feature four reviews of this film, from Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, François Truffaut, Philippe Demonsablon and Claude Chabrol, of The Barefoot Contessa appeared. Each of these four critics would list the film on their 10 Best Films of 1955.Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (page 40, excerpt my translation)

Must one be reminded of the staging points towards this work, Dragonwyck, Somewhere in the Night, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Escape, The Late George Apley, A Letter to Three Wives, House of Strangers, No Way Out, All About Eve, People Will Talk, 5 Fingers, Julius Caesar? Maybe this is to remark that - on first view - the side "unrestrained" of Contessa can be found only in Dragonwyck. But on second view? The fragile and tenacious wall of the reality of common sense is crossed joyously and, to the advantage of a curious neo-romanticism in The Ghost and Mrs Muir and, above all, in the extraordinary People Will Talk. Indeed, an irony more or less latent treads its way underneath all his films. But, an anxious irony,facilely melancholy, and, often grave; and isn't this irony a modesty behind which the solid and imperturbable Joe, as his friends call him, hides a poetic and humane sensibility, which, when it finally finds expression, takes on romantic and flamboyant accents that clash loudly with the realistic and conventional norms of the cinema of today? It is thus that Contessa has the further merit of shedding light on the rest of his work and making for its consideration in a new fashion.

François Truffaut (page 41, excerpt my translation)

Seeing A Letter to Three Wives again recently, I perceived that I can no longer overlook Joseph Mankiewicz; vivid content, an intelligence where the whole is but elegance, tastefulness and refinement, content almost diabolical with precision, savior-faire and knowledge, a theatrical direction of actors to the point of impact, a sense of the timing of shots and of the efficiency of effects, that is to be found elsewhere nowhere but in the works of Cukor. All this is the art of Joseph Mankiewicz, his perfect mastery of a genre which limitations it is not yet befitting to outline since its qualities are too often ignored.
Note 658 in Eugene Walz François Truffaut : a guide to references and resources summarizes thusly the review which Truffaut contributed to the June 29 1955 issue of the weekly Arts:
"Barefoot Contessa", the portrait of a woman in four different situations, is the kind of that is either accepted or rejected in toto. Truffaut accepts it for its novelty, intelligence and beauty.
Philippe Demonsablon (page 44, excerpt my translation)

As Le Carosse d'or, The Barefoot Contessa opens many doors partway; it is attempting to find the one which leads the furthest, gleaming of numerous facets, it is attempting to the find the one which projects the most penetrating light,. To count the facets, to enumerate the doors, and to try the keys, and, even, to lift out the boxes of this game, each of which contains a larger one. I do not believe that one could succeed in rendering an account of the singular beauty of this work. It does not define itself through the sum of its elements.
Claude Chabrol (page 45, excerpt my translation)

Does The Barefoot Contessa mark the ruin of the Cartesian spirit? The French public falls into the trap of interpretation, and, into that other one, which is not excused of literary references. It falls into the trap of its own folly, clamoring for adult films and then sneering like a cabdriver when it sees one.

In the February 1956 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, Jacques Siclier contributed a critique which compared The Barefoot Contessa and Max Ophuls Lola Montès. Excerpted from that article (page 46, my translation)

The parallel with Mankiewicz's work which had enchanted us at the beginning of last summer is astonishing. The refined intellectualism of The Barefoot Contessa and the Baroque frenzy of Lola Montès would seem to have no common measure. Yet, in a different manner and spirit, both directors in the end show the same things, to the point that both portraits seem to have an identical model.

Among the younger critics at Cahiers who submitted 10 Best Films list for 1955, Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jean-José Richer, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut cited The Barefoot Contessa. Jacques Rivette was the only representative of that group not to cite the film. 5 of the remaining 10 lists - from Alexander Astruc, Henri Agel, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Claude Mauriac and Alain Resnais - also cited the film. The lone Positif critic to post a list, Ado Kyrou, did not cite the film, nor did he cite Lola Montès. He did, however, cite The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Thumbnail from December 1955 "Situation of American Cinema" special issue (page 56, uncredited, my translation)

The contessa went out at 5 o'clock; she was barefoot. To envisage the contribution of a Giradouxesque filmmaker, Joseph Mankiewicz has to be added to Jean Cocteau. Like Max Ophuls, Mankiewicz is bedevilled by woman and women, by Eve and Ava, their advocate, confidante, coaxer and exponent. Let them be fallen, scoffing, plotting, under-handed, his heroines are entitled all of his consideration, concern, sympathy and, let us say it, love. At last, a filmmaker who loves women and does not hide it! Up until Contessa, he was, for us, the most adroit maker of dramatic comedy, a Cukor who would be his own Kanin, a Lubitsch who has read Moravia. That is considerable! But since the contessa stripped off her shoes, all more to fire us up, Adam sees himself tempted with the golden apple by new and over-tanned Eve. An oeuvre such as that of Mankiewicz quickly finishes off the simple-minded legend according to which intelligence, elegance and urbanity don't know how to bloom and flourish in Hollywood. The truth is that he loathes nothing so much as vulgarity, most of all, Hollywood-style... Virile and distinguished, lucid and refined, accomplice of our mates and chronicler of the couple, Joseph Mankiewicz is our bedside filmmaker.

Guys and Dolls

Reviewed by Louis Marcorelles in the January 1957 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. (page 46, excerpt my translation)

Nevertheless, Guys and Dolls written and directed (produced this time by the veteran Samuel Goldwyn) by that prince of smooth talkers, Joseph Mankiewicz, seems to break with a firmly established tradition and mark the intrusion of an uncustomary irony into the genre. Mankiewicz wishes to make both All About Eve and The Bandwagon at once. That is, to blend the New York sophistication of the former with the contagious liveliness and lack of ulterior motive of the latter. His film is maybe only a half success.

In the conseil des dix, among the 2 "young turk" critics sitting, Eric Rohmer gave the film 1 star while François Truffaut bulleted it. The co-editors of Cahiers also participated in the conseil; Jacques Doniol-Valcroze gave the film 3 stars while André Bazin gave it 2 stars. Among, non-Cahiers members of that panel, Pierre Braunberger, Henri Agel and Jacques de Baroncelli gave the film 2 stars, France Roche and J-P Vivet gave it 1 star while Georges Sadoul bulleted the film.

The film appears on no 10 Best Films list.

The Quiet American

Note: The French title for the film is Un Américain bien tranquille which translates as "a really quiet American".

About one year before the release of The Quiet American in France, in its July 1957 issue, Cahiers du Cinema spotlighted the film in its "Photo of the Month" feature printing a photo from the set of the film and a short article by Raymond Jean commenting on the secrecy surrounding the screenplay.
In the August 1958 issue, the film was reviewed by co-editor Eric Rohmer. It begins (page 46, excerpt my translation):
This film is admirable and rightly deserves a disclaimer. Whoever speaks of the politique des auteurs speaks of fidelity, and, indeed, it is easier and more tempting to put one's faith in a man than in a system. Thus, you should not be to astonished to see me take the opposite view of an opinion, expressed here by me, some while ago, apropos of Les Girls. No film in Cahiers has made as much ink flow as The Barefoot Contessa and nevertheless, the cinema which we ordinarily defend in this magazine - a cinema of spatial construction and corporeal expression as our old friend André Martin would say - has barely any relation with that which that which Mankiewicz proposes to us. Even Bergman whose Secrets of Women calls to mind A Letter to Three Wives is quite distant from him.
And five pages later, it ends (page 51, excerpt my translation)
Let's keep ourselves from hasty definitions. Could we have believed, for example, that our old companion, mise-en-scene, would conceal itself behind the mantle of word-play?

Rohmer would proceed to give the film 4 stars on the conseil des dix and to place the film at the top of his list of the "10 Best Films for 1958". (He place Bergman's Secrets of Women 5th.)
Jean-Luc Godard also gave the film 4 stars on the conseil des dix and placed the film at the top of his 10 Best Films list for 1958.
From review published in Arts and reprinted in Godard on Godard critical writings by Jean-Luc Godard / edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne (their translations, excerpts pages 82-84).
But, after all, does Joseph L. Mankiewicz make films for the average spectator? Earlier films like A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, and more recently All About Eve, and The Barefoot Contessa in particular, would seem proof to the contrary. In any case these films finally established their director as the most intelligent man in all contemporary cinema. This reputation is merely confirmed by The Quiet American. In turn scriptwriter, producer, director, and then all of them together, Mankiewicz is an all-around athlete who has more than one trick up his sleeve....But it so happens that in Joseph L. Mankiewicz we have the Giraudoux of the camera, and all is not as well as it should be. Writing Pour Lucrece is one thing, filming it another....This is the complaint one might make about Mankiewicz: that he is too perfect a writer to be a perfect director as well. Basically, what is missing from The Quiet American is cinema. It has everything - brilliant actors, sparkling dialogue - but no cinema....What a fantastic film Aldrich - not to mention Welles - would have made of this fine script which improves a hundred per cent on Graham Greene's novel. But Mankiewicz probably got so much enjoyment from the writing that there was little enough left for filming it. Though a matter for regret, The Quiet American is still the most interesting film about for this moment.
Five other "young turk" critics participated on that conseil des dix panel: besides the 4 stars from Rohmer and Godard, Charles Bitsch, Jean Domarchi, Robert Lachenay (most probably, François Truffaut) and Jacques Rivette gave the film 3 stars. Among the 4 other panelists that month: Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Henri Agel gave the film 2 stars, Georges Sadoul bulleted the film and Pierre Braunberger abstained.

Besides Rohmer and Godard, among "young turk" critics, Claude Beylie, Charles Bitsch, Philippe Demonsablon, Luc Moullet and Jacques Rivette all place the film on their list of the "10 Best Films for 1958". Jacques Demy who was then still an aspiring director who kept company with the "young turk" critics but did not himself write criticism also placed the film on his list for 1958. The lone non-Cahiers French critic among those who posted their lists to Cahiers who cited the film was Henri Agel.

In the April 1960 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, in a review of the newly released film Breathless, Luc Moullet wrote this: (page 30, my translation)
Godard made these two films [Une histoire d'eau and Charlotte et Véronique, ou Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick] after having admired The Quiet American which inspired in him, in part, this renewal through dialogue and a taste for vertiginous construction.

Suddenly, Last Summer

This film was reviewed in the May 1960 issue of Cahiers du Cinema by Philippe Demonsablon. The discussion of the film in this review is more as a work of Tennessee Williams whose one-act play the film is based on and who is credited as co-writer of the screenplay with Gore Vidal who is never mentioned in the review. However, in considering Mankiewicz's contribution to the film, Demonsablon writes this: (page 56, excerpt my translation)

Everything about this ending of Suddenly, Last Summer demonstrates the diversity of Mankiewicz's talent which one would be wrong to limit to brilliance and intelligence. It reveals in him a poetic vein elsewhere severely constrained. The image of evoked memories frees itself at one time from photographic precision and literary symbolism reaching pure hallucination, much as the lived past rises again in Faulkner's novels. Let us not fear to venture this comparison: it expresses the magnitude of an auteur who, for a long while, has been our bedside filmmaker.

The verdict of the conseil des dix as regards the film was: among Cahiers regulars, Jean Douchet gave the film 3 stars, Luc Moullet gave it 2 stars, Fereydoun Hoveyda and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze gave it 1 star, while Louis Marcorelles and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. Among the others on that panel: Pierre Marcabru gave the film 2 stars, Jacques de Baroncelli gave it 1 star and Jean-Pierre Melville and Claude Mauriac bulleted the film.

The film was nominated to the 10 Best Films of the year lists of Henri Agel, Philippe Demonsablon, Jean Domarchi, and Jean Douchet.

For the Dec1963/Jan1964 special issue of Cahiers du Cinema on American Cinema, this thumbnail critique of Joseph Mankiewicz was provided by Jean Douchet. (my translation.)
And the word was made Mankiewicz, who bases his direction entirely on the energy of the word. It is the vehicle of the extreme intelligence which his characters live, ands he motivates them to mark with an indelible imprint, through the construction of a durable body of work, their passage through this world. But it also remains the instrument which allows these mediocrities to warp the wall of plots, counter-plots, and machinations stand in the way of their plans. It is, above all, a tangible sign of the times which promotes the dissolution of a sumptuous construction built on the sands of time. At the same time, the word, which is gesture, acts and it loses itself in the brouhaha of that which is opposed to it before it steals away. It is magical (from whence the fact that all Mankiewicz's films are in flash-backs or reminiscences) and, in that way, illusion. This vehicle without which man can not be, reveals itself to be his worst enemy. Off-shoot of silence, the word is the pathetic and trifling proof of his existence: a murmuring rising up into the universe to signal the presence of a being whose grandeur comes from the avowal of his frailty. Such is Mankiewiecz, the cinematic virtue of the word.

Cleopatra

Reviewed in the March 1964 issue of Cahiers du Cinema by Jean-Louis Comolli (page 35, excerpt my translation

The function of the word - And, firstly, (pushing aside an immediate platitude) the word in the work of Mankiewicz, as, in the work of all great filmmakers is not an end, but, among others , a means. Where, then, is the heart of the matter? What counts more than it, first off, for Mankiewicz (as - oddly enough ? - for Godard) (both of whom, nevertheless, make profuse use of it) is the measure more or less asserted of the presence or absence of a being in face of others and also in face of its creations and its dreams. Let's observe that these variations of presence and absence, of assurance and effacement, of an advent and a vanishing constitiute from the very fact of image in motion, the lone topic specifically cinematic.

On the conseil des dix, among the Cahiers contingent, Jean Douchet gave the film 4 stars, Jean-Luc Godard gave it 2 stars while Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. Among the non-Cahiers contingent, Jean Collet gave the film 3 stars, Jean-Louis Bory gave it 2 stars, Jean de Baroncelli and Albert Cervoni gave it 1 star while Positif's Robert Benayoun bulleted the film as did Georges Sadoul.

The film shows up on the 10 Best Films of the year lists of Pierre-Richard Bré, Jean-Louis Comolli, Jacques Demy, Jean Douchet, Michel Mardore and Bertrand Tavernier.

Cahiers du Cinema, the young turks and Jerry Lewis 1954-1968

2008-12-19T22:20:00.004-05:00

This is a compendium of the views and reviews of the films of Jerry Lewis as published in Cahiers du Cinema between 1954 and 1968.

Scared Stiff (Fais-moi peur [Frighten Me]) (George Marshall)

Cahiers du Cinema Nov 1954 "Films released in Paris" page 61 (my translation)
The usual clowning of two half-wits of American film. Strictly for their fans.
Cahiers du Cinema Jan 1955 "Films released in Paris" page 59 (my translation)
New comico-frightening adventures of Martin and Lewis. Lizabeth Scott is fetching in a long chemise.
For some odd reason, this film was listed twice in the "Films released in Paris" section.

The Caddy (Amour, délices et golf [Love. Delights and Golf]) (Norman Taurog)

Cahiers du Cinema May 1955 "Films released in Paris" page 62
So far as it concerns golf, it is not very convincing. What is the beautiful Donna Reed doing on these grounds. A little sympathy.

Money from Home (Un galop du diable [A Devil's Gallop]) (George Marshall)
Cahiers du Cinema Dec 1954 "Films released in Paris" page 60
A pair of nitwits even more nitwit than all the others. George Marshall is not Griffith but he does deserve better than this.

Living it up (C'est pas une vie, Jerry! [That's Not Life, Jerry]) (Norman Taurog)

I found no evidence of this film in the "Films released in Paris" or the conseil des dix features of Cahiers du Cinema.

3 Ring Circus (Le Clown est roi [The Clown is King]) (Joseph Pevney)

Cahiers du Cinema June 1955 "Films released in Paris" page 59
Our two comedians in a traveling circus.

You're Never Too Young (Un pitre au pensionnat [Class Clown]) (Norman Taurog)
Cahiers du Cinema Jan 1957 "Films released in Paris" page 62 no blurb
In an addendum to the March 1957 "Films released in Paris" feature,
Numerous gags, too often restrained by the director.

Not considered by the conseil des dix

Artists and Models (Artistes et modèles [Artists and Models]) (Frank Tashlin)
Reviewed by Jean-Luc Godard in the August-September 1956 issue page 46 (my translation)
Godard reviewed both this film and The Lieutenant Wore Skirts which was also directed by Frank Tashlin. Jerry Lewis is not mentioned once in his review. This review marked Godard's return to Cahiers after an almost four year hiatus, most of which he spent back home in the area of Geneva Switzerland .
It can be witnessed that Tashlin keeps the best remembered of Lubitsch, that of Cluny Brown and To Be or Not To Be. American comedy is dead. So be it. Long live American comedy.
In the conseil des dix, among the Cahiers regulars, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut gave the film 2 stars. André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Pierre Kast gave it 1 star. Eric Rohmer abstained. Non-Cahiers

panelists broke thusly, Simon Dubreiulh gave the film 2 stars, Pierre Braunberger gave it 1 star and Henri Agel and George Sadoul abstained.

Pardners (Le Trouillard du Far West [The Yellow-belly of the Far West]) (Norman Taurog)
Cahiers du Cinema Feb 1958 "Films released in Paris" page 63
Classic burlesque. Jerry Lewis's gags are better in intent than in workmanship.
Not considered by the conseil des dix.

Hollywood or Bust (Un vrai cinglé de cinéma [A real looney for movies]) (Frank Tashlin)
Jean-Luc Godard reviewed this film in the July 1957 issue (page 44) (excerpt my translation)
According to Georges Sadoul, Frank Tashlin is a second rank director because he has never filmed the remake of You Can't Take It With You or The Awful Truth. By me, my colleague's mistake is to take a too quickly closed door for an open one. It will be realized in 15 years that The Girl Can't Help It functioned, in its time, meaning today (1957), as a fountain of youth where the cinema of now, meaning tomorrow (1972) drew a renewal of inspiration.
Godard manages to mention Tashlin in all 7 paragraphs while only mentioning Dean Martin once and Jerry Lewis once.
In the conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars, Hollywood or Bust received 4 stars from Jacques Rivette, 3 stars from François Truffaut, and 2 stars from both Eric Rohmer and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. The 6 non-Cahiers critics on that panel rendered the following judgments of the film. Two stars from Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunbarger, and J-P Vivet, One star from both Georges Sadoul and France Roche. Henri Agel was the only critic to bullet the film.
Hollywood or Bust was selected as one of the 10 Best Films of 1957 by 4 respondents: Claude de Givray, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Paul Gegauff. That year Tashlin also released two non Martin-Lewis films; Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? was cited on 11 Best Film List and The Girl Can't Help It was cited on 7.

The Delicate Delinquant (Le Délinquant involontaire [The Unwitting Delinquent]) (Don McGuire)
Cahiers du Cinema August 1958 "Films released in Paris" page 63 (my translation)
With Tashlin absent, Dean Martin's partner is not the equal of Fernandel on his worst day.
On the conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars, Charles Bitsch, Robert Lachenay (Truffaut?) and Eric Rohmer bulleted the film while Jean Domarchi, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette abstained. The tally of the non-Cahiers panelists is Henri Agel bulleted the film while Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul abstained.

The Sad Sack (P'tite tête de trouffion) (George Marshall)
Reviewed in January 1959 by François Mars (page 68) (excerpt my translation)

As for Jerry Lewis, he offers us only the blundering flightiness of a mad dog. Lewis's misfortune is not losing Dean Martin; it is not being directed by Tashlin.
This film seems to have never been considered by the conseil des dix.

Rock-a-bye Baby (Trois bébés sur les bras [Three Babies on his Arms]) (Frank Tashlin)
Reviewed in June 1959 by Jean Domarchi (pp 55) (excerpts my translation)
No, this is not the best Tashlin. Maybe, a little through the fault of Paramount. Surely, through that of actor-producer Jerry Lewis....It can clearly be seen what the latter asked of Tashlin - less eccentricity and more sentiment....It seems that the syrupy Dean (I am speaking about the singer, not the actor) has taken possession of Jerry. This burden of trying to be Dean without ceasing being Jerry, forces us to consider greatly what Frank would have been able to do, if Jerry had made himself a little scarce.
In the conseil des dix, the film was awarded 3 stars by Charles Bitsch and 2 stars by Philippe Demonsablon, Jean-Luc Godard, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Luc Moullet, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer while André Martin abstained. Jacques Demy who consorted with the "young turks", but only had one contribution published by Cahiers du Cinema, abstained. The only non-Cahiers critics on that panel, Henri Agel gave the film 2 stars.

The Geisha Boy (Le Kid en kimono [The Kid in the Kimono]) (Frank Tashlin)
Reviewed in Cahiers du Cinema in a letter from London by Louis Marcorelles in a column headlined ""Tashlin" page 41 (excerpt my translation)
By comparison to these crazies of film that Nicholas Ray and Leo McCarey are, Frank Tashlin seems like a very wise, conventional director and should we say rather classical but nevertheless who pleases in his latest film The Geisha Boy.
Reviewed by Fereydoun Hoveyda in Feb 1960 (excerpt my translation)

If Tashlin's new film doesn't succeed in erasing the memory of The Girl Can't Help It, Artists and Models, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and Hollywood or Bust, it does reassure us, however, that the vitality of the auteur for an instant placed in doubt by the disappointing Rock-a-Bye Baby. More turmoil and less mawkishness permit us to savor again, in more than one place, the raciness and vertiginous inventions of the most prodigious gagmen of contemporary cinema. The screenplay might appear thin and annoying with this complex paternity which consumes Jerry since his break up with Dean. But the story is only a pre-text for Tashlin.
In the conseil des dix, Jacques Rivette, Luc Moullet and Louis Marcorelles gave the film 2 stars while Jacques Doniol-Valcroze abstained. Among non-Cahiers critics on the panel, Henri Agel gave the film 2 stars, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul all gave the film 1 star. Pierre Marcabru bulleted the film and Claude Mauriac abstained.

Don't Give up the Ship (Tiens bon la barre, matelot [Hold the Tiller Firmly, Mate]) (Norman Taurog)
Cahiers du Cinema Feb 61 "Films released in Paris" page 61 (excerpt my translation)
This very conformist naval comedy returns us to the pre-Tashlin level of Jerry Lewis.
In the conseil des dix, among Cahiers critics, Jean Domarchi and Jean Douchet gave the film 1 star while both Louis Marcorelles and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. As for the non-Cahiers critics on that panel, Henri Agel gave the film 1 star, Michel Aubriant, Pierre Marcabru, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul all bulleted the film and Jean de Baroncelli abstained.

Visit to a Small Planet (Mince de planète [Darn, What a Planet]) (Norman Taurog)
Cahiers du Cinema Jun 1961, Films released in Paris page 56 (excerpt my translation)
The inhabitant of the planet mentioned discovers love but as a voyeur. Ever since he has gone out on his own, Jerry Lewis no longer bases his films on homosexuality, but on powerlessness.
This film was not assessed by the conseil des dix.

The Bell Boy (Le Dingue du Palace [The Looney of the Palace]) (Jerry Lewis)
Cahiers du Cinema Aug 1961 reviewed in "Notes on other films" by François Mars (page 60 excerpt my translation)
Maladroit, on the minus side of its possibilities, The Bell Boy, none the less, opens the road up. A mediocre precursor is, maybe, as valuable as the most fineshed of successes. And it is agreeable to think that this new impetus furnished by a man who owes his commercial success only to outdated clowning and antediluvian gags and owes his success d'estime to the eminence of a great director who knows how to direct him.
In the conseil des dix, Jacques Rivette gave the film 2 stars, André Labarthe and Jean Douchet gave the film 1 star, and Eric Rohmer and Michel Delahaye both abstained. Among the five non-Cahiers, Morvan Lebesque, Michel Aubraint bulleted the film while Henri Agel and Jean de Baroncelli both abstained.This film was listed as one of the 10 best films of the year by Jean Domarchi, François Mars and Bertrand Tavernier

Cindefella (Cendrillon aux grands pieds [Cinderella with Big Feet]) Frank Tashlin)

Cahiers du Cinema Jan 1962 Reviewed in "Notes on other films" by François Mars (page 61 excerpt my translation)

Some gags, sprinkled throughout an hour and a half of viewing, would have convinced us of a failure, indeed a debacle. Now, concerning gags in Cindefella, there exist not one, not a single one. I have no choice, thus, to conclude there was a deliberate refusal. This film truly is a tragic film, a melodrama, intended as such by its auteurs, whose comic element is systematically discarded.
In the conseil des dix, among Cahiers critics, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Louis Marcorelles each gave the film 2 stars while Jean Douchet awarded it 1 star. The breakdown for the non-Cahiers critics is thus: Pierre Marcabru and Henri Agel gave the film 1 star, Michel Aubriant bulleted the film while Jean de Baroncelli and Claude Mauriac abstained.

The Ladies Man (Le tombeur de ces dames [The Stud for these Women]) (Jerry Lewis)
Reviewed by André S Labarthe in the lead article in June 1962 issue of Cahiers du Cinema (page 1, excerpt my translation)

If it is necessary to justify the following notes I will only say this: There exists an argument Lewis as there exists an argument W C Fields, an argument Groucho, an argument Chaplin or an argument Keaton. It is justly one of the most remarkable characteristics of comic heroes to have always presented themselves as an argument - as if laughter (and the psychologists are not mistaken here) immerse themselves deeper into the human soul than tragic or melodramatic heroes do. Yes, there is a depth to laughter but there is also a shame of laughter. From one to the next, the argument Lewis, to our mind, offers a good example.
Five panelists on the conseil des dix were Cahiers regulars: among them, Michel Delahaye gave the film 3 stars, Jacques Rivette, Jean Douchet, and André Labarthe gave it 2 stars, leaving Louis Marcorelles who abstained. The returns from the 5 non-Cahiers broke down like this: Pierre Marcabru gave the film 3 stars, Henri Agel and Michel Aubriant gave it 2 stars, Jean-Louis Bory gave it 1 star and Georges Sadoul contributed the lone bullet among the ten critics.
This film was listed on the 10 best films of the year by Jean Domarchi, André S Labathe. Pierre Marcabru, Michel Mardore, François Mars, Jacques Rozier, Jacques Siclier and Bertrand Tavernier.

The Errand Boy (Le Zinzin d'Hollywood [The Goofball of Hollywood]) (Jerry Lewis)
This film was reviewed in the "Notes on other films" section in the March 1963 issue of Cahiers du Cinema by Bertrand Tavernier (page 60, my translation.)
After having proven with The Ladies Man that he as well capable as each and everyone and better than anyone at directing an authentic burlesque-surrealistic masterpiece, Jerry Lewis returns with The Errand Boy to his first love: the conversion of an absurd scenario into a succession of gags without any logical sequence, a principle which he carried out in The Bellboy. (It is fitting here to note the relationship of these three titles: all define a character, as opposed by Chaplin's titles, for example.)

The Cahiers critics on the conseil des dix gave this film 3 stars - François Weyergans, 2 stars - Jacques Rivette and André S Labarthe while Eric Rohmer abstained. The accounting among the non-Cahiers critics was - 2 stars, Pierre Marcabru and Jean-Louis Bory, 1 star, Bernard Dort and Georges Sadoul, abstaining were Henri Agel and Jean de Baroncelli.
The Errand Boy was cited as one of the 10 Best Films of the year by Bertrand Tavernier

It'$ Only Money (L'Increvable Jerry [The Imperturbable Jerry]) (Frank Tashlin)
Reviewed by François Mars in the "Notes on other films" section of the June 1963 issue of Cahiers du Cinema (page 57, excerpt my translation)

The films produced and directed by Lewis himself, however revolutionary they may be, know in America a growing commercial success. and the passion which the auteur of The Bellboy brings to bear by going from audacity to audacity in each new production should not prompt him, it seems, to go backwards and submit to the influence of another. It'$ Only Money is a hybrid film, but one whose two auteurs, far from disputing jealously its paternity, each trying to impose his style at the expense of the other, passing the ball back and forth in a perfect altruism.
On the conseil des dix, among Cahiers reglars, Jacques Rivette gave the film 2 stars, and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Jean Douchet gave it 1 star. Among the non-Cahiers critics on that panel, Jean-Louis Bory gave the film 3 stars, Pierre Marcabru gave it 1 star and Henri Agel, Michel Aubriant, Bernard Dort, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul all abstained.

In its Dec63-Jan64 issue "American Cinema" special issue, Cahiers du Cinema printed thumbnail critiques of 121 American directors, including Jerry Lewis and Frank Tashlin.
Jean-André Fieschi was responsible for Tashlin's thumbnail. (page 170, my translation)
Now that Jerry Lewis has done himself right and with the good fortune that we know of the tradition that he could exist only through Tashlin, we can better evaluate the profit each returned to the other. Indeed, the relationship of these two creators was not one of submission, but one of complimentary inspiration and reciprocal accomplishment similar to the golden age of Donen-Kelly. Lewis was, undoubtedly, for Tashlin, the perfect magus of the irreal, the magical victim of publicity, comics and cinema who would morph into an astounding poetry. In brief, the subject and object dream of his caricatural virtues. Still, we have maybe to be responsive to the caricature. Thus, to the realistic, being detrimental to the qualities peculiarly non-sensical of the auteur (thus, the fantastic).
In fashioning his dishevelled mythology of god-objects (TV, cinema, machines, etc.) or of new goddesses (stars, idols, etc.) close to the out-of-order universe of the cartoon, Tashlin contributed to the creation of an other world. But, today, more and more, he sacrifices to an oneiric atmosphere, a nightmare from which (It'$ Only Money, The Man from the Diner's Club) or falsely fairy-tale (Cindefella), the other side of the mirror rather than its reflection.

André S Labarthe contributed the thumbnail for the director Jerry Lewis. (page 142, my translation)
The revelation of the last years and the unique case of on-sight transformation which we have been able to follow from the start. First, the period of adjustment. Jerry looks for his character, inventories his themes, runs after this famous point from which, as time goes go, his character will constantly draw its coherence. This is a time of testing, which, in spite of the signatures on the credits of minor hacks, Jerry, in a certain measure directs himself, through an intermediary character. Second, the period which we can henceforth speak of as the time of plenty, and, in which, the first signs are in the Tashlin films. The character is in perfect focus, the director knows how to cede to him the technical resources which he will henceforth have at his disposal; color, special effects, camera movement.
Today, it is possible to define Lewis's character, yet, it is not possible to define the respective roles of the director, the actor and the character which he embodies. But is not the key to this universe precisely this division? And is not his visage, metaphorically, the mirror?

The Nutty Professor (Docteur Jerry et Mister Love [Doctor Jerry and Mr Love]) (Jerry Lewis)
Reviewed in the May 1964 issue of Cahiers by Claude Ollier (page 40, my translation)
In the first three films he conceived and directed himself, Jerry Lewis easily pursued two endeavors closely dependent on each other or, quite the least, interdependent, tied by multiple threads to a common background. On one hand, the maturation of a character henceforth adult bearing in the direction of a incipience which consecrate not a threat of destruction, but a positive strenghtening, definitive of the characteristics gained; on the other, the elaboration of a universe tending towards a complete oneiric representation.
In the conseil des dix, this film, from Cahiers regulars received 4 stars from Jean Douchet and Jacques Rivette and 3 stars from Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. The other critics on that conseil gave it: 4 stars, Robert Benayoun, 3 stars, Jean Collet and Jean-Louis Bory, 2 stars, Jean de Baroncelli and Georges Sadoul, abstained Albert Cervoni.
This film was listed on the 10 Best Films lists of Robert Benayoun, Pierre-Richard Bré, Jean-Louis Comolli, Michel Delahaye, Jean Douchet, Jean-André Fieschi, Claude de Givray, Jean-Luc Godard, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Pierre Kast, André S Labarthe, Pierre Marcabru, Michel Mardore, Jean Narboni, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Georges Sadoul, Barbet Schroeder, Bertrand Tavernier, Paul Vecchiali, and François Weyergans.

Who's Minding the Store? (Un chef de rayon explos [The Boss of the Exploded Department]) (Frank Tashlin)
Reviewed in the June 1964 issue of Cahiers by Serge Daney (page 57, my translation)
Because he (Tashlin) leaves for war with mock armament, he achieves only provisional success. This vision of a mechanical world, where the human is swallowed up little by little, infests and confuses his outlook with this difference - that the complicity (which bound him formerly to the world of comics exposed in Artists and Models) between man and machine, the inventor and the invented is no longer possible. The relationship is no longer one of submission but one of uncertainty: what machines gain in autonomy, man loses in maturity. It is this relationship which Tashlin pursues and encircles, making his cinema a clockwork cinema where only the passage from one order to another counts.
This film was awarded 3 stars on the conseil des dix by Cahiers staffer, Jean Douchet. His colleagues - Jacques Rivette, Jean-Louis Comolli and Michel Delahaye gave the film 2 stars. Among the non-Cahiers contingent of that panel, Robert Benayoun and Jean Collet gave the film 3 stars, Jean-Louis Bory gave it 2 stars and Michel Aubriant, Albert Cervoni and Georges Sadoul abstained.
Fereydoun Hoveyda and Serge Daney placed the film on their 10 Best Films lists.

The Patsy (Jerry souffre douleur [Punching-bag Jerry]) (Jerry Lewis)

Reviewed in the January 1965 issue of Cahiers by Jean-Louis Noames (page 146, my translation)
...a misunderstood and despised film, The Patsy has only one fault, that of coming after The Nutty Professor and of at no point resembling it....Let's start at the beginning. It was with Cindefella that Lewis's solitude was revealed for the first time. But circumstances were not set. Lewis, who ought to have directed the film, left the responsibility to Tashlin who succeeded in making only a bastard work of it, but also a fascinating one, to the extent that the converging aspirations of two dissimilar artists meet up with each other. Where Tashlin ends and Lewis begins, it is here that we find it.
Four Cahiers regulars sat on the conseil des dix panel which considered The Patsy: Jean Douchet gave the film 4 stars, Michel Delahaye and Jean-André Fieschi gave the film 3 stars and Jacques Rivette gave it 2 stars. Six non-Cahiers critics also sat on that panel: Robert Benayoun and Jean Collet gave the film 4 stars, albert Cervoni gave it 2 stars, while Michel Aubraint, Jean-Louis Bory and Georges Sadoul gave the film 1 star.The following put this film on their 10 Best List - Robert Benayoun, Pierre Braunberger, Michel Cournot, Serge Daney, René Gilson, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Jean Douchet, Jean-Louis Ginibre, Claude de Givray, Gérard Guégan, André S Labarthe, François Mars and Jean-Louis Naomes.

The Disorderly Orderly (Jerry chez les cinoques [Jerry among the Looneys]) (Frank Tashlin)
André Téchiné's review in April 1965 issue of Cahiers du Cinema begins, (page 71, my translation)
One always feels ill at ease watching Tashlin's films. Everything appears blindly subordinate to the mechanical.
Téchiné mentions Tashlin a total of 7 times and in every paragraph. Lewis is not cited until the 3rd paragraph and his name comes up only 2 times.

Jean-Louis Comolli gave film 4 stars, while Michel Delahaye and Jean-André Fieschi rounded out the bloc on that panel giving the film 3 stars. Robert Benayoun and Georges Sadoul, among the other panelists, gave the film 3 stars. Jean-Louis Bory, Jean Collet and Michel Cournot gave it 2 stars while Michel Aubriant gave the film a bullet, a rare occurence for a Lewis/Tashlin film.

This film appeared on the 10 Best Film list of: René Allio, Robert Benayoun, Jean-Pierre Biesse, Jacques Bontemps, Jean-Louis Bory, Pierre Kast, Jacques Robert, Jacques Rozier, Roger Tailleur, André Téchiné, and François Weyergans.

The Family Jewels (Les Tontons farceurs [The Madcap Uncles]) (Jerry Lewis)
In the February 1966 issue of Cahiers -- the Jerry Lewis special issue - short reviews by Claude-Jean Philippe, Sylvain Godet, Serge Daney and André Téchiné were published. (excerpts, my translation)
Serge Daney (page 37),
This is a serious film because never has the actor been so little sure of himself, so intimidated, he has just refused artifice, make-up, magic; he is going to appear such that he is and for what he is, he is going to run the risk of not being recognized.
Sylvain Godet (page 39),

To master the ecstasy that up until now has accepted no boundaries, to reach for the delights of conscious creation, such is Lewis's ambition.

André Téchiné (page 40)
In Lewis's world, as in that of Cocteau, one takes the good jinns for soulless jumping jacks and a retiring manner for uncommon acrobatics.
Claude-Jean Philippe (page 42)

First off, this is a reflection on laughter. There are those whom children like (the clumsy chauffeur, kind and a little ridiculous) and those whom they do not like (the selfish, cynical clown uncle who puts his savings in Switzerland and renounces the circus and his American citizenship). Put these two characters on either side of a mirror and you get the film in a nutshell.

That month's conseil des dix found Cahiers regulars Jacques Bontemps and Jean-André Fieschi giving the film 4 stars and Michel Delahaye giving it 3 stars. The tally for the other panelists was: Jean Collet, Robert Benayoun and Jean-Louis Bory gave the film 4 stars, Michel Cournot gave the film 3 stars, Albert Cervoni and Georges Sadoul gave the film 2 stars, and, finally, Michel Aubraint gave it 1 star.
The film appeared on the 10 best lists of Robert Benayoun, Jean-Pierre Biesse, Jean Collet, Jean-Louis Comolli, Michel Cournot, Michel Delahaye, Jean Douchet, Jean-André Fieschi, Folon, André S Labarthe, Claude Ollier, Claude-Jean Philippe, André Téchiné, Henri Chapier, Serge Daney, Claude de Givray, Sylvain Godet, François Mars, and Jean-Louis Naomes.

Boeing-Boeing (Boeing-Boeing) (John Rich)
Reviewed in the "Films Reased in Paris" June 1966 issue of Cahiers by Jean-André Fieschi (page 80, my translation)
Noteworthy exclusively for its negative and constrictive quality, by demonstrating the complete impossibility in which today the great Lewis, inserting himself even through fraud, in a universe other than his own. It is a comfort to confirm that the lower depths of French slapstick and farce are completely closed to him. So much the better.
Among the four Cahiers critics sitting on the panel which considered this film, André Fieschi and Michel Delahaye bulleted the film while Jean Narboni and Jean-Louis Comolli abstained. The tally of the six non-Cahiers

critics broke down thusly: Robert Benayoun gave the film 2 stars and Georges Sadoul gave the film 1 star. Jean-Louis Bory and Michel Cournot bulleted the film while Michel Aubraint and Albert Cervoni abstained.

Three on a Couch (Trois sur un sofa [Three on a Couch]) (Jerry Lewis)
Reviewed by Jean-Louis Comolli (Cahiers co-editor) in the January 1967 issue of Cahiers (pages 67-68, my translation)
Thus, here is the most constructed film of Lewis's; the one in which the comic technique best couples with the dramatic technique. This coherence, this substitution of the "serious" for the "demented" might be regretted. The "Bell Boy" gives way to the coordinator of plots and the ridiculous actor to the worried auteur. But the itinerary is magnificent.
In the conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars, Jean-Louis Comolli and Michel Delahaye gave the film 4 stars, while Jacques Bontemps and Michel Mardore gave it 3 stars. Among the non-Cahiers contingent on that panel, Jean-Louis Bory and Jean Collet gave the film 3 stars, Albert Cervoni and George Sadoul gave the film 2 stars, and Michel Aubriant and Jean de Baroncelli gave it 1 star. This film was listed as one of the 10 Best Films of the year by Jean-Louis Comolli, René Richetin and Jacques Robert.

Way...Way Out (Tiens bon la rampe, Jerry [Keep Hold of the Launchpad, Jerry]) (Gordon Douglas)

Reviewed in the January 1967 issue of Cahiers by Michel Mardore in the "Films released in Paris" section (page 73, my translation)
If Lewis is looking to prove, as in Boeing-Boeing, his aptitude for portraying "normal" characters, this performance aims at an abusive masochism.
In the conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars, Michel Delahaye and Jean Narboni bulleted the film and André Téchiné abstained. The non-Cahiers split like this: Jean-Louis Bory and Albert Cervoni gave the film 2 stars, Robert Benayoun, Henri Chapier and Georges Sadoul gave it 1 star, Michel Aubriant bulleted the film, and Jean de Baroncelli abstained.

Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (Te casse pas la tête Jerry [Don't Overwork Yourself, Jerry]) (Jerry Paris)
Reviewed in the October 1968 issue of Cahiers by Patrick Brion in the "Films released in Paris" section (page 65, my translation)
This new item, after Boeing-Boieng (sic) - a European adventure [note: this film was shot in Portugal], from Lewis is even more disheartening than its predecessor. Encumbered by an awful screenplay, which one might believe had been written for Kenneth More, surrounded by bad comics and most of all crippled by a direction which does not even reach the level of t most mediocre comedies of the Paramount era, Lewis appears quickly disoriented and, more than that, uninterested by this grim comedy. But what else could be done here?

By September of 1968, when this film was released in Paris, Cahiers had abandoned the conseil des dix feature.

The Big Mouth (Jerry grande gueule [Jerry, The Big Mouth]) (Lewis)
The Christmas 1967/January 168 issue of Cahiers included a special section devoted to Jerry Lewis with an interview conducted by André Labarthe and Positif critic Robert Benayoun.
The refinements of construction, the physical-metaphysical reach of the slightest gag, the tidal wave of madness which bowls over the dimensions of space, time and cinema, force us to dedicate a special issue to their analysis. The Big Mouth marks the center of gravity, the inevitable outcome of the previous films of Lewis.

In the conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars Jean Narboni and Jacques Bontemps gave the film 4 stars, while Michel Delahaye and Michel Mardore gave it 3 stars. Among the non-Cahiers critics on that panel: Jean Collet and Jean-Pierre Leonardi gave the film 4 stars, Robert Benayoun gave the film 3 stars, Michel Aubriant and Henri Chapier gave the film 1 star and Jean de Baroncelli abstained.

The Big Mouth was cited as one of the 10 Best Films of the Year by Jacques Aumont, Robert Benayoun, Patrick Bensard, Charles Bitsch, Jacques Bontemps, Patrick Brion, Michel Ciment, Jean Collet, Jean-Louis Comolli, Serge Daney, Jean Douchet, Bernard Eisenschitz, Sylvain Godet, Gerard Guegan, Pascal Kané, Claude Ollier, Sylvie Pierre, Sebastien Roulet, Jacques Siclier, Roger Tailleur.

Another take on mise en scene

2008-10-28T20:14:00.004-04:00

Watching the fifth season of the TV series The Wire on DVD with the French subtitles turned on, this translation interested me: At 9:45 in episode 3,

Jimmy McNulty says, "Well, maybe they need the make believe". This was rendered into French as, "Il leur faut une mise en scène."

2008-10-19T11:15:00.007-04:00

In the August-September 1954 issue of Cahiers du Cinema commenced a new monthly feature at the back of each issue called "Films released in Paris from 'x' date to 'y' date" where all the films released in Paris in the last month were listed and the films not reviewed by Cahiers were usually briefly commented on.
In the January 1965 issue, Cahiers recorded the release of Michel Deville's film Lucky Jo in the "Films released" feature with this comment,

A rather beautiful story, blandly told, of an unlucky gangster, who, full of good will, sets in motion the collapse of everything which he touches. In sum, a devilleienne autobiography. (Cahiers du Cinema, January 1965, page 152, my translation)

In the March 1965 issue of Cahiers, the following two letters to the editor objecting to this short note were published on the "Cahiers des lecteurs" page.

The legitimate fears that many can have will vanish quickly, if you continue in this manner. "Yeye" will not destroy "Jazz Magazine", why will it kill Cahiers?... What have you done to Deville? If you don't like him, don't put off others over it. This is a sensitive and elegant director and his Lucky Jo is a marvel of poetry and humanity. André Ondarsumu (Cahiers du Cinema, March 1965, page 5, my translation)
... I regret how there abides in some collaborators a sectarian state stripped of all objectivity. I am thinking precisely of the latest Chabrol, Le Tigre aime le chair fraiche, which was made the object of a laudatory column while the latest Deville, Lucky Jo, saw itself allotted a few ironic lines. Without being a masterpiece, this little film is clearly superior to that so-called "Chabrolesque de-Bondization" and, on that subject, you will have the pleasure to establish, if possible, a parallel with Goldfinger, notably for the sequence of the automobile compacter. J-L Couturier (Cahiers du Cinema, March 1965, page 5, my translation)

Cahiers responded

We have nothing against Deville. As proof, the laudatory reviews of Ce soir ou jamais, Adorable menteuse and À cause, à cause d'une femme... But, there was no one to be found at Cahiers to champion L'Appartement des filles or Lucky Jo. Thus, there is no necessity to conclude a general hostility towards Deville, even if appearances, this time are against us. Those who liked the film greatly (Truffaut, for example, or de Givray) were not in Paris for the publication of that issue. And the "list of films released from ... to ..." had to be compiled. That said, Mr Ondarsumu and Mr Couturier are correct in criticizing the accused notice for excessive harshness: meanwhile, several other letters were received from readers in the same sense. In the future, we will try to be less undeserved, or better to take responsibility for our arbitrariness. (cf. as concerns thhis regard, in the back [of that issue], the revision of "List of films..."

2008-10-08T09:58:00.008-04:00

In 1963, Cahiers du Cinema co-founder and former co-editor Jacques Doniol-Valcroze played the starring role in novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet's L'Immortelle. What follows is the beginning of the review of that film in the May 1963 issue of Cahiers in which J D-V who now only on rare occasion wrote for Cahiers explains how it happens that he is reviewing a film which he starred in.

That I am writing here about L'Immortelle is not beyond a certain indecorum. I realize that perfectly. So, I owe the reader an explanation. It is simple. No member of the staff at Cahiers, presently, agreed to take pen in hand other than to summarize the general opinion at Cahiers as Rohmer had gently forewarned me. "They seem to have mixed in some reels of Benazeraf's during the editing." The old rule at Cahiers that it is the one who likes the film who speaks of it, in preference to the one who did not like it should be sufficient reason since I am the only one for.
Cahiers du Cinema, May 1963, page 54 (my translation)

In May 1963's conseil des dix, among Cahiers regulars, the film was bulleted by Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet while Doniol-Valcroze gave the film 3 stars. The non-Cahiers critics who participated on that panel ran the gamut in their assessments of the film: Claude Mauriac gave the film 4 stars, Jean-Louis Bory gave it 3 stars, Georges Sadoul 2 stars, Henri Agel and Bernard Dort both gave it 1 star while Michel Aubriant and Pierre Marcabru each bulleted the film.

Jean-Pierre Gorin on Manny Farber's death.

2008-09-24T18:45:00.007-04:00

This is translated from a eulogy for Manny Farber which was published in Serge Toubiana's blog. Jean-Pierre Gorin taught Cinema at University of California at San Diego with Manny Farber.

I sent him [Jean-Pierre Gorin] an e-mail yesterday, simply as a gesture. Gorin quickly answered me. Let me reproduce a few lines from his e-mail which moved me greatly.

The night of his death was extraordinary. Patricia (Patricia Patterson, Manny Farber's wife, with whom he wrote several books on cinema) with his body in her arms. And Robert Walsh, Jyah Min and me around the bed. Laughter, silence, and again laughter. Few tears. An evening as he would have wanted. We looked at each other surprised by what was happening. Later, Patricia told me that this replicated the account which Manny had given her of the death of James Agee. And then the tasks of the dead.They held mourning with arms outstretched, banishing it in order to reclaim it with interest: mourning on the installment plan. Nothing has affected me yet, but I know the due date approaches.

Pierre Billard on young French filmmakers -- Feb 1958

2008-09-15T08:11:00.007-04:00

This is the conclusion written by Pierre Billard for the feature "40 less than 40" concerning young French filmmakers which appeared in the February 1958 issue of Cinema '58. This article is credited as being the first to apply the term "New Wave" to that generation. Although this was more than a year before The Four Hundred Blows would be released.

So here, considered one by one, are 40 youths on whom rests the destiny of tomorrow's French cinema. How not to recognize that this list, which we wanted yo be benevolent, scarcely inspires enthusiasm. And it does not suffice to bundle forty individuals tied by their birth certificates to constitute an academy, how to deny to our too mortal forty a generalized proclivity towards a disquieting academicism.
In fact, what is striking about these young people is their lack of youth. We would pass most gladly over the defects of their films if those defects resulted from an excess of enthusiasm, from haphazard and poorly managed research, from immoderate ambition, or from erroneous, but novel, aesthetic conceptions. The wisdom with which this "new wave" follows in the tracks of its elders is disconcerting. Undoubtedly, it will sometimes happen that they will beat the elders at their own game: these bitter victories are not those which we wish for them.
Among the young foreign filmmakers discovered in these last years, there is no one whose genius seems guaranteed and all their films are far from satisfying for us. But, there is something in Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Knife, Attack (Aldrich, 1919), The Forty-first (Chukrai, 1922), Grand'Rue (Bardem, 1922), The House of the Angel (Torre Nilsson, 1925), Generation, Kanal (Wajda, 1927), Gli Sbandati, La Donna del giorno (Maselli, 1931), a passion, a desire to make films for, and, above all, against a certain order (moral, social, esthetic), an aspiration towards a thematic or formal renovation which appears to us YOUNGER [his capitals] than the knowing and empty mastery of the plupart of our "hopes".
Let's guard against condemnations, summary and too hurried. The only certainty about these forty names which we have gathered is that they do not constitute a generation (if what is meant by that is a collective phenomenon presenting some known characteristics) but a heterogeneous and inconsistent group of people manifestly the same age. Judging this group as a bloc, in STATISTICAL TERMS [his capitals], one is taken with an extreme strictness for the best, and thus lead to a MEDIUM [his capitals] value which denies the essence of their qualities. So it is these best alone that we would want to take into consideration to sketch out some conclusions. These conclusions will be completely false should we level a value judgment on our young filmmakers without taking into account the conditions in which they are led to create. In looking up from our biographies, our filmographies, our catalogings and our awards, we quickly see that we are proceeding to attribute to some the sins of all and forgetting the basic justification which explains today's situation.

I. The Conditions of production

The general conditions of film organization in France today are not favorable for the development of a new generation. Let us cite among some reasons:

---The non-existence of a sector of experimental production.

---The incoherence and absurdity of professional organization which increase the barriers and partitions between the specialties and organize employment into an extreme hierarchy, thus doing damage to the promotion of the most capable.

---The relative prosperity of the short film which, as much for economic as psychological reasons, holds the interest of such a number of the young (this factor is unfavorable only relatively to problem which occupies us today. It could be considered as beneficial in the long run).

---The character of current French production which is directing itself toward "international" co-productions in color with foreign stars and very high budgets are entrusted to men of high reliance rather than to the young.

---The absence of a spirit of exploration and risks by the producers who confide the majority of French production to an infinitely small group of talentless drudges. So it is than in the last 12 years around 100 films have directed by our 40 less than 40, being an average of two and a half films per director. During the same period, 167 films (about 20% of the total production) have been directed by 9 filmmakers (an average of fifteen and a half films per director): Berthomeiu (30 films), Stelli (22 films), Boyer (21 films), Pottier (18 films), Vernay (17 films), Labro (17 films), Lepage, de Canonge, Raoul André (14 films).

III. The manner of the times

Able, master technicians, virtuosos of their first films, our young filmmmakers have nothing more to learn on the plane of METIER [his capitals]. They even would know it rather too well and some from among them don't shy away from old trickery.
But this technical qualification, this professional mastery, is exercised most often in the void: comedies are sometimes comical but never satirical, and dramas, if should remove manner, nothing remains any longer. And isn't this vacuity astonishing among creators who were between 15 and 20 during the "phony war" and 20 to 25 at the Liberation? If it knew the difficulties, the sufferings, the enthusiasms of this period, this generation was above all formed during the years 45-55, those of great abandon. They have left it as a part of today's intellectual youth, lucid and bitter, but disenchanted and no longer believing in anything, not even its revolt. It has seen overhauled Gods founder, the old lose their nerve, the promises of other times denied: yielding to the fashion of the day, it amuses itself in "demystifying" the latest illusions. This painful test of truth is possibly salutary for a renewal: it is hardly favorable to creation.
The same as in the theatrical domain, the multiplicity of enthusiastic and inventive young troupes is accompanied by a total sterility of dramatic creation. The harm is easily surmounted for, from Shakespeare to Brecht, the repertory offers temporary and exciting compensations. In the literary domain, the progress is more advanced and a new orientation of fiction is already being outlined by, for example, Michel Butor, Marguerite Duras, Claude Simon, and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Conditions particular to film production render the refinement of new forms, of new themes, better in accord with our preoccupations, our sensibilities more difficult. One can divine its first fruits, however, in the sensuality of Vadim and Brabant, in the critical anarchism of Boissol, Carbonnaux, in the study of ambition in the work of Astruc, in the freer, more sincere, moer modern relations between men and woman in the work of Astruc, Vadim, Kast and Varda.

III. In the trough of the wave

And this leads us to a confession: it is that without doubt the moment was curiously chosen for a assessment of young French cinema. In fact, all this leads us to believe that under the accumulated effect of the causes which we have spoken of, we are currently in the trough of the wave, and, that the disappointments and renunciation of today will be succeeded by more positive experiences. These will come first off, undoubtedly, from the small academy we have examined today, and above all, if it is necessary to speak of the future, from Astruc, Vadim, Joffè, Molinaro and Malle. But other men who threaten to pull chestnuts out of the fire.

--- The Gods of Television, from which most harmonious film-TV relations permit exchanges.

--- Those of the short film: The announcement, for example, of the forthcoming creation of a co-operative of production which will gather some of the best documentarians around Alain Resnais and Henri Fabiani, is it not full of promise?

--- Those of Cahiers du Cinema: The half aborted attempt of Rivette (Le Coup du Berger), the successful one of Truffaut (Les Mistons) and the forthcoming feature from Chabrol (Le Beau Serge), all undertaken in independent production, don't they stand the chance of ending in interesting revelations?

No, finally, this stocktaking comes well to its end, less through what it observes than through what it announces. 1958 can be, must be for the young French cinema, the year of resounding confirmations, of unexpected flowerings, of lightning revelations. Or else...

Pierre Billard "40 less than 40" Cinema '58 February 1958 (my translation)

Agnès Varda answers Cinema '58 enquery

2008-09-06T21:07:00.010-04:00

In Pierre Billard's article "40 less than 40" in the February 1958 issue of Cinema '58, the editors asked 11 directors to respond to 8 questions. One of those 11 was Agnès Varda. (Strangely, Marcel Camus who by virtue of having been born in 1912 was not one of the 40 was one of the 11, also.) Here are Varda's answer to that inquest.

What are the films which the most striking in your memory?
Varda: L'Age d'or, Le Vampyr (Dreyer), The White Sheik, Greed.

Who is your favorite director (French of foreign)?
Varda: Fellini

Who is the young French director from whom you expect the most?
Varda:Resnais, and I am still expecting...

Who is your favorite writer?
Varda: Faulkner - Pavese - Genet

Who is your favorite composer, painter or playwright?
Varda: Picasso - Chekhov - Ionesco

Among the different pressures of cinema (economic, social, psychological, technical, etc.), which seem to you the most constraining?
Varda: The economic one and also the psychological pressure due to the "public".

Do you have the feeling of belonging to a cinematographic generation presenting a certain cohesion? If yes, how can one try to define it?
Varda: To a generation - yes - of filmmakers difficult and a little grating - but cohesive - no.

For what reasons have you chosen a film career?
Varda: Did not choose the career, but making films seems to me more difficult than the rest, more entertaining, more tempestuous.

The original New Wave

2008-09-06T17:05:00.005-04:00

In the French news-weekly L'Express in 1957, Françoise Giroud introduced the term "new wave" to designate the emerging generation in France. In February 1958, Pierre Billard in an article entitled "40 less than 40" in Cinema '58 (a publication of the Federation française des cineclubs which had about 3 or 4 times the circulation of Cahiers du cinema or Positif) first applied the term to cinema. What follows here is a list of the 40 directors considered "new wave" in this first discussion of them subject. NOTE: Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and some others did not make the list because they were considered as directors of short films.

[birth year unknown] Pierre Chevalier, Jean-Claude Roy, André Pergamet [1918] Norbert Carbonneuax, Jean Mousselle, Alex Joffé, Paul Cadéac, Claude Barma [1919] Guy Lefranc, Roger Pigaut [1920] Patrice Dally, Jean Bastia, Henri Verneuil, Claude Boissol, Charles Brabant, Louis Félice, Pierre Kast, Yves Robert [1921] Denys de La Patellière, Michel Boisrond, Yves Ciampi, Pierre Gout [1922] Maurice Delbez, Gérard Philippe, Maurice Régamey [1923] Alexander Astruc, Jack Pinoteau, Robert Ménegoz [1924] Pierre Cardinal, Bernard Borderie [1925] Claude Lalande [1928] Robert Hossein, Roger Vadim, Agnès Varda, Serge Bourgiognon [1930] Claude-Bernard Aubert [1932] Louis Malle

Truffaut's first beef

2008-08-11T22:45:00.004-04:00

François Truffaut review of the film Sudden Fear in the March 1953 issue of Cahiers du Cinema marked his first appearance in that revue. For the June 1953 of Cahiers, Truffaut wrote a short piece on errors in books dealing with film. Specifically, he dealt with an error in Jean Queval's monograph Marcel Carné. The quarrel that Truffaut proceeded to become embroiled in with Quéval would be the first brouhaha of his career as a critic. It is interesting that in his original piece Truffaut never names Quéval as the culprit. Also, much as A Certain Tendency would use an idea of Andre Bazin's as its springboard ("After Robert Bresson, Aurenche and Bost are the Viollet-le-Duc of French cinema."), here Truffaut also uses a Bazin quote ("Do we need to burn books on film?") as a springboard. The difference being that in this case, Bazin was writing under the pseudonym, Florent Kirsch.
The following is Truffaut's short piece and Quéval's letter to Cahiers along with Truffaut's answer to that letter.

Truffaut's short piece which was printed in Books on Cinema in June 1953 issue of Cahiers du Cinema (page 61, my translation)

The complaints are daily, concerning the difficulty of making good use of books specializing in cinema.
Rarely is the question addressed from the point of view -- essential it seems to me -- of the value of these works and of their critical or historical authority.
I open a book dedicated to Marcel Carné. I note that the author has been guided alone by the consideration of undermining the prestige of this director; now, as it happens, I bought this book to move forward in the knowledge of a filmmaker I admire. Let's admit that the intent of this book was to make me become aware of the immoderacy of my admiration for Marcel Carné. But, why is it written in this same book, "The negative of Nogent, Eldorado of dimanche has burned and there no longer exist any copies of this film." It happens that I frequent the Cinémathéque française and that every year, I see Nogent, Eldorado of dimanche there.(1) How then, if I thinking also of a rather thick and quite recent book where I read, "After Faust, Murnau filmed Tartuffe". Although Faust is from 1925 and Tartuffe from 1925, how not to respond in the affirmative to the question raised in the past by Florent Kirsch, "Do we need to burn books on film?"

(1) A copy of Nogent, Eldorado of dimanche is the property of the Club des Cinéastes Amateurs. Meanwhile, this film has been shown many times at the Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin, at Cinéum and at the Cinémathéque. It is true that the critics rarely attend these places.

Quéval's letter (Cahiers du Cinema, August September 1953, page 64 my translation)

Dear Bazin, Dear Doniol
François Truffaut takes issue with a lot of people in your latest issue with the friendly arrogance of callow youth. My advice for him is a peaceful holiday in the fresh country air. But I am responding to him only in order that a fiction will be not become accredited. A great man, in my stead, will be the victim of a venomous iconoclast.
1) It is naive to think that I would dedicate a book to an important director so as to depreciate him. In reality, my first move was to request several interviews with him. It was not I who took to initiative to discontinue them. What followed from this rupture, others, in my position, would have made public, as a matter of self-defense. I have done nothing like this because I did not wish that the failings of the man tarnish the just and high repute of the artist. But, when François Truffaut attributes me with the intention of doing harm, the roles become reversed. 50 articles bear witness that, to the contrary, I endeavor to be unbiased, without letting myself win the wager through bad temper. Later on, a few months ago, Marcel Carné announced his intention to withdraw from film. I was, at that time, the only one in the press, make no mistake about it, to beg him not to do it.
2) François Truffaut bestows on himself an award for diligence in cinema. I will concede it to him. As for me, I generally believe what I am told. I was told, "There are no existing copies of Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche and the negative has been destroyed". I wrote, "There are no existing copies of Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche and the negative has been destroyed". My source was Marcel Carné.

Yours, Jean Quéval

Truffaut's reply (Cahiers du Cinema, August September 1953, page 64 my translation)

Dear Bazin, Dear Doniol
Jean Quéval, Normand critic, bestows on himself a prize for being unbiased which I would never dream of contesting, but, instead, it is true of criticizing him for. In the accusation which I leveled -- with coarseness of "callow youth" -- the notion that it is useless to write a book about a director -- and without doubt, more in general, one about an auteur --whom one does not admire enough to be deliberately biased. That Marcel Carné does not know that copies of Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche are extant is of scarce importance, his metier not being to view his films for those who have to explain them to others. Still historians know criticism of witnesses distinguishes the intrinsic from the extrinsic. I will hold though that the error would be, in itself, of little importance had Jean Quéval avoided it by looking to find the first film of his auteur. It is true that having seen (I think) Le Jour se lève did not prevent him from having Jules Berry go out into the street to die (page 39). The fault is harmless, but one like that of a lover so "unbiased" as to brag about his mistress's beauty spot while being mistaken on her breasts.
Must I add that if Jean Quéval has been the only one in the press a few weeks before the filming of Thérèse Raquin began to beg Marcel Carné not to abandon film, maybe, proves, above all, in the end, that he is also the only one to believe what they tell him?

Yours, François Truffaut

Eric Rohmer on Jacques Prévert

2008-08-04T10:13:00.006-04:00

This is a translation of a review of Jean Quéval's Jacques Prévert written Eric Rohmer that was published in Cahiers du Cinema for December 1956.

Only half of this book concerns us. We'll leave aside the poet of Paroles and consider the filmmaker only. Fimmaker, indeed, Jean Quéval thinks so and, as him, we think that that term is not at all far-fetched. "Prévert possesses more reality than other directors and scriptwriters. A single detail, which Roger Leenhardt points out to us, would say it. 'No one other than he himself ever wrote the dialogue for his scenarios. . .Just try to draw up a list of the films of a screenwriter, its incoherence will make you laugh.' As for Prévert, he stands up to the producers, sets the terms for himself, he is for real." He was the most stellar personality of the 30s and 40s. Les Amants de Vérone and Lumière d'été have more resemblance to each other than either of these films have with the respective work of [André] Cayatte or [Jean] Grémillon. "This is no mise-en-scene," adds Jean Quéval, "except if there is a metteur-en-scene". Metteurs-en-scene, that which we had the greatest lack of during the reign of Prévert, if we make an exception for [René] Clair -- already rather winded -- and Jean Renoir. "The case of Jean Renoir is enlightening. The only film he directed from a Prévert script, "Le Crime de Monsieur Lange", is commonly regarded (but Nana, Boudu sauvé des eaux, La Chienne, and La Règle de jeu etc. have reputations as secure) with all its weaknesses and its admirable moments as one of his best. Taking off from this, Jacques Brunius wrote 'The combination Renoir-Prévert -- presuming that the impact of both these tumultuous personalities would permit combination -- should have been able to furnish French cinema some beneficial salvos.' " But Quéval reminds us that it transpires there is an adaptation of Partie de campagne written by Prévert. "This is admirable", Renoir would say "But I haven't anything left to do." Yes, such was this the most suitable metteur-en-scene to put Prévert on film; not [Jean] Grémillon, as is affirmed here. Grémillon "the unfortunate genius of French cinema" (but, it has to be said,that he owes his misfortune to himself), nor his brother Pierre either. The author sketches out a defense of L’Affaire est dans le sac, Adieu Léonard and Voyage surprise which does not easily convince us. Let's pass over the first film whose schoolboy awkwardness merits sympathy. The latter two would have yielded something taken in hand by a [Vicente] Minnelli, but we did not have, we do not have, in France, any Minnelli. And neither gentility nor the best intentions in the world (but were they so good?) have ever taken the place of talent. Let's pass over Marc Allegret's L’Hôtel du libre échange, Pierre Billon's Le Soleil a toujours raison and other poverty-row Prévert, let's pass over Les Amants de Vérone possibly the most grandiose of all his films, but not the best. There remains [Marcel] Carné and I ask myself if this "superb painter" was not the best collaborator which our scenarist could have dreamed of. Poet, poet of cinema, indeed, but "man of the word" as Roger Leenhardt says, he needed only, all accounting done, a good illustrator. One can be claimed, as Barthélemy Amengual does, that Prévert is "in the images" of his films, quite, as much, as in the dialogue. But it still it is necessary to prove it - which can scarcely be done here - if only be done by citing the script of Les Amants de Vérone in which a silent scene is described. Of course, Pierre is a "visual", but three-quarters of novelists and playwrights are that, also. We think on the contrary that it accommodates itself to any kind of cinematic style. As long as it does not make up the better part of the "mise-en-scene", such, for example, as the silent masters, as Renoir or as the Americans of today conceive it. And Carné, in this instance, has possibly a style of framing and of imagery rather than of direction of "performance", this word being taken in its greatest sense. A quip of Prévert's is not without confirming this opinion for us, "The auteur of a film? It is the performer." The text of is dialogue takes on much more weight when spoken by prominent interpreters: he is one of those who have understood best that it is necessary to write for them while thinking of them. Gabin is never better as Gabin than in Le Quai des brumes or Le Jour se lève. While Renoir, whether one likes it or not, makes him depart from his myth.

Prévert had enough substance to need only which were not always easy to find. When he has them in hand (actors or directors) there remains the inconvenience of assimilating the shooting of the film to a simple performance comparable to that of a musical score. This becomes, we think today, a sorry idea of cinema. Not having had the opportunity to put his hands in the clay, he overloads his script with ideas which a "complete" filmmaker would prefer to express by mise-en-scene alone. Man of letters, by necessity and by metier, one of the rare scenarists who had the right to speak his word. He spoke it, but in his language - in words. These words. in order to claim all of their spice need to surge from behind the screen. but they weigh so heavily on the contours of the film that the people behind the camera use them as an excuse for the greatest laziness. "Alone among metteurs-en-scene of some importance, Clair and Cocteau, and four relative new-comers, Becker, Bresson, Clément and Tati. have escaped this imperious influence." Of course, for they, themselves, have something to say. All this, perhaps, returns to Prévert's credit, as to his reproach. That celebrated Prevertian "tone", we never cease detecting it in Aurenche, Bost, Spaak, Sigurd and a lot of others, and this spuriousness makes finally something foul out of the original. Prévert who is making a comeback with Jean Delannoy's Notre-Dame de Paris [The Hunchback of Notre Dame] is still not at the point when the patina of time dulls the ridicule for the outmoded things of yesterday or of the day before yesterday. The celebrated Dejeuner du matin (you must excuse me for trespassing onto literary terrain) leaves us for the moment as cold as the ornamented slip worn by Michèle Morgan in Le Quai des brumes. The novel and the American cinema have taught us another style of cinematic dialogue, more concise and closer to the natural than his. And also surrealism which he extends and adapts to the taste of a great number is burning out in its final flames, if it has not already been reduced to ashes. Thus, Jean Quéval's book arrives at a critical moment, I mean the most problematic for an appeal, most of all in eyes of our generation who smile of Prévert all the more in order to crush his forgers. Its reading has at the least had the happy after-effect of sending me back to an article by Roger Leenhardt published long ago (May 1945) in the review Fontaine "The Esthetics of Jacques Prévert".This study whose pertinence time has not altered, exhausts in a few pages the crux of the question. It is certain, as Leenhardt says, that film dialogue must be close to spoken language but at the same time possess the "luster" of written language. Prévert combines both these conditions thoroughly since 'the luster of his film dialogue is made up of a thousand "pearls" of human nattering. The words of the author are of the common places. Yes, on this point, Prévert's contribution is incontestable, although he can still be reproached for being a little to set in his system, a literary system which he also practices in his poems. Another point, his penchant for "typing" his characters. From whence, it arises that stylization in Prévert's work seems like a dangerous paradox, if not a shortcoming. It is that is expressed by film, and his success on the screen should not mask from us how much his aesthetic is in opposition to the normal aesthetic of film, Art of persistence, we have said, Persistence permits expressing the progressive modification of a character, its volume, so different from the flat tints of Prévert's characters, fixed, once and for all, like poetic symbols. . . . Poet more than psychologist, creator of atmosphere and characters rather than inventor of subjects, he was completely in his area of expertise in adaptation. The framework was for him only a utility: It was exactly useful for him. Freed of commanded subjects, he seems vexed by the liberty. His characters no longer strut about under solid wire but twist as they please while often losing their consistency and their equilibrium. As proof, the intolerable psychological and social implausibility of 'Lumière d'été'. Filmed the following year, Les Portes de la nuit, confirmed in an enlightening fashion this opinion.

Luc Moullet 10 best films 1957-1968

2008-07-23T20:08:00.006-04:00

Film critic and director Luc Moullet was first published by Cahiers du Cinema in April 1956 when he was still only 18 years old. The on-line archives at the magazines
site (which still does not include some special issues from the early years) lists 194 contributions by through 2006. These are his 10 best films lists from 1957 through 1968.

1957
1.....Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray)
2.....Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang)
3.....The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Luis Bunuel)
4.....The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock)
5.....Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray)
6.....An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey)
7.....A King in New York (Charles Chaplin)
8.....Hot Blood (Nicholas Ray)
9.....Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk)
10...The Crucified Lovers (Kenji Mizoguchi)

1958
1.....Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
2.....Dreams (Ingmar Bergman)
3.....Jet Pilot (Josef von Sternberg)
4.....Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger)
5.....Une Vie (Alexander Astruc)
6.....The Quiet American (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
7.....Man of the West (Anthony Mann)
8.....Les Girls (George Cukor)
9.....Paris Holiday (Gerd Oswald)
10...The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)

1959
1.....Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2.....Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller)
3.....Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
4.....The 400 Blows (François Truffaut)
5.....Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
6.....Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger)
7.....Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Alain Resnais)
8.....Dejeuner sur la Herbe (Jean Renoir)
9.....Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Berman)
10...Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys (Leo McCarey)

1960
1.....Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
2.....Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol)
......Moonfleet (Fritz Lang)
4.....Verboten! (Samuel Fuller)
......Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
6.....Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut)
......Les Régates de San Francisco (Claude Autant-Lara)
8.....Plein Soleil (René Clément)
......Les Frangines (Jean Gourguet)
10...Crésus (Jean Giono)

1961
1.....Lola (Jacques Demy)
2.....Elmer Gantry (Richard Brooks)
3.....The Young One (Luis Bunuel)
4.....Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller)
5.....A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
......Un Taxi pour Tobruk (Denys de La Patellière)
7.....Taira Clan Saga (Kenji Mizoguchi)
......La Tricheuse (E G de Meyst)
9.....Where is Freedom? (Roberto Rossellini)
......Dans la gueule du loup (Jean-Charles Dudrumet)

1962
1.....Adorable menteuse (Michel Deville)
2.....Girl With a Suitcase (Valerio Zurlini)
3.....Les Honneurs de la guerre (Jean Dewever)
4.....Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis (Vittorio Cottafavi)
5.....Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard)
6.....Wild River (Elia Kazan)
7.....The Flaming Years (Alexander Dovzhenko/Yuliya Solntseva)
8.....Le Signe du Lion (Eric Rohmer)
9.....Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda)
10...L'Éducation sentimentale (Alexander Astruc)

1963
1.....The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel)
2.....Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
3.....Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)
4.....Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier)
5.....Bandits of Orgosolo (Vittorio De Seta)
6.....Le Petit soldat (Jean-Luc Godard)
7.....Family Diary (Valerio Zurlini)
8.....The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
9.....Irma la Douce (Billy Wilder)
10...Muriel (Alain Resnais)

1964
Canada..........Pour la suite du monde (Michel Brault/Marcel Carrièr)
Denmark........Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
France..........La Punition (Jean Rouch)
Great Britain...A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester)
Italy.............I Fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi)
Japan...........The Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa)
Poland..........The Passneger (Andrejz Munk)
Sweden........All These Women (Ingmar Bergman)
Switzerland...Band à part (Jean-Luc Godard)
USA.............Man's Favorite Sport? (Howard Hawks)

1965
1.....Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller)
2.....Pierrot le Fou ( Jean-Luc Godard)
3.....The Brig (Jonas Mekas)
4.....L'Amour a la Chaine (Claude de Givray)
5.....The Ipcress File (Sidney J Furie)
6.....Mondo Cane 2 (Gualtieri Jacopetti/Franco Prosperi)
7.....Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard)
8.....Black Peter (Milos Forman)
9.....L'Enfer dans la peau (José Bénazéraf)
10....Lord Jim (Richard Brooks)

1966
1.....Walkover(Jerzy Skolimowski)
2.....Don Quintin the Bitter (Luis Marquina) see note below
3.....Au hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson)
4.....The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (Andre Delvaux)
5.....Les Sans espoir (Miklós Jancsó)
6.....Seven Women (John Ford)
7.....The Rise of Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini)
8.....Age of Illusions (István Szabó)
......Brigitte et Brigette (Luc Moullet)
......Fist in His Pocket (Mario Bellocchio)

1967
1.....Le Départ (Jerzy Skolimowski)
2.....Week End (Jean-Luc Godard)
3.....Stranded (Julien Compton)
4.....Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard)
5.....Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
6.....Blow Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
7.....Two for the Road (Stanley Donen)
8.....Man Is Not a Bird (Dusan Makavejev)
9.....Playtime (Jacques Tati)
10...What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (Blake Edwards)

1968
1.....Les Idoles (Marc'o)
2.....Commanche Station(Budd Boetticher)
3.....The Times That Are (Pierre Perrault)
4.....Pop' Game (Francis Leroi)
5.....Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn)
6.....Les Encerclés(Christian Gion)
7.....The Bride Wore Black (François Truffaut))
8.....Love for an Idiot (Yasuzo Masamura)
9.....Diabolik (Mario Bava)

American Films of the Sound Era (Dec63/Jan64 issue)
1.....The River (Jean Renoir)
2.....Rebel without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
3.....Scarface (Howard Hawks)
4.....Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
5.....You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)
6.....Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
7.....Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
8.....The Fountainhead (King Vidor)
9.....While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang)
10...The Diary of a Chambermaid (Jean Renoir)

French Films since the Liberation (Jan 65)
1.....Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
2.....Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Robert Bresson)
3.....Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
4.....Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
5.....Les Honneurs de la guerre (Jean Dewever)
6.....Adorable Menteuse (Michel Deville)
7.....Lola (Jacques Demy)
8.....La Ligne de mire(Jean-Daniel Pollet)
9.....Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)
10...Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol)

A reader posted this comment on one of my other blogs
Sorry to intrude here on this already old post, but I don't see on "My Gleamings" any way to comment nor your e-mail. It is only that I don't think Luc Moullet voted in 1968 Luis Marquina's "Don Quintín el amargao" (supervised and produced by Buñuel in 1935), but rather (in fact, I'm quite sure, since several of Buñuel's Mexican films were re-released or belatedly released) Buñuel's Mexican remake of that same old Spanish play, "La Hija del Engaño" (aka "Don Quintín el amargado", which was used for the French translation of the title), made in 1951 and much better than the 1935 version.
Best,
Miguel María

2008-07-13T10:57:00.002-04:00

This short excerpt is translated from Jean Aurenche's memoirs La Suite à l'écran. (pages 157-158, my translation)
When they accuse us of having adapted too often, it should be understood that we were acquiescing to the desires of the directors. It should also be placed in context of the epoque. Few producers would consent to financing an original screenplay. It takes a great deal of time to write an original screenplay. It's rather like a novel. And it's risky. We wrote a certain number which waited years before being produced. Tu ne tueras point, for example. Others were rejected. Thus, Tavernier found among [Pierre] Bost's papers (me, I kept nothing) a treatment which we had written in 1950 for Paul Graetz, who wanted to offer if to [David] Selznick. At this time. I still read my manuscripts out loud for I had no confidence in the producers. After a dinner washed down with Burgundy, I began to read, but, at the end of two minutes, I became aware that Selznick was snoring. He slept, totally knocked out in his easy chair. Graetz said to me "If you stop, he will become annoyed", so I read a few pages. He was still snoring. It was an incredible scene. I had had enough, he was making so much noise that I stopped. After twenty minutes, he woke up. I then asked him to walk around while I was reading the text. He looked at me as though I were mad and as a result it was never read to him. No more than Graetz. Tavernier discovered the text and had me rework it. It became The Judge and the Assassin.

2008-07-11T11:43:00.006-04:00

from Arts April 29 - May 5 1959 as reprinted in The 400 Blows; a film by François Truffaut from a filmscript by François Truffaut and Michel Moussy. Edited by David Denby; Publisher Grove Hall (1969) page 225 (Helen R Lane is credited with the translation.)

Truffaut: I see only one common point among young filmmakers; all of them quite systematically play the pinball machine, unlike the old directors who prefer cards and whisky. This is not a paradox, because aside from this game, what I notice mostly is that there are essential differences between us. We know each other, of course, we like the same movies, we exchange ideas in a friendly way, but when the results of our work are judged on the screen, it is noticeable that Chabrol's films have nothing to do with Louis Malle's, which have nothing to do with mine.

2008-06-07T12:30:00.000-04:00

I hope to be able to resume writing this blog next month.

Cahiers du Cinema and Paddy Chayefsky

2008-05-09T10:41:00.002-04:00

Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky was one of the premier scenarist of the "Golden Age of Television" in the early 1950s. When the screen version of his 1953 teleplay, Marty, won the Academy award for Best Picture in 1955, he began a transition to film and Broadway. The following gives some idea of the reception which Chayefsky was accorded at Cahiers du Cinema from 1955 to 1959.

Marty

From Cahiers du Cinema “Cannes Ephemera” June 1955 (page 11, my translation)

That night the USA presented Delbert Mann’s Marty, making a significant impression on the spectators and the jury. It is a sort of “Brief Encounter” American-style. Two solitary souls – the shy young butcher and the not so attractive young woman – meet and open their hearts up to each other. Solitude cedes place to the attempt for happiness. The whole here arise out of the optics and themes of TV and for good reason since it is a teleplay which is the basis of this genial and endearing film.

From Jacques Donoil-Valcroze’s review of Marty in the August-September 1955 issue of Cahiers du Cinema (pages 40-41 my translation)

But the film, which takes place over two or three days, goes along its own happy little road without affectation and reaches its conclusion with no accommodations or concessions. The tone of the dialogue is, in this genre, a model. Chayefsky has effortlessly found the right note which he maintains throughout the film whose simplicity, humor and goodwill are fully appropriate for the proposition.

Marty was considered by Cahiers’ charter conseil des dix in November 1955. It was awarded 3 stars by Jean de Baroncelli and Georges Sadoul and 2 stars by André Bazin, Henri Agel and Pierre Braunberger. One star was awarded by Jacques Donoil-Valcroze. The film was bulleted by François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. The other two panelists – Simon Dubreuilh and Alain Resnais – both abstained.

The Catered Affair

Chayefsky did not write the scenario for the film version of his teleplay The Catered Affair; Gore Vidal took on that responsibility. Scouring the monthly "films released in Paris between" feature of Cahiers and checking Cine-ressources. I can find no release date in France for this film in France. However, the film does have a French title Le Repas de noce which suggests that at some point it was released in France.

The Bachelor Party

From Cahiers du Cinema June 1957 by François Truffaut (page 31, my translation)

This technically impoverished and unequally acted film with excellent dialogue benefits from the admirable photography of Joseph LaShelle and most of all by the influence exercised by the films of Fellini over Hollywood, more personal subjects, more frankness and veracity.

From Cahiers du Cinema September 1957 by Louis Marcorelles (page 30, my translation)

First writer of American television, Paddy Chayefsky, author of The Bachelor Party, is an excellent observer, skillful at typifying his characters, catching hold of them in their most immediate reactions. He composes his narrative a little like a novelist, through an accumulation of insignificant details. More than in Marty, he knows how to depict the banality of existence in a big city in the 20th century.

Delbert Mann, the director, is content to follow the dialogue, to carefully avoid any divergence between image and spoken action. We accept, or refuse, this logorrhea; we like, or dislike, Chayefsky's characters. Their truth, maybe, does not pass beyond the strict circle of the New York neighborhood where we witness them trailing through their worries. But they have the merit of existing, a merit rather rare on the screen, where accomplice shadow favors all escapism.

From Cahiers du Cinema October 1957 by Claude de Givray (page 30, my translation page 56) [note: de Givray's review concerned dually Delbert Mann's The Bachelor Party and Daniel Mann's Teahouse of the August Moon]

Placing itself under the aegis of the first of the capital sins, sloth, we discover The Bachelor Party. Delbert [Mann's] camera is quite as heavy and awkward as that of Daniel [Mann], both still being held on a leash by the memory of the cables of the television studio. But here the damage is limited since the true auteur of the film is the clever screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky, renowned for his demagogic Marty.

In the conseil des dix, the film was awarded 3 stars by Jean-Pierre Vivet. It received 2 stars from André Bazin and also Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger, Georges Sadoul and Robert Benayoun. Both Jacques Donoil-Valcroze and Jean-Luc Godard gave the film 1 star. Jacques Rivette and Charles Bitsch abstained.

The Goddess

From Cahiers du Cinema October 1958 by André Bazin (page 50, my translation) [note: André Bazin's review of The Goddess together with a review by him of the film Ten North Frederick were the last reviews by André Bazin published in Cahiers.]

I recognize that Paddy Chayefsky's film has the makings to baffle and I do not take it for a convincing undertaking, but what there is that bothers me in him seems worthy of esteem, if not admiration, and, in any case, interest.

It is worthy to note that Bazin's review mentions Chayefsky from the first paragraph and uses his name 11 times. John Cromwell, the director of the film, is not cited until about three-quarters of the way into the review. His name is mentioned 3 times.

The film was rewarded with 21 stars by the conseil des dix. Bazin, Jean Domarchi, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and also Pierre Braunberger awarded it 3 stars. Henri Agel and Jean de Baroncelli gave it 2 stars. Charles Bitsch and Jacques Donoil-Valcroze gave it 1 star while Eric Rohmer abstained.

François Truffaut, Louis Marcorelles and Pierre Braunberger placed The Goddess on their 10 best list for 1958.

L'Ecrivain de television

In December 1958, Cahiers published L'Ecrivain de television (The Television Writer) by Paddy Chayefsky, an article that was pieced together from parts of the foreward he wrote for his book Television Plays published in 1955 by Simon and Schuster and also the commentaries he provided in that book for his teleplays The Big Deal and Marty.

Middle of the Night

From Cahiers du Cinema June 1959 by Jacques Donoil-Valcroze (page 46, my translation). Donoil-Valcroze was covering the 1959 Cannes Festival where this film competed.

Nothing that Paddy Chayefsky does leaves me indifferent, but why the devil doesn't he direct his own stories? On this occasion, it is manifest that Delbert Mann is not at the level of the material. Be that as it may, The subtlety and authenticity of the plot, as well as, the veracity in the description of the sociological background deserve better direction than the rather flat and direction of Delbert Mann.

From Cahiers du Cinema July 1959 by Louis Marcorelles (page 56, my translation)

Firstly, the sharp gift of observation of the auteur, his fashion of seizing mediocre human beings in the worst discomfort of daily life. Our Chayefsky takes delight in exposing Yankee materialist nothingness, does not worry for a second of examining the other side of the coin, to understand how these failures of the industrial 20th century nevertheless continue to survive...

Delbert Mann...a veritable piece of blotting paper of a director (that I guess is why Chayefsky dedicates himself with this delirious admiration to him)...

We recall, incidentally, The Goddess, because John Cromwell, its director, is the antithesis of Delbert Mann and Chayefsky. An out-and-out idealism there swept away Chayefsky's miasma provoking the ire of the scenarist worried about this warping.

In the conseil des dix, the film was awarded 3 stars by Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard. It was awarded 2 stars by Eric Rohmer and Jean de Baroncelli. And, it was awarded 1 star by Jean Douchet and Jacques Donoil-Valcroze, as well as Henri Agel, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul. No one bulleted the film, but Pierre Braunberger abstained.

English Films French Critics Part V 1960

2008-04-19T18:11:00.004-04:00

This post which continues from English Films French Critics 1959 is the last installment English Films French Critics series.

January 1960
Horrors of the Black Museum, I was Monty's Double, and King's Rhpasody were listed by Cahiers du Cinema as English films which had been released in Paris in the previous month. None was considered by the conseil des dix.

February 1960
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Killers of Kilimanjaro, The Moonraker, The Mummy and Upstairs and Downstairs were listed as having been released in Paris by Cahiers. The conseil des dix did not consider any of them.

March 1960
Long Distance, The Mouse that Roared and Sapphire were listed by Cahiers as having been released in Paris in the previous month.
The Mouse that Roared received 3 star - 1 from Cahiers regular Luc Moullet and 1 each from Jean de Baroncelli and Georges Sadoul. It was bulleted by Eric Rohmer and Jean Domarchi as well as Pierre Braunberger. Jacques Rivette and also Henri Agel, Pierre Marcabru and Claude Mauriac all abstained.
Sapphire received 7 stars - 2 each from Henri Agel and Georges Sadoul and 1 apeice from Pierre Marcabru, Jean de Baroncelli and Claude Mauriac. Luc Moullet was the only bullet. Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Jean Domarchi and also Pierre Braunberger all abstained.
Additionally, the Anglo-American production of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple was listed with the American films. This film received 3 stars from the conseil - 1 each from Jacques Rivette, Jean Domarchi and also Jean de Baroncelli. It was bulleted by Henri Agel and Pierre Braunberger while Eric Rohmer, Luc Moullet plus Georges Sadoul, Pierre Marcabru, and Claude Mauriac.

April 1960
Carol Reed's Our Man in Havana was the only film listed as English in the films released in Paris section of Cahiers. It received 2 stars from the conseil - 1 each from Jacques Rivette and Luc Moullet. It was bulleted by Jean Douchet and also Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Marcabru and Claude Mauriac. Both Eric Rohmer and Georges Sadoul abstained.
The Anglo-American production The Wreck of the Mary Deare was cited with the American films. It also received 2 stars from the conseil - this time Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet. It was bulleted by Pierre Marcabru. Cahiers regulars Eric Rohmer and Luc Moullet plus Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul all abstained.

May 1960
Ferry to Hong Kong, I'm All Right Jack, The Safecracker and Together were the English films listed as having been released in Paris in this issue of Cahiers.
Ferry to Hong Kong was bulleted by Cahiers co-editor Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and "young turks" Jean Douchet and Luc Moullet as well as Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean de Baroncelli and Pierre Marcabru. Three other "young turks" - Jacques Rivette, Louis Marcorelles and Fereydoun Hoveyda - plus critic Claude Mauriac all abstained.
Louis Marcorelles had reviewed the film Together which was directed by an Italian woman, Lorenza Mazzetti, in June 1956 as part of the coverage of the Cannes Film festival coverage. He wrote a second review four years later in this issue of Cahiers and gave the film 3 stars as did Arts critic Pierre Marcabru. Fereydoun Hoveyda bulleted the film. Jacques Rivette, Jean Douchet, Luc Moullet, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze as well as Jean de Baroncelli, Jean-Pierre Melville and Claude Mauriac all abstained.
Louis Marcorelles placed Together on his "10 best films" list for 1960.

June 1960
Cahiers du Cinema recorded The Battle of the Sexes, Northwest Frontier, Blood of the Vampire, Subway in the Sky and Too Many Crooks as English films released in Paris in this issue. None was considered by the conseil.

July 1960
Sink the Bismark, Beyond This Place, Carry on Nurse, The Seventh Sin, Sons and Lovers and Time without Pity were the films from England listed as having been released in Paris.
American director Joseph Losey's Time without Pity received 21 stars from the conseil. "Young turk" Jean Douchet gave the film 4 stars while "young turk" Luc Moullet gave it 3 stars as did Pierre Marcabru and Georges Sadoul. Two stars each came from Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer Louis Marcorelles as well as Jean de Baroncelli. Finally, Claude Mauriac and Pierre Braunberger gave the film 1 star each. No on bulleted the film and no one abstained.
Jean Douchet, Jean Domarchi and Fereydoun Hoveyda from among the "young turks" plus Henir Agel and Pierre marcabru placed Time without Pity on their "10 best films" lists for 1960.
Sons and Lovers received a total of 8 stars - 2 from Louis Marcorelles, and 1 each from Jacques Rivette, Jean Douchet and also Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Marcabru, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul. The lone bullet came from Pierre Braunberger while Eric Rohmer and Luc Moullet both abstained.

August 1960
Lucky Jim was the only English film listed as released in Paris. It was not considered by the conseil.
However, Cahiers had mistakenly classified Fiend without a Face as an American film. Fiend without a Face was considered by the conseil. It received 1 star each from Fereydoun Hoveyda and Louis Marcorelles while Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. Eric Rohmer and Luc Moullet as well as Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Marcabru, Claude Mauriac, Georges Sadoul all abstained.

September 1960
Three English films - Davy, Hell is a City and SOS Pacific were listed as having been released in Paris. Only SOS Pacific was considered by the conseil. Charles Bitsch, Claude de Givray, Jean-Luc Godard, Luc Mouller Michel Mourlet and Jacques Rivette - all young Cahiers critics - bulleted the film. Jean Domarchi, Fereydoun Hoveyda plus Henri Agel and Jean-Pierre Melville abstained.

October 1960
A Terrible Beauty, Jack the Ripper, The League of Gentlemen, The Scapegoat and Too Hot to Handle were all listed as English films released in Paris.
A Terrible Beauty received 2 stars from Jacques Rivette and 1 star from Jean Douchet. The other eight panelists - Eric Rohmer, Fereydoun Hoveyda plus Henri Agel, Michel Aubriant, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Marcabru, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul all abstained.
The League of Gentlemen received 3 stars from Claude Mauriac and 1 each from Jean Douchet, Fereydoun Hoveyda plus Jean de Baroncelli and Pierre Marcabru. Five panelists abstained - Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer as well as Henri Agel, Michel Aubriant and Georges Sadoul.
Too Hot to Handle was bulleted by Jean Douchet and also Michel Aubraint, Pierre Marcabru and Claude Mauriac. It was passed on by Jacques Rivette, Fereydoun Hoveyda, and Eric Rohmer as well as Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli and Georges Sadoul.

November 1960
Three English films - Malaga, Peeping Tom, and Oscar Wilde - were listed as having been released in Paris and all three were considered by the conseil.
Oscar Wilde received 3 stars from the conseil - 2 from Claude Mauriac and 1 from Jean Douchet. Georges Sadoul bulleted the film. Seven critics abstained - Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and Fereydoun Hoveyda among the Cahiers contingent and Henri Agel, Michel Aubriant, Pierre Marcabru, and Jean de Baroncelli among other Paris critics.
Peeping Tom received 1 star from Michel Aubriant and it was bulleted by one other critic Pierre Marcabru. As with the preceding film, eight critics abstained - Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Jean Douchet and Fereydoun Hoveyda among the Cahiers contingent and Henri Agel, Claude Mauriac, Jean de Baroncelli and Georges Sadoul among other Paris critics.
Malaga was bulleted by five panelists - Jean Douchet from Cahiers and Henri Agel, Michel Aubriant, Pierre Marcabru, and Claude Mauriac. Five panelists abstained - Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Fereydoun Hoveyda, from Cahiers and Jean de Baroncelli and Georges Sadoul.

December 1960
Look Back in Anger, The Square Peg and The Stranglers of Bombay were listed as English films released in Paris.
Look Back in Anger received 7 stars. 2 from Cahiers regular Louis Marcorelles as well as 2 from Jean de Baroncelli. And 1 from Cahiers regular André S Labarthe as well as 1 each from Michel Aubriant and Claude Mauriac. The film was bulleted by Jean Douchet and Jacques Rivette while Eric Rohmer as well as Henri Agel and Georges Sadoul abstained.

English Films, French Critics Part IV 1959

2008-04-14T21:50:00.008-04:00

So here is the fourth installment in the series continuing from English Films, French Critics 1958

January 1959
Carve Her Name with Pride, The Flesh is Weak, The Horse's Mouth, Task Force, The Tommy Steele Story, and The Vicious Circle were all recorded in the "Films released in Paris" section of Cahiers du Cinema as English films released in Paris.
Only The Horse's Mouth rated consideration by the conseil des dix. There, it was awarded 1 star each by five critics - two Cahiers "young turks", Jacques Rivette and Charles Bitsch and three non-Cahiers critics, Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, and Georges Sadoul. Two panelists bulleted the film - older Cahiers critic, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and young Cahiers critic, Jean Domarchi. Eric Rohmer, plus Pierre Braunberger and Claude Mauriac all abstained.

February 1959
A Passionate Stranger was the only English listed as released in Paris. It did not come up for consideration by the conseil.

March 1959
Horror of Dracula, Passport to Shame,the Anglo-American co-production Me and the Colonel and the Franco-Italian co-production The Widow which was directed by American director Lewis Milestone were listed as English films released in Paris.
Me and the Colonel was considered by the conseil. Seven panelists gave the film 1 star, Jacques Rivette and Luc Moullet from Cahiers plus Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul. Three Cahiers regulars abstained - Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze.
The Widow received 2 stars from Georges Sadoul and 1 star each from Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and Claude Mauriac. Luc Moullet and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze plus Henri Agel all abstained.

April 1959
Only The Camp on Blood Island was listed and it was not rated by the conseil.

May 1959
This issue saw The Bandit of Zhobe, Blue Murder at St Trinian's and Dangerous Exile listed as being released in Paris. None were considered.

June 1959
Battle of the V-1, Sea of Sand and Three Steps to the Gallows were listed but none was rated by the conseil.

July 1959
Count Five and Die, Harry Black, Ice-Cold in Alex, A Night to Remember, Son of Robin Hood and Room at the Top were listed as "released in Paris."
Only Room at the Top was considered by the conseil. Jean de Baroncelli gave it 2 stars. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, plus Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul gave it 1 star. The film was bulleted by Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette and also Henri Agel and Claude Mauriac. It was passed on by Jean Douchet and Eric Rohmer.

August 1959
Law and Disorder, Windom's Way and A Hill in Korea were all released in Paris. None was considered by the conseil.

September 1959
Operation Amsterdam and Orders to Kill were listed as being released in Paris. The conseil des dix did not consider either.

October 1959
The Gypsy and the Gentlemen, The One that Got Away, Tiger Bay, The Wind Cannot Read were listed as English films released in Paris while the Anglo-American-Irish co-production Shake Hands with the Devil was listed under American films released in Paris
Only Tiger Bay rated consideration from the conseil. One panelist - producer Pierre Braunberger - gave it 3 stars. Those were the only stars it received. Three "young turks" Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Luc Moullet plus older Cahiers hand Pierre Kast all bulleted the film. Five panelists abstained - 3 younger Cahiers regulars, Charles Bitsch, Jean Domarchi and Jean Douchet plus Henri Agel and Georges Sadoul.

November 1959
Floods of Fear, Yesterday's Enemy and Ralph Thomas's remake of The 39 Steps were released in Paris.
Only the remake of The 39 Steps was considered by the conseil. There, one critic, Georges Sadoul gave the film its total of 1 star. Two younger Cahiers critics - Jean-Luc Godard and Jean Douchet - and an older Cahiers critic - Pierre Kast - bulleted the film. The other six panelists abstained - younger Cahiers critics - Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Luc Moullet - and non-Cahiers panelists - Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger and Claude Mauriac.

December 1959
One film was listed as released in Paris - First Man in Space. It was not considered by the conseil.

The series concludes with English Films, French Critics 1960.

English films, French critics Part III -- 1958

2008-04-11T22:08:00.013-04:00

This continues the series on the reaction of French critics to English films in the 1950s which I began with "English films, French critics Nov '55 - Dec '56" and "English Films, French Critics Part II -- 1957".

January 1958
House of Secrets and The Curse of Frankenstein were listed in this issue as released in Paris in the previous month. Neither was considered by the conseil.

February 1958
Checkpoint, Geordie, High Flight, The Naked Truth, Manuela, Wicked as They Come and The Bridge on the River Kwai all were listed as being released in Paris in this issue. None of these was graded by the conseil.
The Bridge on the River Kwai had been considered by the conseil des dix in the January issue. There, it received 19 stars. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze gave it 4 stars as did Pierre Braunberger. Jean de Baroncelli gave it 3 stars. André Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze as well as Georges Sadoul gave the film 2 stars. Eric Rohmer and also Henri Agel gave it 1 star. "Young Turk" Claude de Givray bulleted the film while Jacques Rivette abstained. The film was placed on the "ten best films for 1958" of Cahiers regulars Pierre Kast and Jean-Pierre Vivet and also Pierre Braunberger and Roger Leenhardt.

March 1958
The Long Haul, The Man in the Sky, Breakin' the Circle, Hell-Drivers and the documentary The Bolshoi Ballet were cited as having been released in Paris in the previous month. Hell-Drivers was the only film considered by the conseil. It received 3 stars, Georges Sadoul awarded it 2 stars and Positif's Robert Benayoun gave it 1 star. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film. There were 6 abstentions - André Bazin and Eric Rohmer, plus Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and Claude Mauriac.

April 1958
Only All at Sea is listed as being released in Paris. It was not considered by the conseil.

May 1958
She Played with Fire, Quartermass 2 and Seven Thunders were listed as being released in Paris in this issue. Only Quartermass 2 was evaluated by the conseil. One panelists - Robert Benayoun - awarded its complete score of 2 stars. Jacques Rivette as well as Henri Agel and Alan Doremieux bulleted the film. Charles Bitsch, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze as well as Jacques Demy, Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul all abstained.

June 1958
None of the three films - Across the Bridge, Doctor at Large and Ill Met by Moonlight - listed as being released in Paris - was rated by the conseil. July 1958 Happy is the Bride and Gideon of Scotland Yard were the only 2 English films entered as being released in Paris.
Of them, only Gideon of Scotland Yard which was directed by the American John Ford, a Cahiers favorite, was considered by the conseil. Jacques Rivette, as well as Robert Benayoun and Pierre Braunberger each gave the film 1 star. Charles Bitsch and Jean-Luc Godard as well as Henri Agel and Georges Sadoul bulleted the film. The editorial triumvirate at Cahiers - André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Eric Rohmer .- all abstained.
Louis Marcorelles placed Gideon of Scotland Yard on his "10 Best films" list for 1958

August 1958
Carry On, Admiral, The Secret Place and The Yang-Tse Incident were released in Paris. None was considered. September 1958 Eight English films were listed as being released in Paris. Action of a Tiger, Seagulls over Sorrento, Dangerous Youth, Robbery under Arms, The Silent Enemy, The Story of Esther Costello, The Whole Truth and Woman in a Dressing Gown. There was no conseil that month.

October 1958
The Admirable Crichton and The Naked Earth were listed. Again,no conseil.

November 1958
Six English films were listed as being released in Paris. They were- The Abominable Snowman, Campbell's Kingdom, Chase a Crooked Shadow, The Smallest Show on Earth, The Revenge of Frankenstein and The Key.
Director Carol Reed's The Key which was written and produced by American expatriate Carl Foreman and starred William Holden and Sophia Lauren was the only one of the 6 to come before the conseil. It received 5 stars - one each from Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Charles Bitsch, Jean Domarchi, and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze as well as Jean de Baroncelli. The lone bullet was from Eric Rohmer. André Bazin, as well as Henri Agel and Pierre Braunberger abstained.

December 1958
3 films - The Big Money, Dunkirk and Intent to Kill. No conseil.

This series continues with English Films French Critics 1959

English Films, French Critics Part II -- 1957

2008-04-09T13:38:00.016-04:00

This is the second part of my study of the attitudes of French critics to English cinema in the 1950s. It follows for English Films, French Critics Nov '55 - Dec '56.

January 1957
Four English films were released in Paris for this issue - The Night My Number Came Up, The Green Man, It's Great to be Young and Richard III. Also, the magazine cited Run for the Sun, an Anglo-American production directed by Ray Boulting with the American films.
Only Richard III was considered by the conseil des dix. There it collected a total of 20 stars. Pierre Braunberger gave it 4 stars, while Jean-Pierre Vivet gave it 3 stars. Also, among Cahiers regulars, André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Pierre Kast gave the film 2 stars, while Eric Rohmer gave the film 1 star. Among the non-Cahiers panelists, Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli and Positif's Robert Benayoun all gave the film 2 stars. François Truffaut was the only abstention .

February 1957
There were no English films released in Paris reported for this issue.

March 1957
There were 3 films listed under English in the "films released in Paris" section this month - Cast a Dark Shadow, The Long Arm and The Man Who Never Was. Of these, only the Anglo-American production The Man Who Never Was was considered by the conseil des dix. It received a total of 3 stars - 2 from Georges Sadoul and 1 from Robert Benayoun. André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, François Truffaut and Eric Rohmer all bulleted the film as did Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli and Pierre Braunberger. Jacques Rivette provided the only abstention.

April 1957
A Town Like Alice, The Black Tent, Father's Doing Fine and The Stranger Came Home were all listed under "Films released in Paris - English" in this issue of Cahiers. Only A Town Like Alice received consideration from the conseil. Four panelists - Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Henri Agel, Georges Sadoul and Jean-Pierre Vivet - each gave it 1 star. Five - François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer plus Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and France Roche - bulleted the film. André Bazin abstained.

May 1957
No English films listed.

June 1957
Seven films appeared under the rubric "English" on the "films released in Paris" section for this month. The Battle of the River Plate, Meet Mr Callaghan, Private's Progress, Pennywhistle Blues, The Quartermass Experiment, Zarak and the Anglo-American production Saint Joan directed by Cahiers favorite Otto Preminger.
Only Saint Joan was considered by the conseil. It received 5 stars - 3 from Jacques Rivette and 1 each from George Sadoul and Henri Agel. François Truffaut and Eric Rohmer bulleted the film as did Jean de Baroncelli and France Roche. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, J-P Vivet and Pierre Braunberger all abstained.
Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, and Charles Bitsch all placed Saint Joan on "10 best films for 1957" lists published in January 1958.
François Truffaut placed the film Pennywhistle Blues on his "10 best films for 1957" list published in January 1958.
Additionally, the Anglo-American film Around the World in 80 Days directed by Michael Anderson was released in Paris for this issue. It garnered 12 stars from the conseil - 3 from France Roche, 2 from François Truffaut and also Henri Agel and Jean de Baroncelli, and 1 from Jacques Doniol-Valcroze as well as Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul. J-P Vivet bulleted the film. Both Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer abstained.
In January 1958, "Robert Lachenay" listed Around the World in 80 Days in his "10 best films for 1957". Whether this is actually Robert Lachenay's list or an attempt by François Truffaut to provide two "10 best films for 1957" lists, I cannot confirm. Significantly, there is no overlap between Truffaut's list and Lachenay's.

July 1957
Interpol, Lost and Odongo were listed in the "films released in Paris - English" section. None got consideration from the conseil.

August-September 1957
Men of Sherwood Forest, Spin a Dark Web, Three Men in a Boat, True as a Turtle and The Iron Petticoat were the "films released in Paris" for this issue of Cahiers.
Three Men in a Boat received a lone star from France Roche. It was bulleted by Fereydoun Hoveyda and Jean-Luc Godard, plus Jean de Baroncelli and Henri Agel. While Charles Bitsch, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze plus Pierre Braunberger all abstained.
The Iron Petticoat - an English production which co-starred Katherine Hepburn and Bob Hope - received 2 stars - one each from France Roche and Henri Agel. It was bulleted by Eric Rohmer, Fereydoun Hoveyda, and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, as well as Jean de Baroncelli. The remainder of the panelists - Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Charles Bitsch plus Pierre Braunberger all abstained.

October 1957
"Films released in Paris - English" this month included The Baby and the Battleship, Brothers in Law and the Anglo-American production Seven Waves Away (American title - Abandon Ship!) was credited anong American films.
Neither The Baby and the Battleship nor Brothers in Law were considered by the conseil.
Seven Waves Away/Abandon Ship! received a total of 10 stars - 3 from Pierre Braunberger, 2 each from Charles Bitsch, Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard and 1 from Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. Positif's Robert Benayoun was the lone bullet. André Bazin and J-P Vivet, plus Henri Agel and Georges Sadoul all abstained.

November 1957
In this issue, Cahiers cited The Colditz Story, How to Murder a Rich Uncle, Reach for the Sky and Town on Trial as English films "released in Paris" in the previous month. Only How to Murder a Rich Uncle got any consideration from the conseil. It was given 2 stars by Henri Agel, and 1 each from Jean de Baroncelli and Robert Benayoun. J-P Vivet bulleted the film. André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer, plus Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul all abstained.

December 1957
This issue listed The Steel Bayonet, Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York, and Laurence Olivier's The Prince and the Showgirl as English films "released in Paris".
The Chaplin film was awarded a total of 33 stars. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jacques Rivette, and Charles Bitsch from Cahiers, plus Pierre Braunberger and Georges Saduol gave the film 4 stars. André Bazin, plus Jean de Baroncelli and Robert Benayoun gave the film 3 stars. Henri Agel and J-P Vivet gave it 2 stars.
The Olivier film received 6 stars. 2 stars each from Jean de Baroncelli and J-P Vivet and 1 star each from Charles Bitsch and Robert Benayoun. Only Jacques Doniol-Valcroze bulleted the film. André Bazin and Jacques Rivette, plus Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger, and Geroges Sadoul all abstained.
Four Cahiers regulars, Charles Bitsch, Jacques Rivette, Jean Domarchi and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze placed A King in New York 1st on their "10 best films" list for 1957. Other Cahiers regulars citing the film were Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Luc Moullet and Françis Truffaut. Non-Cahiers staffers citing the film were Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul.

This series follows with English Films, French Critics 1958

English films, French critics Nov '55 - Dec '56

2008-04-03T14:45:00.010-04:00

François Truffaut is noted for having written in Arts in May 1957, "The British cinema is made of dullness and reflects a submissive lifestyle, where enthusiasm, warmth, and zest are nipped in the bud. A film is a born loser just because it is English." I have wondered what were the exact films he was referring to, what did the other "young turk" critics think of these films, and what did the other critics at Cahiers and in Paris think of these films. In order to get some idea as to the answers to my questions, I have turned to two features of Cahiers; first, the "films released in Paris between x-date and y-date" feature which appeared at the back of each issue listing the films between those dates by country of origin, and second, the "conseil des dix" where panelists not only from Cahiers but also from other leading French newspapers and magazines posted their ratings of these films. One minor issue crops up and that is the problem of Anglo-American co-productions. I have elected to include all films categorized as "English" and also to include films by major English directors - e.g. David Lean, Carol Reed - listed under the rubric of "American"

November 1955
The Constant Husband and Trouble in the Glen were released in Paris for that month. Neither film attracted the attention of the conseil des dix.

December 1955
Simba was the only English film released in Paris that month. It was not considered by the conseil des dix.
David Lean's Summertime was also released in Paris that month but, not surprisingly, Cahiers classified it as an American film. It was considered by the conseil where five panelists gave the film a total of 7 stars and the other five bulleted it. François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette bulleted the film, as did non-Cahiers regulars, Ado Kyrou, Pierre Braunberger and Henri Agel. André Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze both gave the film 1 star as did non-Cahiers regular Georges Sadoul. Alain Resnais and Simone Dubreuilh gave the film 2 stars.

January 1956
Peter Glenville's The Prisoner was released in Paris that month but was not considered by the conseil.
Touch and Go was described on "films released in Paris" page as an "agreeable little English comedy", nevertheless, the film received only 1 star on the conseil, from Pierre Braunberger. François Truffaut, Ado Kyrou and Jean de Baroncelli all bulleted the film. Jacques Rivette, André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast and non-Cahiers regulars Henri Agel and Simone Dubreuilh all abstained..
The third English film released in Paris that month was The Deep Blue Sea based on a Terence Ratigan play which Cahiers called "dubious", while qualifying both Vivien Leigh's performance and Anatol Litvak's direction as "excellent". for all of that, The film received only 2 stars on the conseil des dix - 1 each from the only two panelists to consider it - Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Simon Dubreuilh Jacques Rivette, André Bazin, Pierre Kast and Jean-Pierre Vivet from Cahiers and Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul all abstained.

February 1956
The only English film for that month released in Paris was That Lady. It was not considered by the conseil des dix.

March 1956
Three English films were released in Paris for this month. Only A Prize of Gold (directed by the American Mark Robson and starring Richard Widmark) was considered by the conseil des dix. It received 5 bullets - André Bazin and François Truffaut, plus Georges Sadoul, Simon Dubreuilh and Henri Agel. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, J-P Vivet and also Jean de Baroncelli and Pierre Braunberger all abstained.
Both Lilacs in the Spring and The Ladykillers were released in Paris but not considered by the conseil. Commenting on The Lady-killers on the "films released in Paris" page, Cahiers wrote, "Some people are mad for this kind of humor. They will be served. No relationship to Monsieur Verdoux."

April 1956
Abdulla the Great and The Dambusters were both released in Pairs for that month. The Dambusters did not come in for consideration by the conseil. Abdulla the Great received 3 stars on the conseil, 1 each from André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and non-Cahiers regular Simone Dubreuilh. Two non-Cahiers regulars bulleted the film - Armand Cauliez and Georges Sadoul. François Truffaut abstained as did J-P Vivet, Pierre Kast and non-Cahiers regulars Jean de Baroncelli and Pierre Braunberger.

May 1956
Not one of the three English films - Confession, You Know What Sailors Are and Doctor at Sea - released in Paris for that issue were considered by the conseil des dix.

June 1956
Five English films were released in Paris for the month. To Paris with Love, Tiger by the Tail, Above Us the Waves, Simon and Laura and Joe Macbeth.
Joe Macbeth and Simon and Laura were considered by the conseil des dix. There Joe Macbeth received a total of 4 stars - 2 from Pierre Braunberger and 1 each from Henri Agel and Simon Dubreuilh. Four Cahiers regulars - André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, François Truffaut and J-P Vivet - bulleted the film. Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Kast and Georges Sadoul all abstained.
Simon and Laura received its only star from Simone Dubreuilh. Pierre Braunberger and Francois Truffaut both bulleted the film and the other seven panelists abstained.

July 1956
Three English - Break to Freedom, The Star of India and Mad about Men - films were released in Paris for this month. Only Mad about Men was considered by the conseil des dix. It was bulleted by François Truffaut, André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Eric Rohmer. The lone star it received was from Simone Dubreuilh. Jacques Rivette. Pierre Kast and also Henri Agel, Pierre Braunberger, and Georges Sadoul abstained

August-September 1956
The only English film listed in this issue of Cahiers was Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?; however, Cahiers classed Storm over the Nile as an American film. I can find nothing in the credits of that film to justify it being considered American. Neither film was considered by the conseil des dix.

October 1956
Two English films were released in Paris in that month. Oh Rosalinda and Loser take All. Neither film was considered by the conseil des dix. The comment for Oh Rosalinda on the "films released in Paris page" read, "For several lustrum, Powell and Pressburger each count on the other to insure the mise-en-scene of the films which each believe the other to have written the screenplay of. If they persist in making films, it is necessary to eat: a matter of life and death."

November 1956
Three English films were listed on the "films released in Paris" section, I Am a Camera, Escape Route and Value for the Money. Additionally, two films group with the American films - Trapeze (directed by Carol Reed) and The Cockleshell Heroes (directed by José Ferrer but with an all-English -except for José - cast) could also be considered English. Only Trapeze was considered by the conseil. It was bulleted by 6 panelists - François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Pierre Kast, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and J-P Vivet from Cahiers and Henri Agel. André Bazin, and also Jean de Baroncelli, Pierre Braunberger and Claude Mauriac all abstained.

December 1956
2 English films -Josephine and Men and Recoil - were listed on the films released in Paris page as English. Also, Terence Young's Safari was classed with the American films. None were considered by the conseil.

The series continues for the years -- 1957 -- 1958 -- 1959 -- 1960

Alain Resnais and Cahiers du Cinema 1951-1968

2008-03-24T19:20:00.009-04:00

"For if we have spoken
a little too much
about Alain Resnais’
Toute la mémoire du monde,
for instance.
it is because we shall talk
a great deal about
Hiroshima mon amour"
Jean-Luc Godard
Cahiers du Cinema
February 1959
3 months before Hiroshima mon amour
is first shown at Cannes in May 1959.

For the September-October 2001 issue of Film Comment, Dave Kehr contributed a history of the first 50 years old Cahiers du Cinema. Towards the end of that article, in discussing the changes at Cahiers in 1963 when Jacques Rivette assumed editorship from Eric Rohmer, Kehr speaks of "a sudden admiration for Alain Resnais". Given that up to this point, he had not mentioned Resnais, it is problematic to know exactly what he means. What I intend here is an accounting of the relationship of Cahiers with Alain Resnais from 1951 to 1968.

"Après Robert Bresson, Aurenche et Bost ne sont plus que les Viollet lo duc de l'adaptation cinematographique." ("After Robert Bresson, Aurenche and Bost are no more than the Viollet-le-Duc of Cinematic adaptation"). That sentence which is the coda of André Bazin's article "The Stylistics of Robert Bresson" published in issue number 3 of Cahiers du Cinema in June 1951 (page 19) provided the springboard for François Truffaut's "A Certain Tendency of French Cinema".

Two paragraphs up from that finishing remark, Bazin had written this, "Van Gogh by Alain Resnais is a minor masterpiece starting out from a major pictorial work that it uses and explains but does not replace." It would seem that Alain Resnais was après "Robert Bresson" before the après.

Les statues meurent aussi
In the coverage from the Venice Festival, Pierre Michaut wrote, (Cahiers du Cinema, July 1954, page 24, my translation)

This is a brilliant work and on a cinematic plane, a very remarkable success. The choice and presentation of objects, the play of light, the animation of the image, the movement and rhythm of the editing confirm the great mastery of Mr. Resnais, auteur already of Van Gogh and Guernica.

Alain Resnais 10 Best Films
In January 1955, Cahiers du Cinema inaugurated its "10 best films of the year" feature. The feature was preceded by the statement, "The 10 best films of the year: Here they are according to 16 of our friends who have submitted to us their list from films appearing in Paris in 1954." Alain Resnais was one of that charter group 16 "friends". Resnais submitted lists for the years 1954 through 1962 with the exception of 1960.

Alain Resnais' 10 best films lists.

Alain Resnais and "Une Visite"
In late 1954, François Truffaut directed his first film, the never-released silent short "Une Visite". To make the film, Truffaut borrowed Jacques-Doniol Valcroze's apartment for the price of baby-sitting Doniol-Valcroze's four-year old daughter. Truffaut promptly cast young Florence Doniol-Valcroze in the film, rounding out a cast that also included Laura Mauri who was living with Truffaut at the time, Jean-José Richer, a Cahiers regular contributor, and Francis Cogniny who would later on be an assistant director on films by not only Truffaut, but also, Godard and Chabrol in the early days of the New Wave. Jacques Rivette came up with film and the camera and acted as cinematographer while Robert Lachenay was producer and assistant director. Alain Resnais provided the editing.

Alain Resnais on the Conseil des dix
In November 1955, Cahiers du Cinema first published the conseil des dix (council of ten) feature. Among the first panelists were two non-critics, the producer Pierre Braunberger and Alain Resnais. In that first month Alain Resnais responded on only 5 of the 17 films listed, about half of the next lowest total. In December 1955, Resnais responded on only 2 of the 18 films listed. I would guess that for this reason, that he,not being a critic, had not yet seen enough of the films posted to be an effective panelist, he never again participated as a panelist. In the first two and a half years of the conseil, it was the practice at Cahiers to list, in footnotes below their conseil tableau, recommendations made by various people connected with film of different films. In that time, Alain Resnais was on some ten occasions cited as recommending films as different as Senso, Attack, Rebel without a Cause, Les Survivants de l'infini and Forbidden Planet.

Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog)
In a short entry in Cahiers du Cinema's "Le Petit journal du cinéma" in February 1956, François Truffaut wrote,
If this film is a film, it is The film. And the others are only impressed celluloid. Nuit et brouillard, the noblest and most necessary film ever shot, plunges us into a shameful perplexity and elicits the disorientation of our ideas and our feelings. Nuit et brouillard, it is the deportation and internment as seen and told by Christ... in my opinion. Alain Resnais turns his left cheek and we receive the whacks across our faces, each shot being a well-deserved slap. Some grass, some disused barracks, some barbed-wire, recorded in color by Alain Resnais and shown to the guilty, that means, to the living, to the spectators, in a word, to ourselves, constitute rather than a poem or a an indictment, a sublime dressing, the film of our shame and our indignity.
In that same February 1956 issue of Cahiers, on page 34, Pierre Kast wrote,

Lastly, Night and Fog from Alain Resnais is a kind of andante for two voices on the Nazi camps. Color images, understatedly beautiful, conduct one's regard across the vestiges of Auschwitz, and alternate with a montage of documents, in black and white. One might say a Bach Invention for two voices whose notes for each voice will be printed in a different color. The restraint and nobility of tone, and a knowing crescendo until the final question. But then, who is responsible, if not ourselves, accomplices, gives to the final minutes of the projection, an emotion such that is rare to feel in a theater.
In May 1956,Jacques Doniol-Valcroze reviewed the film for Cahiers du Cinema. This is quoted from that review. (page 37, my translation)

One could, thus, confine oneself to simply say that Alain Resnais has given proof of the maximum sobriety, discretion and elevation of thought possible. Nevertheless, here, there would be false modesty. And this film where everything is true calls, first off, for frankness. Thus, it is important to know that Night and Fog is a masterpiece of the film of montage and that between the documents used, the sequences shot (in color) in Poland, Jean Cayrol's commentary, and Hanns Eisler's music, Resnais has realized an extraordinary osmosis at the end of which, there is only one song.

A note in the introduction to the 10 Best Films 1956 lists published in Cahiers du Cinema in January 1957 reads. (my translation)
Let's point out that several mention Night and Fog "out of competition". This work, according to them, cannot, by its nature and its subject matter, enter into competition with other films.
That being said, of the 17 respondents that year (including Alain Resnais), 5 placed the film on their 10 best list - Charles Bitsch (placed 1st), Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Jacques Rivette (placed 1st), and François Truffaut (placed 1st).

Toute la mémoire du monde
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze reviewed the film in the December 1957 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. Cahiers generally avoided reviewing short films but that month they published reviews of this film and Jacques Rivette's Le Coup du berger. (page 60, my translation)
I add that were I a producer of feature-length films and keen to produce crime-thrillers, I would say to myself right now, "I have found my man: Alain Resnais." For there is everything in this film to inaugurate a new style of thriller, mid-road between Les Vampires and Hitchcock.
In that month's conseil des dix, Cahiers regulars Charles Bitsch, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Jacques Rivette gave the film 3 stars, as did the critics Henri Agel, Jean de Baroncelli, Robert Benayoun, Pierre Braunbarger, and Georges Sadoul. The film receive 2 stars from both André Bazin and J-P Vivet.

Le Chant du Styrène
From Godard on Godard : critical writings by Jean-Luc Godard / edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne ; with an introduction by Richard Roud ; translated by Tom Milne available on-line at Google Books for limited previewing.
Le Chant du Styrène is a brilliantly mounted film: and of what does one say such a thing but a piece of jewellery? When I first saw the film, I said to myself: It is impossible for Alain Resnais to go further than Toute le mémoire du monde, it is time for him to take the plunge into features. I was mistaken. I was wrong to think that Le Chant du Styrène could only, must only, be a negative film, like the other side of a décor (non-existent anyhow) For on the CinemaScope screen of the Olympia at Tours, Le Chant du Styrène seemed to be an Olympian film, of matchless gravity. “Make documentaries and first film mountains”, said Lubitsch, “then you will be ready to film people.” So Hiroshima, mon amour will be one of the great films, because Le Chant du Styrene proves that Alain Resnais has definitely mastered the secret of the matter. A film like this discourages interpretation. It makes a formidable impression (in the Latin sense of the word). Its slowness is merely apparent, like the helix turning at a thousand revolutions a minute. Each shot of Le Chant du Styrène, Alain Resnais’s fantastic farewell to the short film, has the cadence of a Bossuet sentence. To speak ill of it is a crime of lèsé-majesté. (page 103-104) (originally published Arts December 10 1958)
Simply because Resnais has invented the modern tracking shot, its breakneck speed, its abrupt start and slow arrival, or vice versa. Simply because he asked himself questions about the problem, and solved them. (page 116) (originally published Cahiers du Cinema February 1959)

Youth of French Cinema - (Cahiers du Cinema special December 1958)
The December 1958 issue of Cahiers du Cinema (table of contents ) stands as a sort of turning point in the history of the magazine. André Bazin's death which had occurred as the issue was being readied for the presses is reported. Most of the issue is dedicated to extracts from, or summaries of, scenarios by new filmmakers. A note at the beginning of the section notes, "Alain Resnais does not want for the moment to reveal Hiroshima mon amour". However, a still from the film provides the back cover.
Hiroshima mon amour Reviewing this film as part of the Cannes '59 coverage in the June 1959 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, René Guyonnet wrote, (page 39 my translation)
Disconcerting, difficult, abstruse, boring, intellectual, genius, sublime: these adjectives which have been applied to Hiroshima mon amour, after its first public showings, orient it straight toward the category of film maudit that might have been enviable ten years ago, but the notion of F. M. is today as outdated as avant-garde. Alain Resnais first feature-length film deserves better than to preach to the choir. It's qualities are such that, it should not only enthuse enlightened amateurs, but also a larger audience and, thus, encourage young directors on the way of resistance to concessions to sacrosanct public taste.
The July 1959 issue includes a round-table -Jean Domarchi, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-Luc Godard, Pierre Kast, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer - discussion Hiroshima notre amour which, translated by Liz Heron appeared in Cahiers du cinéma, the 1950s : neo-realism, Hollywood, new wave / edited by Jim Hillier is available on-line for limited previewing at Google Books.
On the conseil des dix in July 1959, four Cahiers regulars Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Douchet, and Jacques Rivette gave the film 4 stars while Eric Rohmer only gave it 3 stars. (Rohmer rarely gave "New Wave" 4 stars.)
Among the non-Cahiers panelists, Henri Agel and Pierre Braunberger gave the film 4 stars while Jean de Baroncelli, Claude Mauriac, and Georges Sadoul gave it 3 stars. Its total of 36 stars was 2 more than The Four Hundred Blows.
The film appears on 27 of the 30, Ten Best Films - 1959 lists published in Cahiers du Cinema February 1960. It is left of the lists of Jean Douchet (who had given it 4 stars in conseil des dix in July 1959 but who did not laureate a "New Wave" film until 1961 (Jacques Demy's Lola), Michel Mourlet who only cited 6 films and, not surprisingly, Alain Resnais himself.
The Four Hundred Blows appears on 20 of those 30 lists.

Resnais and The 400 Blows
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze's write-up on The 400 Blows from the 1959 Cannes Film Festival in the June 1959 issue of Cahiers du Cinema ends with this statement which I have never seen elaborated on.
Bazin dead, Les Quartres cent coups, which he was the posthumous producer of, could only be dedicated to him. André alive, André present, it is to Alain Resnais that this film was naturally dedicated.
Is he saying that Truffaut's original impulse was to dedicate The 400 blows to Resnais?

L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad)
In February 1961, the "photo of the month" feature in Cahiers du Cinema spotlighted Alain Resnais and Françoise Bertin with Sacha Vierny taking a light reading off of Bertin's face. François Weyergans provided this caption, (page 47 my translation)
But "Last Year" will be, first off, an unbridled film, viscontian, ophulsian, wellesian. A marvelous labyrinth that will make you think of an opera, Resnais says again. When I asked him what opera: "An opera which is to come." Last Year at Marienbad which is, in every sense, the film to come.

In September 1961, Jacques Rivette and André S Labarthe interviewed Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Cahiers also published two short reviews.
François Weyergans wrote, in part, (page 23, my translation)

For Last Year at Marienbad does not exist in itself: The spectator vivifies the film (as the play of the regard brings to life the movement in Vasarely's canvases). Resnais and Robbe-Grillet make a call on the collective unconscious, having taken care to never inflect the narration in any such precise sense, but to let it drift. Their film is not an esoteric enterprise: it lays claim , on the contrary, to the largest audience.
André S Labarthe wrote, in part, (page 31, my translation)

In sum, Resnais and Robbe-Grillet do for film what, for a longtime, some abstract painters have done. They propose not a story, but a suite of images, and it is the spectator who introduces the depth. For the veritable successor of the figurative painter is not the abstract painter, but he or she who regards the abstract painting.
In the October 1961 issue of Cahiers, Jean Douchet wrote this from the Venice festival. (page 42 my translation)
It [Venice '61] has clearly been dominated by Last Year at Marienbad and it is justice that Resnais's film has gotten the Grand Prize. I will not dwell on this work which has the right, here even, to a special issue. However, three viewings have confirmed for me my initial reaction: If I recognize the perfection of Resnais's work, i admit ot being, more and more, violently against the principle which lies at the conception of this film. I do not believe in the penetration of the camera into the world of the mind.

In the conseil des dix in the November 1961 issue, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer gave the film 3 stars while the other two Cahiers regulars on that panel - Jean Douchet and Louis Marcorelles - gave it 2 stars. Among the non-Cahiers panelists, the film was awarded 4 stars by Michel Aubriant and Jean de Baroncelli, 3 stars by Henri Agel and Pierre Marcabru, 2 stars by Morvan Lebesque and Claude Mauriac was the only panelist to give the film 1 star.

In Febraury 1962, Cahiers du Cinema published 27 "ten best films lists", including one from Alain Resnais. L'Année dernière à Marienbad was cited on 10 lists including Cahiers regulars Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (placed 1st), Claude de Givray, Pierre Kast (placed 1st), André S Labarthe (placed 1st), François Mars, and François Weyergans. Producer Pierre Braunberger (placed 1st) and director Jacques Demy cited the film as did Paris critics Michel Aubriant and Jean de Baroncelli.

Alain Resnais thumbnail December 1962
In December 1962, Cahiers du Cinema published "New Wave" special issue. This is the thumbnail critique of Alain Resnais from that issue's Dictionary of New Wave directors.

All of Resnais's films are the invention of the world, the affirmation of the creative imagination leaving from the original night, demiurgic play of the spirit, going from free chaos to the one and to death. "The world comes", according to Bachelard, "to imagine itself in human reverie". And this reverie is a dream of forms, thus, a reflection of methods even of the filmmaker which are also henceforth, those of all art. Painting informs its vision, music guides its respiration, submitted to montage, that is to say, Orson Welles affirms to the ear. Picasso, Joyce, Stravinsky, and some others, have changed the senses and the memory of modern man. On this new acquisition, the artist resumes his reverie, which, now is the dream even of culture. Some trifling epigones make alibis. How to be rid of them? Such is, for the filmmaker, the problem.

Muriel
Cahiers du Cinema bagan to prepare for Muriel with two short articles in the August 1963 issue, one by Jean-André Fieschi and one from François Truffaut.Jean-Louis Comolli covering the Venice festival in the October 1963 issue of Cahiers du Cinema wrote, in part, (page 30, my translation)

Muriel is Resnais most beautiful film, or better, his only one. The others, if you want, being only its draft, sketch, announcement.
In November 1963, Cahiers rather than review the film convoked a round-table (Pierre Kast, Claude Ollier, André S Labarthe, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Louis Comolli, Jean Domarchi, François Weyergans and Jean-André Fieschi) which covered about one quarter of the issue (18 pages) to discussing the merits of the film.In its January 1965 special issue on French cinema, Cahiers du Cinema published an article entitled "The Art of Being Loved" in attempted with ten recent films to account, individually, for their lack of commercial success. Jean-André Fieschi contributed this discussing Muriel. (page 104 my translation)
Failure...but only in relation to the budget and success of Resnais' first two films.

The fixed shots in Muriel track small pathetic lies whose sum make burst a universe of dissimulation inadmissable for a number of our contemporaries, A film this time of a liar about lies, thus one of blinding truth. Menteur, monteur, (liar, film-editor). Resnais inquires, delivers snippets, compiles leads which he clouds over following the most subtle of deceptions, an escalation of information. The naive willingly believe that it is a case of puzzle to reconstitute. But everything said, to the contrary.

The Cahiers panelists on the conseil des dix in November 1963 were rather split on Muriel. Jacques Rivette who was in process of assuming the editorship of the magazine gave the film 4 stars. Jean Douchet gave it 2 stars and Eric Rohmer (this would mark his last conseil) gave it 1 star. Among non-Cahiers panelists, four gave the film 4 stars - Jean-Louis Bory, Albert Cervoni, Jean Collet, and Bernard Dort; 2 gave it 3 stars - Geroges Sadoul and Jean de Baroncelli; and, it got 2 stars from Michel Aubriant.

When Cahiers published its "ten best film lists of 1963" in its February 1964, slightly more than half (21) of the 41 lists published included Muriel. Regular Cahiers contributor who listed the film were Jean-Pierre Biesse, Charles Bitsch, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-André Fieschi, Claude Gauteur, Jean-Luc Godard, Pierre Kast, André S Labarthe, Louis Marcorelles, Luc Moullet, Jean Narboni, Claude Ollier, Jacques Rivette, and François Weyergans. The film also appears on the list of Positif's Robert Benayoun, and of Jean-Louis Bory, Albert Cervoni, Jean Collet, Jacques Demy, Bernard Dort and Agnès Varda.
La Guerre est finie

Michel Caen reviewed this film in the June 1966 issue of Cahiers du Cinema, he wrote, in part, (page 76 my translation)

A classic film if there ever was one, La Guerre est finie baffles on first view, letting appear only rectangular surfaces lacking any fault-lines, distinctly discouraging analysis.
On the conseil des dix that month, among Cahiers regulars, Jean-André Fieschi gave the film 4 stars, while Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni gave it 3 stars and Michel Delahaye gave it 2 stars. Among non-Cahiers panelists, Positif's Robert Benayoun gave it 4 stars, Michel Aubraint, Jean-Louis Bory, Albert Cervoni and Georges Sadoul gave it 3 stars. Oddly, that month, Michel Cournot bulleted the board, including obviously this film.
In February 1967, Cahiers du Cinema published 70 "ten best films 1966", 23 of these lists cited La Guerre est finie including Cahiers regulars Michel Caen, Serge Daney, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (placed 1st), Jean Douchet, André Téchiné, Paul Vecchiali, Pierre Kast, Jean Narboni, and Cahiers publisher Daniel Filipacchi. Positif regulars Michel Ciment, Robert Benayoun and Roger Tailleur who submitted lists to Cahiers (Positif did not publish 10 best lists) all cited the film.

Alain Resnais thumbnaiFebruary 1967 (page 42 my translation)
Patience and irony which in La Guerre est finie are said to be the two trump-cards of the Bolshevik sum up those of the film. Revolution and language exchange roles, one becoming after the spontaneous combustion of not long agoe, the modest servant of the other. Patience, one finds on the fatigued side, tired, vaulted with the hero, semi-clandestine, the epionage of the middle-ground, the Revolution of the expense account and all that is bleak and disillusioned in the word "permanent". Irony (eironeia or interrogation) is the step back, the distance which sets up the commentary, too often disparaged, coming from outside, the use of the familar, addressed to the hero by an anonymous voice (which is not his, or, in such a case, not recognizable) through which things are disinated by being pointed at. The lucidity and the commitment of Bombard in the middle of the ocean, memory yields step to action. Less prestigious, maybe, arguable and minimal, that one is proven , in any case, by one's persistence.

Je t'aime, je t'aime
The June/July 1968 issue of Cahiers du Cinema on the "films released in Paris" page offered a short review of Je t'aime, je t'aime while promising a full review in the next issue. This was the tumultuous summer of '68 and, not surprisingly, no full review was forthcoming. This short review was written by Jean-Louis Comolli. (page 71, my translation)
An attempt (missed) to fuse fiction and science-fiction, between a "prologue" and an "epilogue" (little importance their exact place, and, even, their dispersal throughout the course of the film, since they are given , in the narration, as the logical framework of the complete adventure.)flatly futuristic (savants in the style of La Jetée, time machines: the naivety even of these pretextual sentences provide a facet - possibly gladly - at one time, antiquated and childish to this work that is meanwhile concerned with extreme modernity), heavily explanatory, an apparently uncontrolled explosion, (quite, at least, by the experimenters depicted in the film) of the broken moments of a life. Tableaus surging apparently in disorder, scenes irregularly varied or repeated, quite a swelling, an audacious, mysterious jumble, which makes a great contrast with the prudent narratives of the sci-fi background into which they are inserted. But the interest of the film lies rather in the function of such a jumble. Curiously, the more the multiple tableaus deliver us information of the patient-hero, the more the morsels of life seem to fit one within the other to constitute some kind of puzzle, the less, in fact, we know of them. the gaps seem to multiply at the same time as the peices are able to fill them. To finish, most of the threads will be knitted, woven into motifs, but,as if, on the margins of a tapestry, itself absent.

Comolli then proceded to award the film 3 stars on the conseil des dix. That conseil would be the last - again the tumultuous summer of '68 - until the 1980s. Besides Comolli, the other Cahiers regulars on the conseil that month were Michel Delahaye - 2 stars - and Jean Narboni - 1 star. Positif's Robert Benayoun gave the film 4 stars. It received 3 stars from Michel Capdenac (Les Lettres Françaises), Henri Chapier (Combat), and Robert Chazal (France-Soir) and 2 stars from Jean-Louis Bory (Le Nouvel Observateur), Michel Aubriant (Paris-Presse) and Albert Cervoni (France-Nouvelle)

2008-03-19T14:30:00.006-04:00

From André Bazin "The Stylistics of Robert Bresson" Cahiers du Cinema No. 3 June 1951 (page 19 my translation)

"I will make myself understood by proposing to the reader to imagine Le Diable au corps with mise-en-scene by Jean Vigo. "

Georges Sadoul on François Truffaut

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from Le cinéma français by Georges Sadoul (Paris: Flammarion) 1962 (page 135, my translation)

Truffaut had been an aggressive critic, putting himself into position also questionable such as his admiration for the morose boulevardier Sacha Guitry.

Cahiers, the 'young turks' and William Wyler

2008-03-01T22:18:00.004-05:00

The second issue of Eric Rohmer's La Gazette du cinema in June 1950 carried Jean-Luc Godard's first published piece as a film critic - a review of Joseph L Mankiewicz's Dragonwyck. In the fourth sentence of that review, Godard described Mankiewicz as "the most brilliant of American directors". On his way there - in the second sentence - he spoke of "characters from melodrama plagiarize themselves with (h)auteur and gesticulate with a solemnity equalled only on occasion by the severities of William Wyler". From the evidence of Godard on Godard, he did not mention Wyler until December of 1963 when in a thumbnail critique of the director Billy Wilder, he described Wilder as having "replaced Wyler and Zinneman in the hearts of exhibitors."

Contemporary critics seeking to find a divergence between Cahiers editor André Bazin and that magazines "young turks" generally point to their disagreement on the subject of the director William Wyler. Forthwith is some research into that disagreement.

From André Bazin's "William Wyler, or the Jansenist of Directing" (1948)

And yet, I do not think that it is more difficult to recognize the signature of Wyler in just a few shots than it is to recognize the signatures of Ford, Fritz Lang, or Hitchcock. I would even go so far as to say that the director of The Best Years of Our Lives is among those who have least often employed the tricks of the trade at the expense of genuine style. Whereas Capra, Ford, or Lang occasionally indulges in self-parody, Wyler never does so. Reprinted in Bazin at Work: Major Essays & Reviews from the Forties & Fifties By André Bazin, Bert Cardullo translated by Alain Piette, Bert Cardullo published 1997 Routledge (page 2)

Detective Story
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze wrote a short review of this film as part of the Cannes Festival coverage in the June 1952 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. This is quoted from that review. (page 17 my translation)

No one could suspect me of having a prejudice against filmed theater and I hold that William Wyler with The Little Foxes offered us its most exemplary expression until Les Parents terribles. However, I cannot state myself wholly satisfied with the fashion he has adapted Detective Story....Certainly, his unsurpassed knowledge of framing remains permitting him to follow with a stunning litheness and precision three or four simultaneous actions. It is too bad that they do not rate the movement...of the camera.

Carrie
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze short review of this film appeared in the "Notes on Other Films" section of the Cahiers du Cinema issue for June 1953. (page 55 my translation)
[Olivier's performance] and too much melodrama destabilize a film which disappoints deeply. Wyler's art as a metteur-en-scene is quite understood to be unimpaired and a few brilliant scenes make it lamentable that he committed himself to a subject scarcely for him.

Roman Holiday

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze's review appeared on page 60 of the April 1954 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. This is quoted, in part, (my translation).

Wyler whose Jezebel, The Best Years of Our Lives, and The Little Foxes, established him as a master began to disappoint from the second third of The Heiress. This disappointment was confirmed with Detective Story and Carrie, ruined by regrettable screenplays and made little for him. With Roman Holiday, he returns to the arena of our admiration with a discreet and sensible elegance.

Cahiers had not yet in 1954 instituted the conseil des dix.

François Truffaut wrote an unsigned review of Roman Holiday for the weekly Arts on April 7, 1954. Eugene Walz in François Truffaut a guide to references and resources published in 1982 summed up that review, thus; (note 620 page 177)

Roman Holidays [sic] is full of contradiction because William Wyler's talent resides "more in minutia, in precision, than in verve."

Truffaut would review only one other Wyler film, a revival of Wyler's 1938 film Jezebel.

Jezebel
Truffaut reviewed this film in the November 7, 1956 issue of Arts. Walz's summary of that review reads,

This Wyler film has gone out of date terribly. Truffaut dislikes Wyler for his false seriousness and false classicism.

The Desperate Hours
Not reviewed by Cahiers, The comment on the "Films released in Paris" page read

For two days, a peaceful family is terrorized by three escaped jailbirds. The lovers of "suspense" will be served.

That month, François Truffaut was the lone "young turk" on the conseil des dix. He bulleted the film, as did Pierre Kast. The film got 2 stars from both Jean de Baroncelli and Armand Cauliez, and 1 star from André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Georges Sadoul, J-P Vivet, Simon Dubreiulh and Pierre Braunberger.

William Wyler thumbnail critique (Special issue American Cinema Christmas 1955)
The thumbnail critiques in the Christmas special were credited as a whole to Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut. However, since this thumbnail pretty much reiterates Jacques Doniol-Valcroze's review of Roman Holiday, it would seem most likely it is his work. (page 63 my translation)
The immediate post-war made him the great hope of American cinema. after 1945, he appeared to impose himself as one of the "greats". The Little Foxes and The Best Years of Our Lives bore witness to the intelligence and sureness of his mise-en-scene. Two-thirds of the way through The Heiress, he began to disappoint us; Greg Toland was dead. we do not know much where Detective Story and Carrie strayed. With Roman Holiday, he resumed his success. This film had for him the little face of Audrey Hepburn and the artful currentness of its plot. It remains for him to prove that he is the great metteur-en-scene whom we hoisted to our shoulders ten years ago.

Friendly Persuasion
Reviewed by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze in the Aug/Sept 1957 issue of Cahiers. In part, he wrote,

A subject which could have been ambitious and treated with with nobility; but Wyler does not tackle it from the front. In order to pass off the lesson, he smothers it in the picturesque, the good-natured, drawn-out clowning and pushy chromolithography. It is boring and one has quite some time to remark that Dorothy McGuire is still a great actress and that Anthony Perkins will be, without a doubt, a very great young star.

In the conseil des dix, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, André Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze all bulleted the film. J-P Vivet also bulleted the film. Eric Rohmer gave it 1 star. Among non-Cahiers critics, only Georges Sadoul gave it as much as 2 stars. Henri Agel and France Roche gave it 1 star.

The Big Country
The film was not reviewed in Cahiers. The May 1959 issue carried this comment on "Films released in Paris" section. (page 61)

A western for those who dislike westerns, as always in Wyler, a bourgeois filmmaker who makes movies for those who dislike movies. So much diligence, care, effort at the service of a consistent baseness of inspiration. Credit sequence by Saul Bass.

5 "young turks" sat on the panel of that month's conseil des dix -- Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, and Luc Moullet all bulleted the film. Eric Rohmer and Charles Bitsch abstained. The film received a total of 6 stars from the other 5 panelists, Pierre Braunberger and Georges Sadoul both gave the film 2 stars while Henri Agel and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze each awarded it 1 star.

Ben-Hur
The film was not reviewed in Cahiers. From the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, Jean Domarchi wrote, in part:

The only amusing moment (involuntary meanwhile) is the 180 degree reverse shot of Pontius Pilate who is washing his hands of the death of the righteous. And, conceivably, the appearance of Tiberius with an Oxford accent. all the rest is ugliness and silliness. Academically directed by Wyler with about as much conviction as Mankiewicz directing Guys and Dolls.

When the film was released in Paris, the blurb on the "films released in Paris" section read,

Remake of Fred Niblo's famous film drawn from the Lew Wallace novel. Viva Ford, gentlemen.

There were 4 "young turks" on the conseil des dix that month, Jean Douchet bulleted the film while Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette and André Labarthe all abstained. Among the non-Cahiers critics on that panel, the film got 6 stars -- half of that total coming from Le Monde's Jean de Baroncelli. The other 3 stars came one each from Georges Sadoul, Claude Mauriac, and Henri Agel. (apparently the film could not get a break on the Left, the Right or the Christian.) Paris-Presse's Michel Aubraint bulleted the film.

The Children's Hour
This film never turns up in the monthly "Films released in Paris" heading although it was considered by the conseil des dix in July 1962. On the odd side also, because, at Cahiers, at this time they seemed to have a Shirley MacLaine fetish. In that conseil, Louis Marcorelles gave the film 3 stars and Jean Domarchi gave it 1 star. Jacques Rivette bulleted the film while Jean Douchet abstained. Among non-Cahiers critics, only Michel Aubriant gave it as much as 1 star. Henri Agel, Jean-Louis Bory, and Pierre Marcabru all bulleted the film.

The Collector
In the July 1965 issue of Cahiers, Luc Moullet in his coverage of the that year's Cannes Film Festival wrote:

The Collector is an skillful film, but skill is a rather obsolete virtue - if it still is one - comparative to the evolution of cinema.

In October 1965, Jacques Bontemps reviewed the film in Cahiers, writing in part (page 69-72)

It would hardly be useful to undertake an analysis of The Collector, assuredly one of the best films from William Wyler, for the simple reason that this analysis has already been made, and magisterially, in 1948. In effect, the economy of means, the construction by sequences and of the sequence, the complete sacrifice to the psychological reduced to a single dramatic conflict, style without style, the primordial role of looks, clarity at the service of an efficacy which is granted some perambulations around the red dress of the red gown of Jezebel. (A dress which is substituted for by an orange sweater) are all characteristics that we find in the latest Wyler and which were observed by André Bazin in William Wyler...(see What is Cinema? Book 1) Those characteristics were in that epoque virtues. The advent of a new cinematic style seduces all those who witness some intelligence in the domain of cinema. But, for a long time, what could seem new has become anachronistic. Wyler's importance is no longer. Now, here, to our great surprise, he succeeds in seducing us stunningly.

In the conseil des dix, 3 Cahiers critics - Jacques Bontemps, Jean-Louis Comolli, and Michel Delahaye gave the film 2 stars and a fourth - Jean-André Fieschi gave it 1 star. Among non-Cahiers critics, Michel Aubraint (Candide), Jean-Louis Bory (Arts), Jean Collet (Telerama), Michel Cournot Nouvelle Observateur) and Georges Sadoul (Les Lettres Françaises) all gave the film 2 stars. Albert Cervoni (France Nouvelle) gave the film 1 star.

How to Steal a Million
In the October 1966 issue of Cahiers on page 72 for the "films released in Paris" section, Jacques Bontemps made this contribution,

In the era of [What's New] Pussycat, it is not the place to be mean with the Wyler of How to Steal a Million. But it must be said that the only visible films that he has signed are dramatic, and if his comedies are just like this, it goes against his grain. This is slow, ponderous and predictable. The worst boredom is assured; the one with neither highs nor lows, of a monotonous mediocrity.

In the conseil des dix, four Cahiers regulars - Jacques Bontemps, Jean-André Fieschi, Michel Delahaye and Michel Mardore - bulleted the film. Among the non-Cahiers critics, Albert Cervoni gave it 2 stars and Michel Aubriant, Jean de Baroncelli (LeMonde), Robert Benayoun (Positif), Jean-Louis Bory, and Georges Sadoul each gave it 1 star.

Funny Girl
In the February 1969 issue of Cahiers, Jean-Louis Comolli in the comment on the "Films released in Paris" section wrote in part (page64)

Starting with a paradox perhaps charming (a frankly ugly girl becomes a star of Zeigfeld's follies) it emerges into a shallow melodrama, the worst litany of conventions (loved by a gambler who loses, the "plain Jane" is torn between a love of the stage and love period and then finds herself repudiated by the unrepentant gambler). Barbra Streisand's performance, alas, amounts here to all the skill. Lousy musical numbers, rather abject music, unrefined weakness of the secondary roles. (and Omar Sharif is bored to death playing this character fabricated on measure to comfort homosexuals), catastrophic and academic illustration for direction... and again, let's speak of this "performance". It is on an order of monstrous. One goes to see Barbra as one goes to the zoo to admire the para-human savoir-faire of the most gifted chimpanzees, one applauds whole-heartedly at "Everything-this-little-one happens-to-do-in-spite-of..." Yes, Barbra knows how to sing, to laugh, to cry. That is close to everything. Not how to dance (hence, the skillfull parodic side of the musical numbers), nor how to act beyond a grimacing mimicry (hence, undoubtedly, the extreme academicism of situations). But she has to restore a well-seen handicap, the least tremble of her face (horsey) or her body (mis-shapen) seems colossal. One must have never seen musicla comedies such as My Fair Lady and West Side Story and be be completely unaware of Ruby Keeler, Cyd Charisse and Judy Holliday (not more ravishing, she also however...) to be marveled here by the shameful use that has been made of this ugliness.

Two months later, in rebuttal to this comment and one regarding a Lelouch film, Cahiers published a full review by Michel Delahaye of Funny Girl and Claude Lelouch's film , La Vie, l'amour, la mort (page 56 April 1969),

The question here is not one of attempting a rehabilitation or launching a polemic (this is not the place) but of introducing some observations starting from which one can (or cannot) put his/her judgment into perspective.

One can defend Barbra Streisand who carries the whole film, who in the first half fulfills totally her role of professional entertainer, and, in the second half, succeeds in making us swallow the leaden American-style Sharif which they have inflicted on us.

No conseil des dix. After 1968, Cahiers du Cinema discontinued the monthly conseil des dix until the 1980s.

Claude Chabrol takes on Lindsay Anderson

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This short piece was written by Claude Chabrol for the "review of reviews" section of Cahiers du Cinema in April 1956. Chabrol had just finished writing about the January 1956 issue of Films in Review and he turned his attention to the Jan-Mar issue of Sight and Sound. (page 61, my translation)

Here, again, a wrap-up of the year's films, infinetely less bewildering than that of Films in Review, but, maybe, less shrewdly defended. Lots of, and quite priceless, news of cinema precedes two aritcles on the great movie palaces which shutter doors long opened. A remarkable article by Lindsay Anderson demystifies On the Waterfront which he contrasts with The Grapes of Wrath and conjures up Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil which we obliged to go to see in England as it has never been released in France. Michael Redgrave recalls memories of movie sets. Finally, Lindsay Anderson attacks violently - and unjustly - our friends at Positif, then our Alfred Hitchcock special issue, no less violently. Does reading French give him a headache?

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When I had originally published this post, I had not been able to find any evidence in Cahiers du Cinema that either Until They Sail or This Could Be the Night both Wise films and both released in the USA in 1957 and in Europe about a year later had ever been released in France. Since then, while trying to run down the release of William Wyler's The Children's Hour, I found that This Could Be the Night had been released in France in late 1961 some four after its release in America and three after it was released in Europe, And then, while trying to find information about the film critic Raymond Borde, I was lead to the site for the Cinématheque de Toulouse which he founded and there I discovered the Cineressources site, where I was able to find the French release date for Until They Sail which had been released in France in the spring of 1961, likewise long after its USA and European release.

Until They Sail

The "Films released in Paris" section of the May 1961 issue of Cahiers du Cinema capsulize this film:

The romantic adventures (with GIs) of four Englishwomen in New Guinea (sic). Wise abandons his customary tricks in favor of undiluted platitiude.

On the conseil des dix, two Cahiers critics - Eric Rohmer and André Labarthe - gave the film 1 star and two others - Jacques Rivette and Jean Douchet - bulleted the film. Four non-Cahiers critics - Jean de Baroncelli, Morvan Lebesque, Claude Mauriac and Georges Sadoul - gave it 1 star for a total of 6 stars while the other non-Cahiers critics - Michel Aubriant and Pierre Marcabru - bulleted the film.

This Could Be the Night
Not reviewed in Cahiers. The comment in the "Films released in Paris" section in September 1961 read:
A virginal schoolteacher becomes a secretary in a nightclub and wishes to remain so. This standard situation and these standard characters have found an adequate director.

In the conseil des dix that month, Jean Douchet gave the film 1 star while Jacques Rivette, Bertrand Tavernier, and Michel Mardore all bulleted the film. Luc Moullet, Fereydoun Hoveyda, and André Labarthe all abstained. (End of summer conseils were usually dominated by Cahiers regulars.) Henri Agel gave the film 2 stars.

The "young turks" and Robert Wise

2008-02-14T21:57:00.006-05:00

Recently, I read - I cannot remember where - the statement that the young critics at Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s and 1960s "disdained" the director Robert Wise. I decided to check that situation out and I discovered that things were not quite that simple.

So Big
François Truffaut reviewed in Arts on May 19 1954. He republished that review some 20 years later in The Films in My Life. This is quoted from that review:

Robert Wise is a director of importance who came to movie making from editing (he was chief editor to Orson Welles on Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons). The first film he directed, The Set-Up [sic], attracted considerable attention, and, as we look back, his succeeding films, Born to Kill and Blood on the Moon, probably did not get enough attention. Using his own particular strength, Wise has made a kind of masterpiece from this long melodrama. His power as a director leads us to overlook the rather simplistic psychology of his characters.
(The Films in My Life / by François Truffaut ; translated by Leonard Mayhew. Page 166)

Truffaut place So Big on his 10 best films list for 1954.

The film was not reviewed in Cahiers du Cinema.

Executive Suite
from Philippe Demonsablon's review Cahiers du Cinema November 1954, page 48, my translation

The beautiful rigor of The Set-Up, Executive Suite, and The Desert Rats demonstrate that he [Wise] is not only capable of establishing a dramaturgy, precise and infinitely more subtle than that of Wyler, but also of pursuing with efficiency and insight a study of character. At what moment will Wise execute the leap in which characters, human elements strictly reducible to their dramatic implications will be remade into true beings? Should he never do this, his strong personality will merit the retension of our regard.

In François Truffaut : a guide to references and resources, Eugene Walz summarizes the review of Executive Suite which Truffaut published in Arts on September 22 1954

Executive Suite is one of those films in which the producer counts as much as the director.
(page 176, note 615)

The Desert Rats
from Philippe Demonsablon's review Cahiers du Cinema January 1955, page46, my translation

Then the miracle of this work occurs or rather become apparent. The very great talent of Robert Wise, in place of yielding to the temptation for a brilliant but "oh, how easy" development on the relativity of acts and motives, the work moves into the solitude and rigorous incommunicability of adventure.

Claude Chabrol placed The Desert Rats on his 10 best films list for 1954

Destination Gobi
from Philippe Demonsablon's review Cahiers du Cinema April 1955, page 47, my translation

Destination Gobi immediately anterior to the other [The Desert Rats] figures as a sketch, a first attempt where stylization stands out less and the spontaneity of the sketch more.

from François Truffaut review of Destination Gobi published in Arts on March 9 1955

[Everett Freeman's screenplay] is an important contribution to the most important effort that's being made in script-writing—breaking out of genres... We have to think of Huston except that the playfulness and casualness are on screen rather than behind the camera. Wise's work is unusually serious, intelligent, tasteful, direct and precise.

Truffaut collected this review as he had done Wise's So Big in his The Films in My Life which is available on-line at Google Books.

From the indexes for both Godard on Godard and Julia Lesage's Jean-Luc Godard, a guide to references and resources, it can only be concluded that Jean-Luc Godard never wrote about Robert Wise.

Robert Wise thumbnail critique Cahiers du Cinema December 1955 Special Issue -- American Cinema (page 63)
(Although the thumbnails in that issue of Cahiers are not signed, Joel Magny in the bibliography for his monograph Claude Chabrol credits ths thumbnail to Chabrol. )

Pure technician, his first films were strokes of brilliance, but he seems to have had a difficulty maintaining himself at that very high level, a lack without doubt of deep inner need. His "style" finally appears as a collection of tricks which meanwhile he uses with a consummate skill. If his screenplay is bad, he saves it only superficially, by illustrating it in an extraordinarily careful fashion, and this yields Executive Suite. If it is good, it yields The Set-Up. If it is intelligent and profound, Wise finds himself exceeded and it is Born to Kill. He is man who will not disappoint, if one does not ask too much of him.

Helen of Troy
Cahiers du Cinema did not reviewed this film but in noted in Films released in Paris in March 1956,

The Americans fall flat on thier faces always doing Latin mythology. The Greeks for them will always be Celts and their lovers will be Tristan and Isolde. Thus, they once more have filmed the opposite of The Iliad. The dialogue is very often ridiculous. Rosanna Podesta is destined in now way to play Helen. Some beautiful battle scenes. (page 63 March 1956)

The film had been considered by the conseil des dix in February 1956. among the "young turks" only Jacques Rivette was a panelist on the conseil. He bulleted the film. Four other critics bulleted the film, from Cahiers Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Pierre Kast and from other venues Georges Sadoul and Jean de Baroncelli. The film received a total of two stars, one each from André Bazin and Simon Dubreuilh.

Tribute to a Badman
The October 1957 issue of Cahiers du Cinema noted the release of this film in Paris in the "Films released in Paris" section with the terse comment, "The worst film by Wise"

In the conseil des dix, the film managed only three stars, two from Henri Agel and one from Positif's Robert Benayoun. Two "young turks", Jean-Luc Godard and Charles Bitsch bulleted the film. The third "young turk" on the panel, Jacques Rivette abstained, as did André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, J-P Vivet, Georges Sadoul, and Pierre Braunberger.

Somebody Up There Likes Me
Reviewed by Luc Moullet in April 1957 (page 52), a quote

In Hollywood, when they want to make a new work in the famous national "tradition of quality", they call on, if Wyler or Daniel Mann demand too much, one of these two great artisans who debut in the shadow of the great Orson, Robert Wise or Mark Robson.

This film received 6 stars from the conseil des dix, including one from François Truffaut, and from non-Cahiers critics, Henri Agel (1), Jean de Baroncelli (1), Georges Sadoul (1), and France Roche (2). Eric Rohmer was the lone bullet.

Until They Sail
The "Films released in Paris" section of the May 1961 issue of Cahiers du Cinema capsulize this film:

The romantic adventures (with GIs) of four Englishwomen in New Guinea (sic). Wise abandons his customary tricks in favor of undiluted platitiude.

Note added February 19: As happens so often, while I was searching for some information on another film, I found the information on This Could Be the Night (Cette Nuit ou jamais). The film was not released in France until 1961, about 5 years after its American release. Also, its French title was Cette Nuit ou jamais which is not to be confused with Michel Deville's Ce Soir ou jamais which translates pretty much the same. Deville's film was released in Paris about two months later.

This Could Be the Night
Not reviewed in Cahiers. The comment in the "Films released in Paris" section in September 1961 read:
A virginal schoolteacher becomes a secretary in a nightclub and wishes to remain so. This standard situation and these standard characters have found an adequate director.

In the conseil des dix that month, Jean Douchet gave the film 1 star while Jacques Rivette, Bertrand Tavernier, and Michel Mardore all bulleted the film. Luc Moullet, Fereydoun Hoveyda, and André Labarthe all abstained. (End of summer conseils were usually dominated by Cahiers regulars.) Henri Agel gave the film 2 stars.

Run Silent, Run Deep

Not reviewed in Cahiers. The blurb in the "films released in Paris" feature for in the August 1958 issue of Cahiers read:

Conflict of authority inside an American submarine. Middling surpriser and agreeable photography. Without pretentions, but without style.

Appears not to have been considered by the conseil des dix.

I Want To Live
Not reviewed in Cahiers. The blurb in the "films released in Paris" feature in the June 1959 issue of Cahiers read:

Reconstruction, according to journalists of the trial and execution of Barbara Graham, six years ago. The first half hour - the dissolute life of Barbara Graham - exasperates by its conventions, the second - the trial - interests by its procedure, the third - the execution - chills and shocks by its precision. One leaves reeling, lacking any taste for esthetic discussion. Unfortunately, susan Hayward remains an actress right up to the last jolt.

On the conseil des dix, the film was given a total of 6 stars. Jacques Rivette awarded it 2 stars, while Eric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard each gave it 1 star. Philippe Demonsablon and Henri Agel also gave it 1 star. Fereydoun Hoveyda and Luc Moullet bulleted the film while Charles Bitsch, Jacques Demy and André Martin abstained.

Odds Against Tomorrow
Not reviewed in Cahiers. The blurb in the "films released in Paris" feature for March 1960 read:

Police film with anti-rascism pretentions. It does not merit the the great reception that most of our confreres have given it. Interesting photography of New York and its environs.

On the conseil des dix, the film was given a total of 7 stars. Of the 4 Cahiers regulars on the panel Jacques Rivette and Jean Domarchi each gave it 1 star. Le Monde's Jean de Baroncelli gave the film 2 stars while Pierre Braunberger, Pierre Macabru and Georges Sadoul each gave it 1 star. The other 2 Cahiers regulars on that panel - Eric Rohmer and Luc Moullet - both abstained. Henri Agel and Claude Mauriac also abstained. No one bulleted the film.

West Side Story
This film was considered by François Weyergans in a double review with the Robert Drew/Richard Leacock documentary Primary in the June 1962 issue of Cahiers. Weyergans wrote in part,

West Side Story and Primary are like electronic calculation and mental calculation. On one side, premeditated invention and attention to detail, on the other side, immediate invention and improvisation. That is to say the difference between art and document.

Weyergans review makes almost no mention of Wise.
Among the Cahiers regulars on the conseil des dix that month, Jacques Rivette gave the film 3 stars, Michel Mardore and Michel Delahaye gave it 2 stars and Jean Douchet gave it 1 star. From the non-Cahiers contingent, Michel Aubriant gave the film 3 stars and Georges Sadoul gave it 2 stars.

Jacques Rivette listed the film as one of the 10 best films for 1962. Three other names more associated with film direction also listed the film among their 10 best for 1962 in that february 1963 issue of Cahiers du Cinema -- Jacques Demy, Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Melville. Critics Jean-Louis Bory, Michel Aubriant, Jean de Baroncelli, and Henri Agel also listed the film in their respective 10 best lists.

Two for the Seesaw
Louis Marcorelles review appears on pages 68-70 of the November 1963 issue of Cahiers du Cinema. In that review, he wrote,

Wise has not cheated the conventions of the genre by artificial techniques which, in his work, too often mask his own uncertainty as to subject and actors.

The film was given 11 stars on the conseil des dix. Jacques Rivette and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze both gave the film 1 star. Henri Agel gave the film 3 stars.

The Haunting
Not reviewed in Cahiers, the comment in the "films released in Paris" section read,

If you want to make someone afraid, it is necessary to clearly chose between convention (which the script tries to avoid) and rigor (which the direction obstinately flees.)

In the conseil des dix, Jacques Rivette, Michel Delahaye and Jean Douchet all abstained. Positif's Robert Benayoun gave the film 3 stars.

Robert Wise Thumbnail -- American Cinema special issue Dec63/Jan64 page 178 credited to Pierre-Richard Bré.

No one, other than Melville, still dreams of paying him honors. He has, and for a longtime, a masterpiece to his credit - The Set-Up - owing to his audacity of the exoticism of shock of a milieu then little explored. After this knock-out, the heavyweight of American film returned to the canvas with Somebody Up There Likes Me. The merit of the ring was to accentuate better the qualities - that is, the faults - of this eternal editor who is forever recovering from his falls. First, the heaviness, accumulating from an inexorable seriousness and a pitiless boredom. It cannot be said that he makes short work of his punches or his cuts, since, in Odds Against Tomorrow, despite the lively score of the great Duke [sic], you do not know know if these are shots which last too long or if anything is happening. Nevertheless, there is West Side Story. It is necessary to render unto Robbins that which is Robbins' -- the impulse, the dancers, the grace, the force. And to Wise, that which is Wise's - the impulse of the cut dancers, the absence of air around the gestures or life around the hearts. all that he knows how to do with his fingers, with his fists is to lay, shot after shot, each sequence in the can. But wise knows only one continuity, that of easy effects and showing off. More intelligent, he might have simply let Robbins film the dances, more unthinking, he would have done the same. That is to say, he is not mean but only bothersome.
Note: actually the score for Odds Against Tomorrow is credited to Modern Jazz Quartet pianist, John Lewis.

The Sound of Music
Jean-André Fieschi's short review in the "Films released in Paris" section of Cahiers in March 1966 ended,

The Sound of Music, itself, justifies the addition to the conseil des dix of a sixth category, "not to see under any pretext"

Unsurprisingly, Fieschi went on to bullet the film in that month's conseil des dix, as did Michel Delahaye and Jean-Louis Comolli. Among the non-Cahiers critics on the panel, Robert Benayoun (Positif), Jean-Louis Bory (Arts), Henri Chapier (Combat) and George Sadoul (Les Lettres Françaises) also bulleted the film. The film collected a total of 2 stars, Albert Cervoni (France Nouvelle) and Michel Aubriant (Candide), each giving it 1 star.

The Sand Pebbles
For the "films released in Paris" section of the April 1967 of Cahiers, Jacques Bontemps wrote,

Between two free-for-alls, the crewmembers of this gunship ask themselves questions which would want to have a contemporary resonance, The tedium that we experience here is only the irritating for it. There is a flatness and a conformism that lights only feebly the Bergmanesque face (Ingrid, not Ingmar) of Candace Bergman.

Bontemps then went on to bullet the film in that month's conseil des dix, among other Cahiers regulars, Jean Narboni also bulleted the film, Michel Delahaye gave it 1 star and Michel Mardore abstained.
Henri Chapier and Michel Aubriant also gave the film 1 star. Albert Cervoni and Georges Sadoul bulleted the film.

A letter from F Hoda

2008-02-06T09:50:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, while leafing through a issue of Positif from 1972 which was an index of that magazines first 20 years, I noticed that there were a few articles which were credited to one F. Hoda. Since one of the articles was on science fiction - a specialty of Fereydoun Hoveyda - I suspected that there had been a typo and this was actually Fereydoun Hoveyda who was a regular contributor to Cahiers du Cinema from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. Later on, I would find out that I was half right -- the articles were indeed the work of Hoveyda but under the pseudonym F Hoda.
The January 1958 issue of Cahiers included a broadside directed at Positif by François Truffaut Positif copie zero. This is a letter published in the March 1958 issue of Cahiers in which Hoveyda writing as F Hoda answers Truffaut.

Here, at the end, emanating from a Positif collaborator, this response to François Truffaut's article.[Positif, copie zero]

I have read your article on Positif with a kind of satisfaction. Not that I approve of all of the positions which you take. But, in taking by bashing your fond adversary, Kyrou, you unveil your ulterior motives. I like your impetuousness and your fashion, passionate and fierce, of defending cinema. Must you always invent imaginary monsters to illustrate your opinions?

It is not incumbent on me to defend Positif, since I do collaborate there only occasionally. But having had the honor of being cited in your article, I am passing on to you these few remarks. Your technique for "dismantling" Positif shows nothing new. The truncated citations (among them mine), the references to authors from ouside the world of cinema, etc. All this re-witnesses the pen of a polemicist. I do not begrudge you this method. Have the the Jesuit fathers taught both of us that one can allow oneself certain deviations AMDG ?

In identifying Positif with Kyrou, you appear to be assuming that Cahiers summarizes itself in you. Do you not at Cahiers make another monolithic bloc? "Compared to this bloc, Cahiers risks appearing without a definite line" facing "we others at Positif". You and your friends write, "Cahiers does not have the habit...", "for a longtime, we call on our vows...", "it is now a tradition for the crew at Cahiers...", etc. Positif over here, Cahiers over there. In order to ascertain the "unshaken" unity of your group, it is enough to take a quick look at the "council of ten", where your friends outrageously practice the politique, spoken of, as d'auteurs expressing views palpably identical.

A reading of any issue of Positif reveals the existence of small blocs of divergent opinions, quite like Cahiers. It is simple to return the serve. Cahiers alone has understood the significance of Land of the Pharaohs, Hot Blood, and The Wrong Man.
You can reproach Kyrou for his references to the would-be theory of amour fou. Yes, it is quite a poem. But do you believe that your allusions to the Bible or to Christian metaphysics are more amusing? I am happy that you are undertaking modern readings, such as Mythologies. But I regret that you are not more interested in a poet such as Malakovsky which would have spared you attributing to Ado Kyrou the phrase "la barque del'amour, etc.". I agree with you in standing against the anti-aestheticism of Kyrou and in exposing the intolerant tone which renders him, at once,
so simplistic and so virulent. But the same tone, a little closer to home, is found coming from the pens of your friends, "But, henceforth, there is film and film is Nicholas Ray..." "I am not afraid to compare..." etc.

What good, consequently, in continuing this game of rejoinders. However, before concluding my letter, I would like to return to Barthes who you seem to be fond of at this moment. I am not among his partisans. But that does not prevent me from citing this passage from his book. "Myths are nothing other than this incessant, untiring entreaty, this insidious exigency that makes all men recognize themselves in this eternal but nevertheless dated image which was constructed by them one day as if this was to be for all time." This being so, don't you think that you and your friends fabricate as many myths as Kyrou and his? You, yourself have become after a fashion a myth. It is enough, to verify it, to hear Leo Johannon or Delannoy speak on your subject.

We each have our eccentricities. Kyrou rewrites the rules of savoir-faire, agreeing or refusing to shake hands with directors. Seguin gives in physiology, measuring the interest of films around the hips and leg-length of actresses. Rohmer claims to find marble inside celluloid. Rivette sacrifices everything to the Jansenism of mise-en-scene. Chabrol conceives a passion for friends tempted by the devil. You bang the drum for the age and sincerity of auteurs. Bazin practices a kind of existential analysis. As for myself, I see Martians everywhere. On these diverse planes, do we not project ourselves outside of the moi and claim to be right? After all, why not?

(Cahiers du Cinema March 1958 page 61 my translation)

Some 16 months later for the July 1959 issue of Cahiers du Cinema that covered the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Hoveyda would write the review of Les Quatres cents coups - a review which was published in an abridgment in Jean Douchet's recent coffee-table book French New Wave. Also, among the films which Hoveyda had reviewed for Positif was Hot Blood. In 1960, he would placed Nicholas Ray's Party Girl on his ten best films list.

Which screenplay was it anyways?

2008-02-02T22:32:00.000-05:00

This is an addendum to my long post of last year The Bernanos Letter which tried to attempted to understand aspects of the François Truffaut's writing of A Certain tendency of French Cinema by considering a little-known letter written in 1947 by Georges Bernanos.

Speaking specifically about François Truffaut's borrowing of the early and rejected Aurenche-Bost screenplay for Diary of a Country Priest, in the interview which he gave to Serge Toubiana and Michel Pascal for the documentary Portraits volées, Bertrand Tavernier says "All these documents, Bertrand Tavernier all these gifts and praises, resulted in that article[A Certain Tendency of French Cinema]". As I have demonstrated above, François Truffaut could have written that article without recourse to studying that screenplay. That material which he needed had been revealed by Georges Bernanos in a letter written in 1947.
In the latter which Pierre Bost wrote to Truffaut after that article was published, Bost wrote,

"Surtout pas des textes en somme confidentials puisqu'il s'agit d'un scénario qui n'a pas été tournée." (François Truffaut by Antoine de Baecque, Serge Toubiana Paris : Gallimard, 1996 page 585 )

Catherine Temerson in her translation of the Toubiana-de Baecque biography translates that as,
"Especially not confidential writings, since we are talking about a script that has not yet been filmed." (page 399 in the English translation of Francois Truffaut by Serge Toubiana and Antoine de Baecque published by Knopf in 1999.)
This is a perfectly valid translation if one follows the drift of the story as narrated by Toubiana and de Baecque, i.e. that Bost is making reference to the screenplay drawn from Bernanos's novel. Otherwise, the "yet" would be gratuitious and it would be translated merely as "a script that has not been filmed" The sticking point here is that Bost describes his writings as "confidential" and as i have shown those writings were already very public and controversial. Could Bost be referring to some other of his writings which Truffaut borrowed? As de Baecque revealed, in his article published in 1994 on the writing of A Certain Tendency, in November 1952 when Truffaut borrowed the the Country Priest screenplay, he also borrowed the Aurenche-Bost screen adaptation of Colette's Le Blé en herbe, another as yet unfilmed script. One though,which would go before the cameras some 8 months later at the end of July 1953. Could this be the "script" which Bost is making reference to?

In an end-note to his A Certain Tendency - one which I have to believe is noticed by few who read that article, Truffaut writes,

"5) Le Blé en herbe. Colette's novel was adapted from 1945. Claude Autant-Lara accused Roger Leenhardt of having plagiarized Le Blé en herbe with Les Dernières vacances. Maurices Garcon's arbitrage ruled against Claude Autant-Lara. With Aurenche and Bost, the plot conceived by Colette was enhance with a new character, that of Dick, a lesbian who lived with the "White Lady". This character was eliminated a few weeks before the shooting of the film by Ghislaine Auboin [Autant-Lara's wife and frequent collaborater] who "revised" the adaptation with Claude Autant-Lara."

This Aurenche-Bost script for Le Blé en herbe which Truffaut borrowed from Pierre Bost certainly passes the test of "confidential". And if what Truffaut writes in this end-note is correct, then Bost could deem that his script "has not been filmed"; what was filmed was a Ghislaine Autant-Lara revision of that script.

The release date for Le Blé en herbe is co-incident with the publication date of the January 1954 issue of Cahiers. And it would not be surprising if Bost was upset about this end-note given that the publication of the January 1954 issue of Cahiers coincided with the release of Le Blé en herbe.

2008-01-28T22:15:00.000-05:00

Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s was a magazine in little advertising appeared. the standard of the magazine ran to 64 pages and it would be rare to see and issue where the total advertising ran to three pages. And usually that space was sold to theaters or to other publications. This morning going through some issues of Cahiers from early 1958 I noticed that for about four months "Mario le coiffeur" ran an ad covering about a third of page. I don't think I have ever seen a hairdresser advertise in a film magazine before, especially one with an academic bent.

My Gleanings

Francois Truffaut and Jean Genet

Translation of a review of "Claude Chabrol, Par lui-même et par les siens" by Serge Toubiana

Truffaut "presents" Sacha Guitry

Prelude to a 10 best films list: Cahiers January 1957

Cahiers du Cinema 12 best films of all-time from 1958

1955 Best Films and Reviews Cahiers du Cinema

1954 Best Films and Reviews Cahiers du Cinema

Cahiers du Cinema and Joseph Mankiewicz 1953-1964

Cahiers du Cinema, the young turks and Jerry Lewis 1954-1968

Another take on mise en scene

Jean-Pierre Gorin on Manny Farber's death.

Pierre Billard on young French filmmakers -- Feb 1958

Agnès Varda answers Cinema '58 enquery

The original New Wave

Truffaut's first beef

Eric Rohmer on Jacques Prévert

Luc Moullet 10 best films 1957-1968

Cahiers du Cinema and Paddy Chayefsky

English Films French Critics Part V 1960

English Films, French Critics Part IV 1959

English films, French critics Part III -- 1958

English Films, French Critics Part II -- 1957

English films, French critics Nov '55 - Dec '56

Alain Resnais and Cahiers du Cinema 1951-1968

Georges Sadoul on François Truffaut

Cahiers, the 'young turks' and William Wyler

Claude Chabrol takes on Lindsay Anderson

The "young turks" and Robert Wise

A letter from F Hoda

Which screenplay was it anyways?