A letter from F Hoda

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.

Recently, reading a critique of a contemporary French director, I was rather amused to see the author of that book state that, in the 50s and 60s, Positif was a less vociferous but more politicized rival of Cahiers du Cinema. It is my speculation that that author has not devoted a great deal of time in the archives researching either magazine. I would also have to say that pulling off being less vociferous while being more politicized is one neat little stunt.

He also reminded me of this little tidbit from Yale French Studies No.17 1956, an issue dedicated to Art of the Cinema. On page 110, in an article entitled Books in French on the Cinema in discussing French film reviews, it is stated:

"Cahiers du Cinéma (monthly, founded in 1951, deals with film as an art form; lively and controversial; scenarios general news)

Positif (a younger rival; contributors sometimes dogmatic, and violent in tone)"

That issue is available on-line at the JSTOR site for either subscribers to that services or card-holders at libraries which subscribed to that service.

Cahiers and Positif feudin', fightin' and concurrin'

One of the primary documents in the contention Cahiers du Cinema/Positif during was François Truffaut's Positif copie zéro which appeared in the January 1958 issue of Cahiers.
On page 43 of that same issue of Cahiers, at the top of the tableau for the monthly "conseil des dix" (council of ten), the Pakula-Mulligan film Fear Strikes Out was considered. 8 critics abstained on the film, including all the non-Cahiers critics leaving the other 2 critics - Jacques Rivette and Claude de Givray - to award that film 3 stars. A note below that tableau reads: (my translation)

It should be known that Fear Strikes Out , which Robert Aldrich ardently pointed out to us, and, which was only shown for a one week exclusive engagement -- thus explaining the abstentions of the majority of our "counsellors", is keenly recommended, likewise, by Jean Domarchi, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Roger Tailleur and François Truffaut.

And there it was Cahiers and Positif - in the person of Roger Tailleur - making common cause.

Positif and Robert Bresson

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the publisher G K Hall put in print a series of books on film directors in the A Guide to References and Resources series. All sources of information about the director was gather together, including a bibliography of the major writings about the director. In 1983, Hall published Robert Bresson, a guide to references and resources by Jane Sloan. What follows is a list of the articles in that bibliography that either appeared in Positif or were written by a major Positif contributor of that era for another magazine and Jane Sloan's resumes of those articles.

The earliest, and probably most favorable, article (actually, articles, as it was published in installments spread out from the 2nd to the 5th issue of Positif) was by the founder of the review Bernard Chardère. Jane Sloan, the author of Robert Bresson a guide to references and resources takes up a little more than a page summing up critique of Bresson which she describes as "a wide-ranging series of essays on 'classic cinema', defined as an ideal cinema of revelation"

Positif 1/57 Ado Kyrou reviews Un condamné à mort s'est échappé (A Man Escaped) by Ado Kyrou. Sloan's summation is "a diatribe on Un condamné à mort s'est échappé. Kyrou first states that Bresson makes so few films because he has only contempt for cinema. Condamné is a "beautiful subject" that Bresson has destroyed by eliminating all elements that might suggest passion; there are no characters, ideas, truth, time, or space in the film. However, Bresson might have a "brilliant career as a director in radio".

Positif 1/57 The review published Kyrou's review with another review by one Marcel Ranchal. Sloan writes "Positive review of Un condamné à mort s'est échappé focusing on the morality and courage of Fontaine's actions."

Positif 4/60 Louis Seguin reviews Pickpocket. "In a very negative review, Seguin discusses Bresson's ideas as 'simplistic.' Only Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne deserves Bresson's exalted reputation as a nurturer of 'debates on high-altitude metaphysics'.''

Positif 4/60 Roger Tailleur reviews Pickpocket. "Negative review: 'Dostoyevsky written by an abusive disciple of Hemingway. . . . A perfect exercise in style if one accepts a definition of style as the act of jumping over intermediate ideas, points, and words.'"

Positif 7/62 Robert Benayoun. Jane Sloan comments, "Short notice bemoaning the selection of Procès de Jeanne d'Arc as the French entry at Cannes."

Positif 7-8/63 Paul-Louis Thirard reviews Procès de Jeanne d'Arc. Sloan comments, "Wrap-up of the attitudes of the always hostile Positif critics towards Bresson and criticism of Procès de Jeanne d'Arc for being overly intellectual."

Positif 10/66 Robert Benayoun reviews Au hasard Balthazar . Sloan comments, "Attacks Bresson's audience as a passive minority who wish to turn cinema into a 'a sort of non-Actor's studio for neurasthenic zombies'."

Positif 4/67 Michel Ciment. Sloan comments, "Essay review of Drouget's Robert Bresson which is admired for its 'fresh approach', having been written by a nonspecialist."

Positif 6/67 Robert Benayoun. Sloan comments, "Review of Mouchette. Benayoun praises the bumper-car scene ('when Bresson wants to, he knows the technique') and ridicules the rest as 'ritual masturbation'."

Positif 1/71 Jean-Paul Torok Sloan comments, "Negative review of the film [Une Femme douce] which merely gives evidence of Bresson's continuing mental deterioration."

La Quinzaine Littéraure Jan 15 1972 Louis Seguin. Sloan comments, "Review of Quatre nuits d'un rêveur contrasting it with Visconti's version of the same story. Seguin argues that Bresson, by his use of minimalist imagery and metonymy, reduces coherent reality to a contradiction. Bresson 'burns the bridges' of accumulated culture, but replaces it with 'nothing'."

Positif 11/74 Michel Sineux. Sloan comments, "Negative review of this 'clichéd' film [Lancelot de Lac] made by a 'megalomaniac of the ellipse'. Sineux see the continuous averting of the eyes as 'aesthetic constipation'."

La Quinzaine Littéraure no date 1977 Louis Seguin. Sloan comments, "Review comparing the film [Le Diable probablement] with the tragic romanticism Goethe. Though Bresson does not allow himself to agree with the analysis he presents, Seguin wonders how he can compromise his reputation with so common a theme as ecology."

Michel Ciment on old times

The September issue of Positif featured an interviews with both Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol. This paragraph is translated from Michel Ciment"s editorial on page 1.

It is Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer who must be laughing to themselves at the booming proposition of the ex-editor of Cahiers du Cinema. Here are two metteurs-en-scene who, for 50 years, with ups and downs for the first and mostly highs for the second have known how to steer away from the fashionable and pursue an esthetical research in which woman and love are among its most beautiful fruits. If we had supported in the early 1960s Rivette's Paris nous appartient, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, Astruc's La Proie pour l'ombre, and the work of Resnais, Varda, Franju, Marker, Demy, Malle, Deville and Cavalier, this magazine was not kindly towards Rohmer's Le Signe du lion or Chabrol's Beau Serge and Les Cousins. On re-evaluation, we won't blush over it. But, from Les Biches and La Collectioneuse (1967-1968), our columns have been openly favorable to a number of their films. In any case, they confirm the astonishing vitality of a generation of directors, who -- unique phenomenon in the world -- more than a half century after their debuts, continue to bear witness to an independence and a brash originality, from Resnais to Marker, from Varda to Cavalier, and from Rohmer to Rivette and Chabrol. False quarrel, thus, that of young and old, ancient and modern, critical fluctuations as academic as they are sterile.

Positif at Cahiers -- Roger Tailleur and Paul-Louis Thirard Dec. 1961

In their annual year-end special issue in December 1961, Cahiers du Cinema spotlighted "La Critique" (Criticism). The issue featured the responses of 36 French film critics to a battery of 14 questions asked by Cahiers. Question 14 was, "Speaking frankly, what to you is the contribution -- positive or negative -- of Cahiers du Cinema?". Among those who replied were 4 Positif regulars. What follows is my translation of the reaction of two of those Positif critics Roger Tailleur and Paul-Louis Thirard.

Roger Tailleur (page 83)
Positive contributions: news, research (filmograhies, interviews), unintentional humor. Negative contribution: the orientation of its research, its consequent "systems", - premature, partial and false. The resulting blindness and bad faith: covering over errors of "track-switching" (Rossellini), badly compensating for childishness (Hitchcock), and aggressive empiricism by an academic totalitarianism increasingly invasive, undertaking promotions of little profit, chaotic wastefulness which only reaps the wind (Fuller, Ulmer), annexing on the other hand shamelessly the sacred, and rather superficial, celebrities (Fellini, Franju, Resnais, Antonioni, soon Wajda, maybe tomorrow Autant-Lara or Le Chanois), enticing too many bad filmmakers into an uncertain vocation, poorly equiped much more than Mallarméan, (it suffices to compare them to the "foreigners", Kast to Doniol-Valcroze, Resnais to Chabrol or to Godard). In short, after some interesting flashes, to have relapsed into seriousness, to have simply (and quite rightly) wanted to have film taken seriously, embalming film rather rather to have revealed its fragrances, to have slept rather to have awakened, to be less critics than curators, to have run with the hare while hunting with the hounds, of eclecticism and engagement, of the avant-garde and the commercial; but you have asked me not to be too prolix.

Paul-Louis Thirard (page 84)
Contribution important and negative: they have succeeded through omnipresence and repetition in getting bad films to be taken for good ones and vice-versa. (An example of the first case: Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, L'eau à la bouche ... Example of the second: Tu ne tueras point). As the tendency seems to reverse itself, some take their precaution, an attitude which makes one think of the amusing manner of turnarounds of Mr Guy Mollet vis-a-vis the general. So look at the unassertive lot of the latest Chabrol. Also, look at the editor in chief of Cahiers du Cinema screaming at the betrayal of, and intrigues against, the New Wave. Now, to what measure, given the state of French society today, was the phenomenon of Cahiers du Cinema unavoidable? That is another question. It requires, for there to be an answer to it, a historian or a sociologist.

Positif at Cahiers -- Robert Benayoun and Louis Seguin Dec. 1961

In their annual year-end special issue in December 1961, Cahiers du Cinema spotlighted "La Critique" (Criticism). The issue featured the responses of 36 French film critics to a battery of 14 questions asked by Cahiers. Question 14 was, "Speaking frankly, what to you is the contribution -- positive or negative -- of Cahiers du Cinema?". Among those who replied were 4 Positif regulars. What follows is my translation of the reaction of two of those Positif critics - Robert Benayoun and Louis Seguin.


Robert Benayoun (page 56)
On a critical plane, Cahiers du Cinema has made a negative contribution. They contradict themselves too often. Their extreme (and markedly useful) positions on Hitchcock, Rossellini, Donen, Huston, Bunuel, Anthony Mann and others have received throughout the years refutations too obvious for a guest to twist the knife in the wound intra-muros. No worthwhile theory has emerged there, no precise tendency has arisen there. Three schools of illusionists have exercised their powers there, destroying each time the preceding thesis.
On the other hand, on the plane of present expression, Cahiers has unquestionably encouraged the accession to direction of several talented directors, such as Philippe de Broca and Jacques Demy, The emphasis which at 146 Champs Elysées has been placed on the school of direction has in the end led to a new kind of Maecenas, confidential and semi-masonic which has clearly changed the situation of French cinema. From this crucible, films of often contradictory styles have emerged which demonstrate less a real viewpoint than an indeed new method. Alas, this method, greatly limited, seems to have already seen its day.


Louis Seguin (page 81)
Little of any good, put apart from some "interviews". I do not even believe that Cahiers has contributed anything whatever.
But why your misgivings? Are your critics so faint-hearted, so overwhelmed by a threat that is rather powerless to not dare to speak "frankly" here?

Positif at Cahiers du Cinema Ado Kyrou 10 best Films 1954-1955

Ado (Adonis) Kyrou is the author of the classic Le Surréalisme en cinéma. He along with Robert Benayoun was a regular contributor in the early 1950s of the revue L'Age du cinema and like Benayoun he became a regular contributor to Positif. In both 1954 and 1955, he contributed a 10 best films list to Cahiers du Cinema. The January 1955 issue of Cahiers inaugurated their first cycle of 10 best films lists (1954 to 1958) printing the lists of 16 lists most not surprisingly from regular Cahiers contributors.

1954
1.....El (Luis Bunuel)
2.....The Wild One (Laszlo Benedek)
3.....I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini)
4.....Beat the Devil (John Huston)
5.....Gate of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa)
6.....The Red and the Black (Claude Autant-Lara)
7.....La Lupa (Alberto Lattauda)
8.....La Nave delle donne maledette (Raffaello Matarazzo)
9.....The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli)
10....Blackbeard the Pirate (Raoul Walsh)

1955
1.....Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich)
2.....The Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman)
3.....Rififi (Jules Dassin)
4.....The Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks)
5.....The Death of a Cyclist (Juan Antonio Bardem)
6.....Raizes (Benito Alazraki)
7.....The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
8.....Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich)
9.....The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold)

Michel Ciment on Jean-Luc Godard in 1993

In the Jan/Feb 63 issue of Film Comment, Patrick McGilligan wrote an article noting the 40^th anniversary of Positif. In that article there is this quote from longtime Positif contributor and editor Michel Ciment.

"Godard was better appreciated abroad than in France because we were too close to the sociological aspects of Godard's films, too partisan, too involved. I think Positif attacked Godard [as a filmmaker] because we were blind to his cinematic qualities, and because we were too sensitive to the politics of the man. If you have a certain distance, perhaps, you are more capable of objectivity"

Positif at Cahiers du Cinema Michel Ciment 10 best Films 1965-1967

These are the ten best film lists of Positif's Michel Ciment for the years 1965-1967 as they were published in Cahiers du Cinema. Each one was published as alphabetical (in French).


1965
Black Peter (Milos Forman)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman)
The Magic Desna (Yuliya Solntseva)
A High Wind in Jamaica (Alexander Mackendrick)
King and Country (Joseph Losey)
Kiss Me Stupid (Billy Wilder)
Lord Jim (Richard Brooks)
Il Momento della verità (Francesco Rosi)
Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Luchino Visconti)
La Vieille dame indigne (René Allio)

1966
Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson)
Cul-de-sac (Roman Polanski)
Falstaff (Orson Welles)
La Guerre est finie (Alain Resnais)
L'Homme au crane rasé (André Delvaux)
Fist in His Pocket (Marco Bellocchio)
The Professionals (Richard Brooks)
Les Sans-Espoirs (Miklos Jancso)
7 Women (John Ford)
Walkover (Jerzy Skolimowski)

1967
Accident (Joseph Losey)
Belle du Jour (Luis Bunuel)
The Big Mouth (Jerry Lewis)
The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy)
Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha)
Intimate Lighting (Ivan Passer)
El Dorado (Howard Hawks)
Pour les fusils perdus (Pierre Delanjeac)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
The First Teacher (Andrei Konchalovsky)

Positif at Cahiers: Roger Tailleur's 10 best films 1965-1967

In the 1960s, the magazine Positif did not publish yearly ten best film list. But some Positif regulars would have their list for the year published in Cahiers du Cinema. These are Roger Tailleur's lists for the years 1965-1967.

1965
1.....Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Luchino Visconti)
2.....La Vieille dame indigne (René Allio)
3.....Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman)
4.....L'Arme à gauche (Claude Sautet)
5.....Il Momento della verità (Francesco Rosi)
6.....The Sons of Katie Elder (Henry Hathaway)
7.....The Big Night (Joseph Losey)
8.....Le Bonheur (Agnes Varda)
9.....Black Peter (Milos Forman)
10...The Disorderly Orderly (Frank Tashlin)

1966
1.....The Professionals (Richard Brooks)
2.....La Guerre est finie (Alain Resnais)
3.....Walkover (Jerzy Skolimowski) 1967
4.....Falstaff (Orson Welles)
5.....Harper (Jack Smight)
6.....7 Women (John Ford)
7.....Cul-de-sac (Roman Polanski)
8.....La Vie de Chateau (Jean-Paul Rappenau)
9.....The Bedford Incident (James B Harris)
10....Bus Riley's Back in Town (Harvey Hart)

1967
1.....The First Teacher (Andrei Konchalovsky)
2.....El Dorado (Howard Hawks)
3.....Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (Jacques Demy)
4.....The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder)
5.....Intimate Lighting (Ivan Passer)
6.....Belle du jour (Luis Bunuel)
7.....Le Départ (Jerzy Skolimowski)
8.....Pour les fusils perdus (Pierre Delanjeac)
9.....The Big Mouth (Jerry Lewis)
10....Mamaïa (José Varela)

Godard saves Positif.

In his book A History of the French New Wave Cinema, Richard Neupert notes that in the year and a half between April 1958 and November 1959 Positif was in such dire financial straits that it was only able to publish two issues. But by 1960, the magazine was back on an even keel and by 1962, it was even prospering as much as it could hope to prosper.
So what happened here? Can we speculate? Well, let's try this --in roughly that time period both The Four Hundred Blows and Breathless as well as other fims labeled New Wave were released and interest in film as art exploded to the benefit magazines such as Positif. thus, one might say that Breathless granted Positif its second wind. Maybe, in Positif's reception room, today, a bust of a certain M. Jean-Luc Godard should be placed in gratitude.

Bertrand Tavernier a dueling bibliography Cahiers vs Positif 1960 to 1973.

A simple bibliography of Bertrand Tavernier's writings published at Cahiers du Cinema or Positif up until his breakthrough into film directing in 1973.

Review -- Time Without Pity Positif 35 Jul-Aug 1960
Who Is Hubert Cornfield Positif 36 Nov 1960 (with P-L Thirard)
Interview with Edgar G. Ulmer Cahiers du Cinema 122 Aug 1961
Belgian Previews (Reviews-- "Porgy and Bess", "Spartacus") Positif 41 Sep 61
Interview with Jean-Pierre Melville Cahiers du Cinema 124 Oct 1961
Belgique Cahiers du Cinema 127 Jan 1962
Review -- Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Cahiers du Cinema 128 Feb 1962
Encounter with Phillip Yordan Cahiers du Cinema 128 Feb 1962
Review -- Atom Age Vampire Cahiers du Cinema 129 Mar 1962
Review -- Gold of the Seven Saints Cahiers du Cinema 132 Jun 1962
The Singer, not the Song Cahiers du Cinema 132 Jun 1962
Letter from Brussells Cahiers du Cinema 132 Jun 1962
Otto Preminger Press Conference Cahiers du Cinema 133 Jul 1962
Introducing Richard Quine Cahiers du Cinema 133 Jul 1962
Review -- Bonne Chance Charlie Cahiers du Cinema 135 Sep 1962
Review -- Two Loves Cahiers du Cinema 136 Oct 1962
Review -- Guns of the Black Witch Cahiers du Cinema 136 Oct 1962
Review -- Man with a Star/War and Peace (King Vidor retrospective) Cahiers du Cinema 136 Oct 1962
Review -- Le Combat dan l'Ile Cahiers du Cinema 137 Nov 1962
Interview with Jean-Luc Godard Cahiers du Cinema 138 Dec 1962 (with Jean Collet, Michel Delahaye, Jean-André Fieschi and André Labarthe)
Interview with Claude Chabrol Cahiers du Cinema 138 Dec 1962(with Jean Collet, Michel Delahaye, Jean-André Fieschi and André Labarthe)
Interview with Francois Truffaut Cahiers du Cinema 138 Dec 1962(with Jean Collet, Michel Delahaye, Jean-André Fieschi and André Labarthe)
Annotated Filmography of Howard Hawks (BT annotates "The Criminal Code") Cahiers du Cinema 139 Jan 1963
Petit Journal du Cinema -- Letter from London Cahiers du Cinema 140 Feb 1963
Petit Journal du Cinema -- Alan Dwan Cahiers du Cinema 140 Feb 1963
Review -- The Errand Boy Cahiers du Cinema141 Mar 1963
Extracts of Correspondence with Delmer Daves Positif 50 Mar 1963
Petit Journal du Cinema -- Howard Hawks note Cahiers du Cinema 142 Apr 1963
Petit Journal du Cinema -- Richard Quine note Cahiers du Cinema 142 Apr 1963
Petit Journal du Cinema -- In memoriam, John Farrow and Jack Carson Cahiers du Cinema 142 Apr 1963
Interview with Stanley Donen Cahiers du Cinema 143 May 1963
Cannes: a week for the critic -- BT reviews "Balcony", "David and Lisa" and "Ningen" Cahiers du Cinema 145 Jul 1963
Cannes: a week for the critic BT reviews "The Baby Carriage", de Bo Widerberg (Suède) Cahiers du Cinema 145 Jul 1963
Cannes: a week for the critic BT reviews "The Sun in a Net", Cahiers du Cinema 145 Jul 1963
Cannes: a week for the critic -- BT reviews "Otoshiana" Cahiers du Cinema 145 Jul 1963
90 American Producers -- thumbnail critiques of 90 American film producers (with Patrick Brion) Cahiers du Cinema 150/151 Dec63/Jan64
60+60+1 Directors BT contributes critiques of 14 American directors Cahiers du Cinema 150/151 Dec63/Jan64
The Secret Museum Cahiers du Cinema 150/151 Dec63/Jan64
Interview with Jane Fonda (with Pierre Kast and Jacques Donoil-Valcroze) Cahiers du Cinema 150/151 Dec63/Jan64
Corman speaks -- Interview Positif 59 Mar 1964 (with Bernard Eisenschitz and C Wikking)
Transoceanic Interview with Budd Boetticher Cahiers du Cinema 157 Jul 1964
Mamoulian Speaks Positif 64-65 Rentrée 1964 (with Jean Douchet)
Review -- 'In the French Style" Positif 64-65 Rentrée 1964
Questions asked Tay Garnett Positif 64-65 Rentrée 1964
Anthony Mann (short interview) Cahiers du Cinema 186 Jan 1967
Review -- "The Bobo" Cahiers du Cinema188 March 1967
Meet Mr Mainwaring Cahiers du Cinema 189 Apr 1967
Interview with Howard Hawks Cahiers du Cinema 192 Jul 1967
Encounter with Paul Wendkos Cahiers du Cinema 195 Nov 1967
Encounter with Andre de Toth Cahiers du Cinema 197 Jan 1968
John Ford in Paris Notes of a Press-Agent Positif 81 Feb 1968
Review -- Quartermass and the Pit Cahiers du Cinema 200/201 Apr/May 1968
Interview -- Richard Brooks Positif 95 May 1968
Encounter with Richard Widmark Positif 95 May 1968 (with Michel Ciment)
Review -- Attack on the Iron Coast Positif 97 Sep 1968
Review -- Mon Fils, Cet Incompris Positif 98 Oct 1968
Review -- The Court-Martial of Sgt. Ryker Positif 98 Oct 1968
Interview with Vittorio Cottafavi Positif 101 Dec 1968/Jan 1969
I Even Met Lusty Turks Positif 102 Feb 1969
A Letter from Brussels and London Positif 102 Feb 1969
Interview -- Carl Foreman Positif 102 Feb 1969
Review -- Blue Positif 103 Mar 1969
Interview -- Joseph Losey Positif 104 Apr 1969
Review -- Survival 67 Positif 104 Apr 1969
Interview -- Robert Benayoun Positif 105 May 1969
Interview -- Robert Parrish Positif 105 May 1969
Review -- Sebastien Positif 105 May 1969
Review -- La Dernier Face a Face Positif 106 Jun 1969
Review -- Le Diable par la Queue Positif 106 Jun 1969
Interview with Herbert Biberman Positif 107 Summer 1969
The Lusty Cannois Positif 107 Summer 1969 (with Claudine [Colo] Tavernier)
Interview with Gordon Douglas Positif 108 Sep 1969 (with Roger Tailleur)
Interview with Edward Chodorov Positif 108 Sep 1969
Interview with Budd Boetticher Positif 110 Nov 1969 (with Michel Ciment, Bernard Cohn, and Louis Seguin)
Interview with Stanley Donen Positif 111 Dec1968Jan1969 (with [Claudine]Colo Tavernier)
Words from Kirk Douglas Positif 112 Feb 1970 (with Michel Ciment)
Debate on Cinema and Politics in 1969 Positif 113 Mar 1970 (with Robert Benayoun, Albert Bolduc, Michel Ciment, Jacques Demeure, Louis Seguin, Roger Tailleur, Paul-Louis Thirard)
Interview -- Abraham Polonsky Positif 114 Apr 1970 (with Michel Ciment)
Interview -- John Huston Positif 116 Jun 1970 (with Rui Nogueira)
Interview -- Franklin Schaffner Positif 117 Jul 1970 (with Michel Ciment and Frederic Vitoux)
French Cinema of the 1930s Positif117 Jul 1970
Interview -- Michael Wadleigh - Woodstock Positif 118 Aug 1970 (with Michel Ciment)
D W Griffith is doing well. I am too. Thank you. Positif 120 Oct 1970
Interview -- John Frankenheimer I Positif 122 Dec 1970 (with Michel Ciment)
Review -- Barquero Positif 123 Jan 1970
Interview -- John Frankenheimer II Positif 124 Feb1971 (with Michel Ciment)
The Contradictions of William Wellman Positif 124 Feb 1971
Review -- The Learning Tree Positif 127 May 1971
Cannes 1971 -- (BT reviews "The Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach" and "The Murder of Fred Hampton") Positif 130 Sep 1971
Murmurs in a Far-off Corridor (about Jacques Tourneur) Positif 132 Nov 1971
Remarks from Jacques Tourneur (collected and annotated by BT) Positif 132 Nov 1971
Book Review -- The Director's Event (Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin)/Horizon West (Jim Kitses)/Science Fiction in the Cinema (John Baxter) Positif 133 Dec 1971
On Henry Leopold de Fienne called Henry Hathaway Positif 135 Feb 1972
Interview -- Henry Hathaway Positif 136 Mar 1972 (with Michel Ciment)
Interview -- Robert Altman Positif 147 Feb 1973 (with Michel Ciment)
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BT also contribute to Cahiers du Cinema yearly "10 Best Films" feature for 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966 and a list of "Ten Best American Films of the Sound Era" for the special "American Cinema" issue no. 150/151 Dec63/Jan64.
BT was a panelist on Cahiers "conseil des dix" on two occasions (Sep61 and Aug62).
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The bulk of BT's film reviews were shorter reviews that were printed either in Positif's "From A to Z section" or Cahiers' "Notes on Other Films" and later "Films Released Last Month in Paris" sections. His longer reviews were The Errand Boy (Cahiers) and Time without Pity, In the French Style, and Silvio Narizzano's Blue. Also, the article "D W Griffith is doing well. I am too. Thank you." could be considered a review of the films MASH, Woodstock and The Molly Maguires.
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The literature discussing Tavernier's time as a critic usually makes statements such as "Tavernier was historically linked with Positif", or "most of his major critical pieces appeared in Positif and he is often associated with Positif in the same way that Godard and Truffaut are considered Cahiers directors" or that Tavernier wrote for "Cahiers du cinéma during Rohmer's reign." (Eric Rohmer edited Cahiers from 1960 to 1963)
As can be seen here, Tavernier contributed 43 pieces to Cahiers between 1961 and 1968, while he made 52 contributions to Positif between 1960 and 1973. However, 43 of those contributions to Positif occur after he stopped contributing to Cahiers. His career as a critic thus breaks down into a Cahiers period of about 7 years followed by a Positif that lasts up until he turns to direction. It does not appear that at either magazine he was ever considered staff. Speculation alert - I suspect that the seven articles that were printed by Positif after he commenced contributing to Cahiers were pieces that he prepared for Cahiers but which although they merited publication were not accepted at Cahiers. The magazine in its yellow cover days was small in size (6"x10") and rather thin (62 to 64 pages until Nov 1963 and 78 to 80 pages from them on until November 1964 when he went to the larger, thicker format). And after the success of Truffaut, Godard and Chabrol, there was no lack of young film critics who wanted to write for Cahiers. Thus, there had to have been a mountain of submissions chasing a little bit of space and much worthy material would have been picked up elsewhere.
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Tavernier's 43 articles in Cahiers outdistances the 21 submissions accepted of Claude Chabrol, and his alter egos, Jean-Yves Goute and Charles Eitel between 1953 and 1963. And it is not too far behind the 73 contributions of Jean-Luc Godard/Hans Lucas between 1952 and 1967.
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And why did he finally jump ship from Cahiers to Positif in the spring of 1968. A quick look at the table of contents for the Apr/May 1968 issue of Cahiers suggests an answer. BT's stock in trade was American Cinema and it appears that as Cahiers begins it leftward lurch it no longer has any interest in interviews with Richard Brooks or encounters with Richard Widmark.
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