Footlights
Critical Notebook
Published on 19. December 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-63590-198-6 (ISBN)
Description
The early essays of the most influential French film critic of the post-68 period.
The Footlights (1983) was the first book by Serge Daney, a film critic admired in his lifetime by Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Godard and recognized since his premature death in 1992 as the most important French writer on film after André Bazin. The Footlights stands apart in Daney’s body of work as the only collection of his essays he conceived of as a book, organizing his seminal pieces from Cahiers du Cinéma by theme and linking them with original texts that reflect in a personal voice on the doubts, battles, and illuminations of a generation of film lovers inspired by the explorations of Lacanian theory and roused by the collective aspirations of Maoist dogma. In pieces on fellow travelers Godard and Straub/Huillet, on films ranging from Pasolini’s Saló to Spielberg’s Jaws, and on the difference between film language and television discourse, Daney offers a definitive portrait of an era of radical hope and disappointment.
The Footlights (1983) was the first book by Serge Daney, a film critic admired in his lifetime by Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Godard and recognized since his premature death in 1992 as the most important French writer on film after André Bazin. The Footlights stands apart in Daney’s body of work as the only collection of his essays he conceived of as a book, organizing his seminal pieces from Cahiers du Cinéma by theme and linking them with original texts that reflect in a personal voice on the doubts, battles, and illuminations of a generation of film lovers inspired by the explorations of Lacanian theory and roused by the collective aspirations of Maoist dogma. In pieces on fellow travelers Godard and Straub/Huillet, on films ranging from Pasolini’s Saló to Spielberg’s Jaws, and on the difference between film language and television discourse, Daney offers a definitive portrait of an era of radical hope and disappointment.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Illustrations
28 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 151 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
336 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-63590-198-6 (9781635901986)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2023
Semiotext(e)
€17.49
Available for download
Persons
Serge Daney became the editor of Cahiers du Cinema in 1974. In 1981, he left Cahiers and wrote about visual culture for Libération, turning his attention to television and coverage of the Gulf War. He collaborated with Claire Denis on a documentary film, Jacques Rivette, le veilleur (1990). He died of AIDS-related causes in 1992.