Postcards from the Cinema
Published on 1. January 2007
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-1-84520-650-5 (ISBN)
Description
Postcards from the Cinema is the book Serge Daney, one of the greatest of film critics, never wrote. It is based around an interview that was to be the starting point for a book, a project cut short by Daney's death. Postcards turns a history of cinema into a profound meditation on the art and politics of film.Daney's passionate and lucid engagement with film, combined with his concern for journalistic clarity, effectively created film criticism as a genre. Equally at home with the theories of Deleuze, Lacan and Debord as he was with the movie-making of Bunuel, Godard and Ray, Daney was also a fan of Jerry Lewis and Hitchcock. At the same time - and before his time - he championed the critical analysis of television and other audio-visual media.Long-awaited, this is the first book-length translation of Daney's work, testimony to a life lived with a fierce love of film.
Reviews / Votes
'This long overdue introduction in English to the greatest French film critic since Andre Bazin helps to show what keeps Daney's work vital, eye-opening, and even timely.'Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Critic, Chicago Reader'Perched well above cinema studies, Serge Daney wrote and spoke of films in thrilling sentences, unrivalled in insight, moral fervor and sheer genius. Easily the best critic of his day.'Dudley Andrew, Yale University'Serge Daney was the end of criticism as I understood it.'Jean Luc Godard'Only Serge Daney could serve as the guide through this labyrinth of images.'Wim Wenders'Serge Daney knew something about cinema that no one else knew.'Olivier Assayas'Our most scrupulous and inspired film critic.'Raymond Bellour'Cinema is the only thing at our disposal with which we can recognize ourselves in today's images. As an instrument it's inevitably inadequate, but it's the only one.' Serge Daney'Postcards from the Cinema is a book thaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84520-650-5 (9781845206505)
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
Persons
Serge Daney was a writer and eventually editor-in-chief for the highly influential film journal Cahiers du cinema. He went on to write for the newspaper Liberation, and founded the film journal Trafic. Translated from the French by Paul Grant
Content
Introduction by Paul Grant Preface 1. The Tracking Shot in Kapo 2. Cine-biography 3. Cinema and History 4. Travelling Cinephile 5. A Night in Ronda 6. Cinema Would be the Promise of the World 7. Cinema and Communism: In Defense of a Counter Society 8. Experience: From Cahiers to Liberation 9. Cinema and Television: Departure and Return 10. The Two Cinemas Notes