Decades Never Start on Time
A Richard Roud Anthology
Published on 23. July 2014
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-84457-626-5 (ISBN)
Description
Richard Roud, film writer and co-founder and director of the New York Film Festival, was one of the most influential film critics of the twentieth century. Renowned for his close relationships with French New Wave directors such as Godard and Truffaut, he played a key role in bringing European art cinema to the attention of American and British audiences.
This anthology brings together selected writings from his published works with previously unpublished archival material - from an unfinished study of Truffaut, to extracts from his books on film-makers such as Straub-Huillet and Ophuels, and articles for The Guardian and Sight & Sound. Charting Roud's journey through the world of film festivals and film criticism from the 1950s to the 1980s, Decades Never Start on Time provides a fascinating insight into the flourishing film culture of the era.
With a preface by David Thomson.
This anthology brings together selected writings from his published works with previously unpublished archival material - from an unfinished study of Truffaut, to extracts from his books on film-makers such as Straub-Huillet and Ophuels, and articles for The Guardian and Sight & Sound. Charting Roud's journey through the world of film festivals and film criticism from the 1950s to the 1980s, Decades Never Start on Time provides a fascinating insight into the flourishing film culture of the era.
With a preface by David Thomson.
Reviews / Votes
"Topical in the best sense, these bulletins from the front are the first draft of film history." - Film Comment "Even before Andrew Sarris and Susan Sontag, Richard Roud was a key translator/programmer of continental cinema for the Anglo-American public, and it's extremely gratifying to finally have a collection of his film writing." Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Critic and Writer "This new anthology put together by Michael Temple and Richard's neice Karen Smolens gives a vivid picture of the sort of writer he was and, behind the writer, of the man himself.' - Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Sight & Sound "A very enjoyable book for cinephiles to dip into... [Roud's writings] still seem fresh and urgent 40 years or more after most were filed." - Geoffrey McNab, The IndependentMore details
Edition
2014
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
30 b/w photos
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Weight
608 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84457-626-5 (9781844576265)
DOI
10.1057/9781137443540
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
Book
07/2014
BFI Publishing
€36.37
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
Michael Temple is Reader in Film and Media at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. He is author of Jean Vigo (2005) and co-editor of The French Cinema Book (2004) and Jean-Luc Godard: Documents (2006), among other titles.
Karen Smolens is the niece of Richard Roud. She attended her first New York Film Festival at age 13, where she saw her uncle moderate a press conference with Roberto Rossellini following a screening of The Rise of Louis XIV (1966). She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA.
Karen Smolens is the niece of Richard Roud. She attended her first New York Film Festival at age 13, where she saw her uncle moderate a press conference with Roberto Rossellini following a screening of The Rise of Louis XIV (1966). She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA.
Content
Acknowledgements.- Preface; David Thomson.- Introduction; Michael Temple.- Chronology; Karen Smolens.- PART 1: 1956-1962.- 1.1 'Britain in America' 1.2 Max Ophuels: An Index (extract) 1.3 'Face to face: James Agee' 1.4 'Face to face: Andre Bazin' 1.5 'How to see a movie (in the USA)' 1.6 'Novel novel; fable fable?' 1.7 'National Film Theatre: the first ten years' 1.8 'The Left Bank: Marker, Varda, Resnais'.- PART 2: 1963-1969 2.1 'Festival at the Lincoln Center' 2.2 'End of Bardolotry' 2.3 'Muriel observed' 2.4 'Cannes ho!' 2.5 'Rondo Galant: the world of Jacques Demy' 2.6 'The Red Desert' 2.7 'Object lesson' 2.8 'Anguish: Alphaville' 2.9 'New films' 2.10 'Film criticism in Britain' 2.11 'Masculin feminin' 2.12 'Far from Vietnam' 2.13 'A Langlois unto himself' 2.14 'Weekend in Paris' 2.15 'The end of the Cannes party' 2.16 'Minimal cinema: Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach' 2.17 'The Cossacks go in at Pesaro' 2.18 'If with no buts' 2.19 'Le Gai Savoir'.- PART 3: 1970-1976 3.1 'The varieties of tyranny' 3.2 'Films to change the world?' 3.3 'Fathers and sons' 3.4 'Look back in shame' 3.5 'Going between' 3.6 'The international gravy train' 3.7 'Visconti misses the gondola' 3.8 Jean-Marie Straub (extracts) 3.9 'Daddy of 'em all' 3.10 'The dragon...'3.11 'It takes two to tango' 3.12 'How can we know the dancer from the dance?' 3.13 'Hollywood embers' 3.14 'Apple pie bedlam' 3.15 'The Rules of the Game' 3.16 'Hold the front page' 3.17 'The Passenger' 3.18 'Film of the century' 3.19 'Memorandum on processes of prospection and selection' 3.20 'Movies versus motion pictures'.- PART 4: 1977-1983 4.1 'Henri Langlois' 4.2 'The Left Bank revisited' 4.3 'The baggy-trousered philanthropist' 4.4 'Robert Bresson' 4.5 'Feuillade and the serial' 4.6 'Jean Renoir to 1939' 4.7 'London and New York' 4.8 'Gross can be beautiful' 4.9 'Biter bit' 4.10 A Passion for Films (extracts) 4.11 'The first foreign-language film I ever saw...' 4.12 'Melville'.- PART 5: 1984-1989 5.1 'Decades Never Start On Time' (extracts) 5.2 'The moral taste of Lotte Eisner' 5.3 'Remembering Losey' 5.4 'An Untitled Biography of Truffaut' (extract).- Bibliography.- Index.