André Bazin

The philosophy and unique insights of the late French film critic are revealed in these essays.

What is Cinema?

French critic André Bazin was 28 when Orson Welles's Citizen Kane opened in Paris. Four years later he wrote his first book with Welles as its subject; it would quickly achieve the status of a classic. Shortly before his death in 1958, Basin prepared this revised edition. Included are a brilliant introductory essay by François Traffaut and a profile by Jean Cocteau, along with 28 photos of Welles. In Orson Welles: A Critical View, Bazin traces Welles's career from the theatre and radio to Hollywood and Europe. He assesses Welles's works, his innovations--and in many ways takes the man's measure. Orson Welles: A Critical View is the perfect meeting of two great minds.--Back cover.

A Critical View

Orson Welles

Bert Cardullo

A new collection of posthumous writings by André Baz

André Bazin and Italian Neorealism

What is cinema ?

O que é o cinema?

سينما القسوة

Che cosa è il cinema? Il film come opera d'arte e come mito nella riflessione di un maestro della critica

O Que é o Cinema?

Cette réédition constitue le recueil des principaux articles (parus d'abord en quatre tomes, entre 1958 et 1962) de celui dont l'œuvre a illuminé cette collection : André Bazin. Son apport reste plus que décisif pour comprendre le cinéma.

Qu'est-ce que le cinéma?

Presents essays and reviews from the late film critic

Major Essays & Reviews from the Forties & Fifties

Bazin at Work

Vol. I (What is Cinema?)

Buñuel, Dreyer, Welles

The first volume of What is Cinema? was simultaneously basic and complex, rigorous and open, almost the Poetics of movies; and as a follow-up these newly translated essays are not a disappointment...In the excellent translations by Hugh Gray, these painstakingly structured essays are difficult yet exhilarating reading...both volumes of What is Cinema? are rich in distilled insights, and anybody interested in movies and movie criticism should have access to them.

"Adaptation was central to André Bazin's lifelong query: What is cinema? Placing films alongside literature let him identify the aesthetic and sociological distinctiveness of each. More importantly, it helped him wage his campaign for a modern conception of cinema, one that owed a great deal to developments in the novel. His critical genius is on full display in this collection, where readers are introduced to the foundational concepts of the relationship between film and literary adaptation as put forth by one of the greatest film and cultural critics of the 20th century. Expertly curated and with an introduction by celebrated film scholar Dudley Andrew, the book begins with a selection of essays that show Bazin's film theory in action, followed by reviews of films adapted from renowned novelists of the day (Conrad, Hemingway, Steinbeck; Colette, Sagan, Duras; and more) as well as classic novels of the 19th century (Bronte, Melville, Tolstoy; Balzac, Hugo, Zola; Stendhal and more). Taken together, this volume will be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in literary adaptation, authorship, classical film theory, French film history, and André Bazin's criticism alike. As a bonus, 250 years of French fiction is put in play as Bazin assesses adaptation after adaptation to determine what is at stake for culture, for literature and especially for cinema"--

Cinema's Literary Imagination

Andre Bazin on Adaptation

André Bazin is renowned for almost single-handedly establishing the study of film as an accepted intellectual pursuit, as well as for being the spiritual father of the French New Wave. In 1951 he cofounded and became editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma, the most influential critical periodical in the history of cinema. Four of the film critics whom he mentored at the magazine later became the most acclaimed directors of the postwar French cinema—François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol. Bazin is also considered the principal instigator of the influential auteur theory—the idea that, since film is an art form, the director of a movie must be perceived as the chief creator of its unique cinematic style. Bazin wrote some 2,600 articles and reviews, only about 150 of which are accessible in anthologies or edited collections. Bazin on Global Cinema, 1948–1958 offers English-language readers much of his writing on Asian cinema; previously untranslated essays on James Dean, the star system, political engagement and the cinema, and film criticism itself; and several reviews of film books, as well as reviews of notable American, British, and European movies, such as Johnny Guitar, High Noon, Umberto D., Hamlet, Kanal, and Le jour se lève (Daybreak). The book also features a contextual introduction to Bazin’s life and work, the first comprehensive bibliography of works by and about Bazin, credits of all the films he discusses in this book, and an extensive index.

Bazin on Global Cinema, 1948-1958

André Bazin's What Is Cinema? (volumes I and II) have been classics of film studies for as long as they've been available and are considered the gold standard in the field of film criticism. Although Bazin made no films, his name has been one of the most important in French cinema since World War II. He was co-founder of the influential Cahiers du Cinéma, which under his leadership became one of the world's most distinguished publications. Championing the films of Jean Renoir (who contributed a short foreword to Volume I), Orson Welles, and Roberto Rossellini, he became the protégé of François Truffaut, who honors him touchingly in his forword to Volume II. This new edition includes graceful forewords to each volume by Bazin scholar and biographer Dudley Andrew, who reconsiders Bazin and his place in contemporary film study. The essays themselves are erudite but always accessible, intellectual, and stimulating. As Renoir puts it, the essays of Bazin "will survive even if the cinema does not."

What Is Cinema?

"Para todos los cinefilos que alcanzaron la mayoria de edad cinematografica en 1946 -dijo una vez Andre Bazin--, el nombre de Orson Welles se identifica con el entusiasmo por el redescubrimiento del cine americano. Mas aun, resume la conviccion, compartida por toda la joven critica de entonces, de estar asistiendo a un renacimiento y una revolucion del arte hollywoodiense."Estas palabras se refieren al estreno en Paris de Ciudadano Kane, cuando Bazin no era mas que un joven y prometedor critico. Pero lo cierto es que Welles ejercio un influjo similar en gran cantidad de aficionados de cualquier nacionalidad, sobre todo por su condicion de director tambien joven, atrevido, brillante y progresivamente marginado por la conservadora industria hollywodiense. Uno de los autores mas innovadores del cine americano de posguerra se estaba convirtiendo en una leyenda.Por su parte, Bazin conservo intacta su admiracion por Welles, hasta el punto de dedicarle su primer libro. Poco antes de morir, en 1958, preparaba una segunda edicion revisada y aumentada. Y es esta la que recoge el presente libro, con un prefacio de Andre S. Labarthe y un texto escrito en 1978 por FranC'ois Truffaut, con ocasion de la aparicion del libro en Estados Unidos.

André Bazin

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