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Why are Americans polarized between francophobia and francophilia? Some people mock the French for liking Jerry Lewis, when most French people probably don\u2019t even know who he is. Others think that France is the repository of world culture and represents the finest in writing about the arts, even though the Parisian intelligentsia can be pretentious and hermetic.<\/p>\n
But we must face facts. When it comes to cinephilia, the French have no equals. They grant film a respect that it wins nowhere else. Spend a year, or even a month, in Paris, and you will feel like a Renaissance prince. This is a city where one lonely screen can run tattered prints of One from the Heart<\/em> and Hellzapoppin!<\/em>, once a week, indefinitely.<\/p>\n My first trip was too brief, only a week in 1970, but my second one\u2014four weeks of dissertation research in 1973\u2014left me exhausted. Reading Pariscope<\/em> on the way in from the airport, I learned about a Tex Avery festival. I checked into my hotel and M\u00e9tro\u2019d to the theatre, where I and a bunch of moms and kids gazed in rapture upon King-Size Canary<\/em>. Another time, also coming in from the airport, Kristin and I passed a marquee for King Hu\u2019s Raining in the Mountain<\/em>. Next stop, Raining in the Mountain<\/em>. My memories of The Naked Spur<\/em>, Ministry of Fear<\/em>, Liebelei<\/em>, Tati’s Traffic<\/em>, and Vertov\u2019s Stride Soviet!<\/em> are inextricable from the Parisian venues in which I saw them.<\/p>\n Sound like a lament for days gone by? Nope. You can find the same variety on offer today. Of course the two monthlies, Cahiers du cin\u00e9ma<\/em> and Positif<\/em>, have to take a lot of credit for this. Add Traffic<\/em>, Cin\u00e9ma<\/em>, and several other ambitious journals, and you get a film culture unrivalled in the world.<\/p>\n Critics from Louis Delluc onward have led thousands of readers toward appreciating the seventh art. Historians like Georges Sadoul, Jean Mitry, Laurent Mannoni, Francis Lacassin, and others have enlightened us for decades. Academic film analysis would not be what it is without Raymond Bellour, Noel Burch, Marie-Claire Ropars, Jacques Aumont, and a host of other scholars. Above all stands Andr\u00e9 Bazin, the greatest theorist-critic we have had.<\/p>\n And the books! Arts-and-sciences publishing receives government subsidies; the French understand that books contribute to the public good. There are plenty of worse ways to spend tax dollars (e.g., trumped-up military invasions). The French, like the Italians, have created an ardent translation culture too. If you can\u2019t read something in Russian or German, there\u2019s a good chance it\u2019s available in French.<\/p>\n I was reminded of the glories of Gallic film publishing when the mailman tottered to my door this week with twenty-two pounds worth of recent items I\u2019d ordered. I haven\u2019t even read them yet; otherwise, they\u2019d be filed with Book Reports<\/a>. Instead I want to spend today\u2019s blog celebrating them as fruits of an ambition that has no counterpart in English-language publishing. All are grand and gorgeous and informative to boot.<\/p>\n \n \n A biographical study of a Gaumont director still too little known. Perret was second only to Feuillade at Gaumont, and he performed as a fine comedian as well. His shorts are charming, and his longer works, like L\u2019enfant de Paris<\/em> (1913), remain remarkable for their complex staging and cutting. After a thriving career in France, Perret came to make films in America, including Twin Pawns<\/em> (1919), a lively Wilkie Collins adaptation. He returned to France and was directing up to his death in 1935.<\/p>\n Although the text seems a bit cut-and-paste, Taill\u00e9 has included many lovely posters and letters, along with a detailed filmography, full endnotes, and a vast bibliography. It compares only to that deluxe career survey of the silent films of Raoul Walsh, published by Knopf. . . .Oh, wait, there’s no such book. . . .Think there ever will be?<\/p>\n \n \n A luscious catalogue of an exposition tracing visual sources of Disney\u2019s animation. Illustrated with sketches, concept paintings, and character designs from the Disney archives, this volume shows how much the cartoon studio owed to painting traditions from the Middle Ages onward. It includes articles on the training schools that shaped the studio\u2019s look, on European sources of Disney\u2019s style and iconography, on architecture, on relations with Dal\u00ed, and on appropriations by Pop Artists. There\u2019s also a filmography and a valuable biographical dictionary of studio animators.<\/p>\n Some of the affinities seem far-fetched, but after Neil Gabler\u2019s unadventurous biography, a little stretching is welcome. This exhibition (headed to Montreal<\/a> next month) answers my hopes<\/a> for serious treatment of the pictorial ambitions of the world\u2019s most powerful cartoon factory. The catalogue is about to appear in English<\/a>–from a German publisher.<\/p>\n \n \n The authors of a lengthy study of Citizen Kane<\/em> now take us through the production process of each of Welles\u2019 works. They have stuffed their book with script excerpts, storyboards, charts, timelines, and uncommon production stills.<\/p>\n The text, on my cursory sampling, will seem largely familiar to Welles aficionados; the frames from the actual films betray their DVD origins; and I would like to have seen more depth on certain stylistic matters. (The authors’ account of the pre-Kane<\/em> Hollywood style, for instance, is oversimplified.) Yet the sheer luxury of the presentation overwhelms my reservations. A colossal filmmaker, in several senses, deserves a colossal book like this.<\/p>\n \n \n In the same series as the Welles volume, even more imposing. If you want to know the shooting schedule for Alphaville<\/em> or check the retake report for La Chinoise<\/em> (these are eminently reasonable desires), here is the place to look. Detailed background on the production of every 1960s Godard movie, with many discussions of the creative choices at each stage. Once more, stunningly mounted, with lots of color to show off posters and production stills.<\/p>\n Anybody who thinks that Godard just made it up as he went along will be surprised to find a great degree of detailed planning. (After all, the guy is Swiss.) Yet the scripts leave plenty of room to wiggle. \u201cThe first shot of this sequence,\u201d begins one scene of the Contempt<\/em> screenplay, \u201cis also the last shot of the previous sequence.\u201d Soon we learn that \u201cThis sequence will last around 20-30 minutes. It\u2019s difficult to recount what happens exactly and chronologically.\u201d<\/p>\n \n The avoirdupois champ of my batch. The French were early admirers of modern Hong Kong cinema, but their reference works lagged behind those of Italy, Germany, and the US. (Most notable of the last is John Charles\u2019 Hong Kong Filmography, 1977-1997<\/em><\/a>.) More recently the French have weighed in, literally. 2005 gave us Christophe Genet\u2019s Encyclop\u00e9die du cin\u00e9ma d\u2019arts martiaux<\/em>, a substantial (2 lbs.) list of films and personalities, with plots, credits, and French release dates.<\/p>\n Newer and niftier, the Gouneau\/ Amara volume covers much more than martial arts, and so it strikes my tabletop like a Shaolin monk\u2019s fist. There are lovely posters in color and plenty of photos of actors that help you identify recurring bit players. Yet this is more than a pretty coffee-table book. It offers genre analysis, history, critical commentary, biographical entries, surveys of music, comments on television production, and much more. It has abbreviated lists of terms and top box-office titles, as well as a surprisingly detailed chronology.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/perret-cover-1501.jpg\" "\\"perret-cover-150\\"")
<\/a>Daniel Taill\u00e9, L\u00e9once Perret Cin\u00e9matographiste<\/strong>. Association Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que en Deux-S\u00e8vres, 2006. 2.5 lbs.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/disney-book-1501.jpg\" "\\"disney-book-150\\"")
<\/a>Il \u00e9tait une fois Walt Disney: Aux sources de l\u2019art des studios Disney<\/strong>. Gal\u00e9ries nationales du Grand Palais, 2006. 4 lbs.<\/p>\n![\"welles-book-150.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/welles-book-150.jpg\" "\\"welles-book-150.jpg\\"")
Jean-Pierre Berthom\u00e9 and Fran\u00e7ois Thomas. Orson Welles au travail<\/strong>. Cahiers du cin\u00e9ma<\/em>, 2006. 4 lbs.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/godard-book-1501.jpg\" "\\"godard-book-150\\"")
<\/a>Alain Bergala. Godard au travail: Les ann\u00e9es 60<\/strong>. Cahiers du cin\u00e9ma<\/em>. 2006. 5 lbs.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hong-kong-book-1501.jpg\" "\\"hong-kong-book-150\\"")
<\/a>Emrik Gouneau and L\u00e9onard Amara. Encyclop\u00e9die du cin\u00e9ma du Hong Kong<\/strong>. Les Belles Lettres, 2006. 6.5 lbs.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Above all\u2014and worth the 62-euro price tag in itself\u2014the volume provides a chronological list of all domestically made films<\/em> released in the colony from 1913 to 2006! Running to over 200 big-format pages, the list enters films by their English titles and it indicates language (Mandarin, Cantonese, or other), release date, director, genre, and major stars. Until the Hong Kong Film Archive completes its vast filmography of local productions, this will remain indispensable for all researchers.<\/p>\n![\"godard-book-illustration-300.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/godard-book-illustration-300.jpg\")
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