FRENCH FILM THEORY AND CRITICISM A HISTORY/ANTHOLOGY 1 9 0 7-1 9 3 9 ~ Richard Abel Volume 1: 1907-1929 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS/ PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
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A Barbara, encore une fois What was a Heffalump like? Was it Fierce? Did it come when you whistled? And how did it come? Was it Fond of Pigs at all? If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference what sort of Pig? Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any difference if the Pig had a grandfather called TRESPASSERS WILLIAM? Piglet didn't know the answer to any of these questions... and he was going to see his first Heffalump in about an hour from now! Of course Pooh would be with him, and it was much more Friendly with two. But suppose Heffalumps were Very Fierce with Pigs and Bears? A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926
Contents Note on Notes, x Preface, xiii Acknowledgments, xxiii PART ONE: 1907-1914 Before the Canon Selected Texts Georges Melies, "Cinematographic Views" (1907), 35 Remy de Gourmont, "Epilogues: Cinematograph" (1907), 47 Adolphe Brisson, "Theater Column: L'Assassinat du Due de Guise" (1908), 50 Jules Romains, "The Crowd at the Cinematograph" (1911), 53 (Louis Feuillade}, "Scenes de la vie telle qu'elle est" ( 191 1 ), 54 VictorinJasset, "An Essay on Mise-en-scene in Cinematography" (1911), 55 Ricciotto Canudo, "The Birth of a Sixth Art" (1911), 58 Abel Gance, "A Sixth Art" (1912), 66 Yhcam, "Cinematography" (1912), 67 Louis Haugmard, "The 'Aesthetic' of the Cinematograph" (1913), 77 Rene Doumic, "Drama Review: The Cinema Age" (1913), 86 Maurice Raynal, "Cinema Column: Fantomas" (1914), 89 Leopold Survage, "Colored Rhythm" (1914), 90 5 35 PART TWO: 1915-1919 Photogenie and Company Selected Texts Jacques de Baroncelli, "Pantomime, Music, Cinema" (1915), 125 Colette, "Cinema: The Cheat" (1917), 128 Paul Souday, "On the Cinema" (1916), 129 Emile Vuillermoz, "Before the Screen" (1916), 131 Emile Vuillermoz, "Before the Screen: Les Freres corses" (1917), 132 Colette, "Film Criticism: Mater Dolorosa" (1917), 136 Louis Delluc, "Beauty in the Cinema" (1917), 137 Louis Delluc, "Antoine at Work" (1917), 140 Philippe Soupault, "Note 1 on the Cinema" (1918), 142 Louis Delluc, "Notes to Myself: La Dixieme Symphonie" (1918), 143 95 125 Vil
CONTENTS Marcel L'Herbier, "Hermes and Silence" (1918), 147 Emile Vuillermoz, "Before the Screen: Hermes and Silence" (1918), 155 Louis Delluc, "The Crowd" (1918), 159 Louis Aragon, "On Decor" (1918), 165 Emile Vuillermoz, "Before the Screen: La Dixieme Symphonie" (1918), 168 Louis Delluc, "Cinema: The Cold Deck" (1919), 17 l Jean Cocteau, "Carte Blanche" (1919), 172 Marcel Gromaire, "A Painter's Ideas about the Cinema" (1919), 174 Blaise Cendrars, "The Modern: A New Art, the Cinema" (1919), 182 Henri Diamant-Berger, "The Scenario" (1919), 183 Henri Diamant-Berger, "The Decoupage" (1919), 185 Louis Delluc, "Cinema: The Outlaw and His Wife" (1919), 188 Andre Antoine, "A Proposal on the Cinema" (1919), 189 PART THREE: 1920-1924 Cinegraphie and the Search for Specificity Selected Texts Louis Feuillade, "Introduction," Barrabas {1920) and Les Deux Gamines {1921), 224 Emile Vuillermoz, "Before the Screen: Aesthetic" (1920), 225 Louis Delluc, "Cadence" (1920), 228 Leon Moussinac, "Cinema: Broken Blossoms" (1921), 229 Jean Epstein, "Magnification" (1921), 235 Jean Epstein, "The Senses 1 (b)'' ( 192 1 ), 24 l Lionel Landry, "El Dorado" (1921), 246 Leon Moussinac, "Cinema: Fievre, L'Atlantide, El Dorado" (1921), 249 Louis Delluc, "From Orestes to Rio Jim" (1921), 255 Elie Faure, "The Art ofcineplastics" (1922), 258 Lionel Landry, "Caligarism or the Theater's Revenge" (1922), 268 Blaise Cendrars, "On The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" ( 1922), 2 7 l Fernand Leger, "La Roue: Its Plastic Quality" (1922), 27 l Emile Vuillermoz, "La Roue" (1923), 274 Rene Clair, "La Roue" (1923), 279 Leon Moussinac, "On Cinegraphic Rhythm" (1923), 280 Robert Desnos, "Dream and Cinema" (1923), 283 Louis Delluc, "Prologue" (1923), 285 Ricciotto Canudo, "Reflections on the Seventh Art" {1923), 291 Rene Clair, "Coeur fide/e" (1924), 303 Vilt 195 224
CONTENTS Germaine Dulac, "The Expressive Techniques of the Cinema" (1924), 305 Jean Epstein, "On Certain Characteristics of Photogenie" ( 1924), 314 PART FOUR: 1925-1929 The Great Debates Selected Texts 1ean Epstein, "For a New Avant-Garde" (1925), 349 'Jean Goudal, "Surrealism and Cinema" (1925), 353 Paul Ramain, "The Influence of Dream on the Cinema" (1925), 362 Jacques Feyder, "Visual Transpositions" (1925), 364 Rene Clair, "Rhythm" (1925), 368 'Rene Clair, "Pure Cinema and Commercial Cinema" (1925), 370 Henri Chomette, "Second Stage" (1925), 371 Fernand Leger, "Painting and Cinema" (1925), 372 Henri Fescourt and Jean-Louis Bouquet, Idea and Screen: Opinions on the Cinema, vol. l (1925), 373 Henri Fescourt and Jean-Louis Bouquet, Idea and Screen: Opinions on the Cinema, vol. 3 (1926), 384 Pierre Porte, "Pure Cinema" (1926), 385 Germaine Dulac, "Aesthetics, Obstacles, Integral Cinegraphie" (1926), 389 Robert Desnos, "Fantomas, Les Vampires, Les Mysteres de New York" (1927), 398 Abel Gance, "My Napoleon" (1927), 400 Emile Vuillermoz,"Napo/eon" (1927), 401 Emile Vuillermoz, "Abel Gance and Napoleon" (1927), 403 Jean Prevost, "The Cinema: Metropolis" (1927), 408 Antonin Artaud, "Cinema and Reality" (1927), 410 Jean Epstein, "Art of Incidence" (1927), 412 Leon Moussinac, "Cinema: Social Expression" (1927), 414 Leon Moussinac, "Eisenstein" (1928), 417 Leon Moussinac, "The Question of the 'Avant-Garde' Film" (1928), 420 Jean Epstein, "Fragments of Sky" (1928), 421 Jean Epstein, "Approaches to Truth" (1928), 422 Leon Moussinac, "Technique and the Future" (1929), 425 Robert Desnos, "Avant-Garde Cinema" (1929), 429 Robert Aron, "Films of Revolt" (1929), 432 321 349 Index, 437 IX
Note on Notes NOTES to the preface and the critical essays introducing each of the four parts of this book appear immediately following the preface and each essay. Notes to the anthology selections immediately follow each selection. The anthology notes are mine unless otherwise indicated: those written by the author of the selection are marked Au; those by the translator, if other than myself, are marked TRANS.
Explanations, analyses, interpretations, are no more than frames or lenses to help the spectator focus his attention more sharply on the work. The only justification for criticism is that it allows us to see more clearly. John Berger, About Looking (1980) {History} has taken as its primary task, not the interpretation of the document, not the attempt to decide whether it is telling the truth or what is its expressive value, but to work on it from within and to develop it: history now organizes the document, divides it up, distributes it, orders it, arranges it in levels, establishes series, distinguishes between what is relevant and what is not, discovers elements, defines unities, describes relations. The document, then, is no longer for history an inert material through which it tries to reconstitute what men have done or said, the event of which only the trace remains; history is now trying to define within the documentary material itself unities, totalities, series, relations.... history is one way in which a society recognizes and develops a mass of documentation with which it is inextricably linked. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) As for me, I wanted to see the film as close up as possible. I had learned in the equalitarian discomfort of the neighborhood {cinemas} that this new art was mine, just as it was everyone else's. We had the same mental age: I was seven and knew how to read; it was twelve and did not know how to talk. People said that it was in its early stages, that it had progress to make; I thought that we would grow up together. I have not forgotten our common childhood: whenever I am offered a hard candy, whenever a woman varnishes her nails near me, whenever I inhale a certain smell of disinfectant in the toilet of a provincial hotel, whenever I see the violet bulb on the ceiling of a night train, my eyes, nostrils, and tongue recapture the lights and odors of those bygone halls; four years ago, in rough weather off the coast of Fingal's Cave, I heard a piano in the wind. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words (1964) Xl