Toute la mémoire du monde: In Memoriam, Alain Resnais (June 3, 1922 - March 1, 2014)

Screenshot from Les Statues meurent aussi (Alain Resnais/Chris Marker, 1953)

 "I never had any special appetite for filmmaking, but you have to make a living

and it is miraculous to earn a living working in film." - Alain Resnais

News has just come in of the death of Alain Resnais at the age of 91. The below tribute will evolve and expand over the next days and weeks. But Film Studies For Free has begun it with a sense of shock and huge sadness. David Hudson is also collecting tributes and links at Keyframe Daily.

• Michael Atkinson., 'Storytelling', Moving Image Source, 2009
• Jenny Chamarette, 'Les Statues meurent aussi',  Senses of Cinema, 52, 2009
• Crissa-Jean Chappel, 'Alain Resnais and Atom Egoyan', Cinetext, July 2003
• Angela Dalle Vacche, 'Interstices and Impurities in the Cinema: Art and Science', Alphaville, Issue 5, 2013
• Katharine Anne (Gabele) Douglass, 'Pika-Don and Motion Pictures: The Atomic in Cinema ', Montage,1, 2008
• Robert Farmer, 'Marker, Resnais, Varda: Remembering the Left Bank Group', Senses of Cinema, 52, 2009
  
• Sarah French, 'From History to Memory: Alain Resnais’ and Marguerite Duras’ Hiroshima mon amour', Melbourne Art Journal, Issue 3, 2008
• Matthias De Groof, 'Statues Also Die - But Their Death is not the Final Word ', Image and Narrative, 11.1, 2010
• David Hudson, 'Last Year at Marienbad at 50', Daily: MUBI, June 20, 2011
• Goh Wee Kiat, 'Regarding Resnais: Levinasian Responsibility in Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog', Academia.edu, date unknown
• Alex Ling, 'Parentheses in Time: L’Année Dernière à Marienbad (1961) as Amorous Event', Screening the Past, 43, 2012
• Alessandra Madella, The woman condition: love and technology in Hiroshima mon amour, PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2011
• Hannah Mowat, 'Nature versus architecture: navigating the threshold in Alain Resnais’s L’Année dernière à Marienbad, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Jessica Hausner’s Hotel', Frames, Issue 2, 2012 
• Jenny Munro, 'Toujours sous la neige: Snow, Stasis and Immobility in Alain Resnais' L'Amour mort and Coeurs', Scope, Issue 23, 212
• Lindsay Peters, 'Ashes of Time', Moving Image Source, 2011
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'The Unknown Statue', Moving Image Source, 2009
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Three Key Moments from Three Alain Resnais Films', JonathanRosenbaum.com, June 2007
• Donato Totaro, 'Hiroshima Mon Amour', Offscreen Journal, August 31, 2003
• Andrew Tracy, 'After the Revolution', Moving Image Source, 2008
• Deborah Walker, 'Resnais/Derrida: Reconstructing the Subject', Literature and Aesthetics, 10, 2000

On CINEMATIC DIRECT ADDRESS - Part One: Mapping the Field

CINEMATIC DIRECT ADDRESS Part One: Mapping the Field - Video by Catherine Grant

This entry has been superseded by the following, later FSFF entry so why don't you head over there straightaway?

On Friday March 1, 2013, Film Studies For Free's author had the very great pleasure of interviewing Tom Brown, Lecturer in Film Studies at Kings College, London, on the subject of direct address in the cinema, a topic he knows a huge amount about as author of the only book completely dedicated to it: Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012) [It's up already - you can find it here].  You can read the preface to Tom's book online here (PDF), check out another article he uploaded about it here, and visit his wonderfully illustrated Tumblr on the topic here.

The recorded interview will be presented in two parts here at FSFF: part one is above and part two -- "YOU LOOKING AT ME? On Buñuel's LOS OLVIDADOS" -- will follow soon in a separate entry accompanied, as is this blog's wont, by a full compendium of links to further online scholarly studies of this (of course not exclusively) cinematic phenomenon.

In the period of time between recording this interview and completing the editing of it for this blog, Leigh Singer's great video 'supercut' on breaking the fourth wall (see below) was published, to merited acclaim, at PressPlay. Singer's essay -- which uses examples from a number of the same films as FSFF's video, is a hugely witty, skillful, and highly thought-provoking accompaniment to it. If you know of any further videographic studies of cinematic direct address, or indeed any other good resources, please let FSFF know about them via the comments.

Thanks! Yes! You there!

Breaking the 4th Wall Movie Supercut by Leigh Singer

A compilation of scenes and moments from films that all "break the fourth wall" - that is, acknowledge (usually directly to the camera, and therefore the audience) that they're part of a movie. The term comes from the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.

The montage includes 54 different films (some used more than once) from perhaps the very first example of breaking the fourth wall right up to today. There were so many other great examples I couldn't find room for (sadly, The Dude and The Big Lebowski's narrator don't abide here), I'd love to hear which 4th wall breakers you'd also include. Email me on leigh@singer-leisinger.com, or @Leigh_Singer on Twitter. Look forward to hearing your comments!

In Immemory of Chris Marker (1921-2012)

La jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)

An original visual essay exploring the soundscape of Chris Marker's 1962 landmark LA JETÉE.

 

Un monde plus vide et plus triste: Chris Marker n'y est plus.

Jean-Michel Frodon, July 30, 2012

Five years to the day since the deaths of two other legendary filmmakers Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman, and on the day after his 91st birthday, the death of Chris Marker has been announced.

Film Studies For Free is collecting links to Markerian scholarly and related work online in his immemory. So please come back for frequent updates in the hours and days ahead.

Meanwhile, David Hudson is assembling one of his magnificent tributes at the Keyframe Daily website. And the essential archive Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory -- devoted to Chris Marker's work on the web -- will undoubtedly respond to this sad event, too.

• Acquarello on Marker at Strictly Film School

• Ronald Bergan, 'Obituary: Chris Marker', The Guardian, July 30, 2012

• David Brancaleone, 'The Interventions of Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker into Contemporary Visual Art', Vertigo, 30, 2012

• Lesley Chow, 'The Envelope of Time: Wrapping Up the Past in Chris Marker, Alexander Sokurov, and José Luis Guerín', Bright Lights Film Journal, 73, 2011

• Jaime N. Christley, 'Chris Marker', Senses of Cinema, 21, 2002

• Chris Darke, 'Once More, into the Zone... Chris Marker Looks Back, in Wonder', Vertigo, 3.6, 2007

• Allan Francovich, 'Vertigo Presents: The Mind's Eye: Chris Marker Level Five', Vertigo, 1.7, 1997

• Janet Harbord, 'The Skein of the Archive: Denise Bellon and Remembrance of Things to Come', Afterall, March 23, 2010

• IMAGE [and] NARRATIVE special dossier on Marker (Vol. 11, No. 4, 2010): 'Introduction', Peter Kravanja Abstract PDF; 'The Imaginary in the Documentary Image: Chris Marker's Level Five', Christa Blümlinger Abstract PDF; 'Montage, Militancy, Metaphysics: Chris Marker and André Bazin', Sarah Cooper Abstract PDF; 'Statues Also Die - But Their Death is not the Final Word', Matthias De Groof Abstract PDF;  Autour de 1968, en France et ailleurs : Le Fond de l'air était rouge', Sylvain Dreyer Abstract PDF; '“If they don’t see happiness in the picture at least they’ll see the black”: Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil and the Lyotardian Sublime', Sarah French Abstract PDF; 'Crossing Chris: Some Markerian Affinities', Adrian Martin Abstract PDF; 'Petit Cinéma of the World or the Mysteries of Chris Marker', Susana S. Martins Abstract PDF

• Sander Lee, 'Platonic Themes in Chris Marker's La Jetée', Senses of Cinema, Issue No. 4, March 2000

• Catherine Lupton, 'Chris Marker: In Memory of New Technology', Chris Marker: Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory (date unknown)

• Catherine Lupton, 'Chris Marker: Memory’s Apostle', Criterion.com, June 25, 2007

• Zdenko Mandušić, 'Vision and Communism: The Films of Aleksandr Medvedkin and Chris Marker at “The Film Studies Center, Chicago' ((link via Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory)

• Charlie Mansfield, 'Identity and Narration in Chris Marker's La Jetée and the Appearance of the Internet as a Symptom of Cold-War Anxiety', in eds. Mireille Robiere and Jan Bataens, Time, Narrative and the Fixed Image (Amsterdam: Eds Rodopi, 2010)

• Oliver Mayer, 'Chris Marker and the Audiovisual Archive', Scope, 20, 2011

• Joana Pimenta, 'Travelling Through the Layers of Time: Review: Sarah Cooper (2008) Chris Marker', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2012

• Daniel Potter, 'Wounded Time', Chris Marker: Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory (date unknown)

• Trevor Stark, ‘"Cinema in the Hands of the People”: Chris Marker, the Medvedkine Group, and the Potential of Militant Film', October, 139, Winter 2012 (link via Notes from the Era of Imperfect Memory)

• David Sterritt, 'A Grin Without a Cat', Cineaste, 34,4, 2009 

• Catherine Summerhayes, 'A Play of Memory: Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil', SCAN, 4.2, 2007
  

• Roger Tailleur, 'Markeriana: A Scarcely Critical Description of the Work of Chris Marker', Rouge, 11, 2007

• Chuck Tryon, 'Letters from an Unknown Filmmaker: Chris Marker's Sans Soleil and the Politics of Memory', Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, 8, Spring 2004

• Dolores Walfisch, Vertigo Presents: Interview with Chris Marker', 1.7, 1997

• Thomas Waugh, 'Loin du Vietnam (1967), Joris Ivens and Left Bank documentary', Jump Cut, 52, 2011

Level 5, by Chris Marker (1997).

The Cine-Files on the French New Wave

A video essay by Catherine Grant

Today, Film Studies For Free is delighted to flag up wonderful work by the graduate students of the Cinema Studies master's program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. They recently published the second volume of their bi-annual online journal, the Cine-Files.  This issue's theme is the French New Wave.

FSFF particularly liked the really interesting take on this well-worn topic - the interviews with luminaries (including Dudley Andrew, Richard Neupert, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Sylvie Blum-Reid and Timothy Corrigan) were an especially nice touch. This blog also very much appreciated the three student filmmaker takes on the New Wave's influence, including Jae Matthews' compelling reflection on Chabrol's Les Bonnes femmes/Good Time Gals - not only because the latter afforded an always welcome opportunity to newly embed its old video essay on the very same (favourite) film (see above). Very well done, guys!

• “Cinephiles in The Cine-Files,”  a note from the Editor, Tracy Cox-Stanton
• “The Wave Surfs Me,” a note from the Student Editor, Scotty Barnhart
• Mary Wiles, author of Jacques Rivette (University of Illinois Press, 2012), discusses Rivette's place in the New Wave
• Elliot Thompson considers the sounds of Marx and Coca-Cola
• Ryan Babula profiles Henri Langlois, "the auteur of the cinémathèque"
   

The Legacy of the French New Wave … The Experts Answer the Cine-Files' Questions:

• Dudley Andrew 
• Morris Dickstein 
• Peter Hitchcock 
• Louis Menand 
• Richard Neupert
• Geoffrey Nowell-Smith 
• Jonathan Rosenbaum 
• Sylvie Blum-Reid 
• Timothy Corrigan

Featured Scholarship:

• Chad R. Newsom, “Cahiers du Cinéma and Evaluative Criticism”
• Ryan Babula, “The Politics of Pre-Political Godard: Alphaville, Made in USA”
• Yolande Thame, “‘The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World’:  A Production Designer Reflects on the War between the French New Wave and Scenic Design”

Student Filmmakers Reflect on the New Wave’s influence:

• Jae Matthews, “Good Time Gals”
• Ben Barbour, “Queering the French New Wave, Embracing the Cardinal Virtues”
• Britt Faulkner, “Meeting Agnès Varda:  A First-Person Fan Narrative”

On Godard and Philosophy

Trailer for Deux de la Vague/Two in the Wave, an in-depth analysis of the relationship between French New Wave pioneers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, as seen through rare archival footage, interviews, and film excerpts — written by former Cahiers du Cinéma editor Antoine de Baecque and directed by Emmanuel Laurent. Read more about this film here.

Thanks to the very wonderful Girish Shambu, Film Studies For Free was lucky enough to hear of a special issue of the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy on Jean-Luc Godard. The table of contents, with direct links to all items, is given below.

For more reading (and viewing) on Godard, do please check out FSFF's last post on this filmmaker in December 2010.

Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Vol 18, No 2 (2008-2010) 

Special issue on Godard and Philosophy, co-edited by Burlin Barr and John E. Drabinski 

Table of Contents

• 'Philosophy as a Kind of Cinema: Introducing Godard and Philosophy' by John E. Drabinski

• 'Schizoanalyzing Souls: Godard, Deleuze, and the Mystical Line of Flight' by David Sterritt
  

• 'Happiness is Not Fun: Godard, the 20th Century, and Badiou' by Michael Walsh

• 'The Audible Life of the Image' by David Wills

• 'Shot and Counter-shot: Presence, Obscurity, and the Breakdown of Discourse in Godard’s Notre Musique' by Burlin Barr

• 'Pedagogy of the Written Image' by Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield

• 'Modernism as a Misnomer: Godard's Archeology of the Image' by Gabriel Rockhill

• Notes on Contributors

25 great Godard gifts!

 Laura Forde’s brilliant videoed presentation of her thesis:

Objects to be Read, Words to be Seen: Design and Visual Language in the Films of Jean-Luc Godard 1959–1967
(link from Atelier Carvalho Bernau) Check out Laura Forde's great blog Thesis Anxiety. It has a lot more Godard material.

The films of Jean-Luc Godard have been written about perhaps more than any other cinematic works, often through the lens of cultural theory, but not nearly enough attention has been paid to the role of designed objects in his films. Collages of art, literature, language, objects, and words, Godard’s films have an instant, impactful, graphic quality, but are far from simple pop artifacts. The thesis this presentation derives from, “Objects to be Read, Words to be Seen: Design and Visual Language in the Films of Jean-Luc Godard 1959–1967,” explores and interprets the role of visual language within the films—title sequences, intertitles, handwritten utterances, and printed matter in the form of newspapers, magazines, and posters.

   By examining le graphisme within the cultural context of Paris during the 1960s, this thesis seeks to amplify the significance of graphic design in Godard’s first fifteen films, beginning with 1960’s À Bout de Souffle (Breathless) and ending with 1967’s Weekend. While Godard was not a practicing graphic designer in the traditional sense, he was an amateur de design, an autodidact whose obsession with designed objects, graphic language and print media resulted in the most iconic body of work in 1960s France. [Laura Forde]

Désolée mais...Film Studies For Free's author has had a bit of a busy week blogging elsewhere on urgent matters.

Had things been different, today's post might have appeared on the intended date of December 3: Jean-Luc Godard's 80th birthday. Oh well... FSFF is pretty hopeful that Godard himself would approve of revolting students and academics and of their creative responses to proposed devastating cuts! 

Most of the links below were tweeted on the happy day itself by @filmstudiesff (FSFF's nifty, nippier, microblogging twin).

Don't miss a much publicised on the day "Godard Birthday gift to everyone" from Atelier Carvalho Bernau,  a wonderful Jean-Luc typeface. Don't forget FSFF's recent study of Godard's 1980 film Sauve qui peut (la Vie). Et, pour les francophones: Rencontre publique avec Jean-Luc Godard. 

A belated Happy Birthday, Jean-Luc!

Godard Theses Online:

• Gary Elshawe, 'The Depiction of late 1960's Counter Culture in the 1968',  MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2004

• André Habib, 'Origine et fin : Méthode(s). À partir et autour des Histoire(s) du cinéma de Jean-Luc Godard', Masters thesis, Concordia University, 2001(in French)

• Douglas Morrey, Jean-Luc Godard and the other history of cinema, PhD Thesis,  University of Warwick, 2002

• Thibaut Schilt, 'Marginal Pleasure and Auteurist Cinema: the Sexual Politics of Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Catherine Breillat and François Ozon', PhD e-thesis, Ohio State University 2005

 Other freely accessible, good quality resources:

• Idit Alphandary, 'Radical Hope or the Moral Imperative of Images in the Work of Susan Sontag and Jean-Luc Godard', Culture Unbound, Volume 1, 2009: 487–501

• Scott Durham, 'On the Authenticity of Jargon: From Barthes and Adorno to Godard', World Picture 1.1, 2008

• Judith Halasz, 'Gender Politics and the Critical Gaze: Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin-Feminin', PhD Thesis excerpt, The Graduate Center City University of New York, 2004

• Andrea Hyde, 'Godard's Intertitles', Walker Art Centre Blog, November 10, 2009

• Laleen Jayamanne, '"Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma OR “Memory of the world”, Screening the Past, Issue 23, 2008

• Olivia Keung, 'The cinematic rendering of unconscious space: Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville and Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva', Faculty Project, University of Waterloo, 2004

• Roland-François Lack, The point in time: precise chronology in early Godard',  First published in Studies in French Cinema 3:2 (2003), 101-109

• Roland-François Lack, 'Good work, little soldier: text and pretext', (on Godard’s Le Petit soldat and Denis’s Beau travail), first published in Journal of European Studies 34:1-2 (2004)

• Roland-François Lack, 'A Bout de souffle: The Film of the Book", first published in Literature Film Quarterly 32:3 (2004)

• Roland-François Lack,‘Sa voix’ (on Godard’s voice), originally published in M. Temple, J. Williams, M. Witt (eds), For Ever Godard ( London: Black Dog, 2004)

• Roland-François Lack,‘Vivre sa vie: an Introduction and A to Z’, Senses of Cinema 48 (2008)

• Tony McKibbin, 'THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT: High Mimetics in Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma', Experimental Conversations, Issue 3, Spring 2009

• Richard Raskin, 'Five explanations for the jump cuts in Godard's Breathless', in 'The Art of Film Editing', Special Issue of P.O.V: A Danish Journal of Film Studies, edited by Richard Raskin, Number 6 December 1998

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Trailer for Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma', JonathanRosenbaum.com, May 21, 2009

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'LE VRAI COUPABLE: Two Kinds of Criticism in Godard’s Work', JonathanRosenbaum.com, May 14, 2009

• Daniel Yacavone, 'Jean-Luc Godard and Roy Lichtenstein: Originality, Reflexivity, and the Re-Presented Image', Forum, Issue 1, Autumn 2005

Le Génie de la liberté: In Memory of Claude Chabrol

Video Essay by Catherine Grant on Les Bonnes femmes (Claude Chabrol, 1960)

Video essay by Kevin B Lee (Shooting Down Pictures) featuring Dan Sallitt (Thanks for the Use of the Hall) on Le boucher (1970) and La Femme infidèle (1969) by Claude Chabrol.

Film Studies For Free was very sad to hear this morning of the death at the age of 80 of French film-maker Claude Chabrol, one of the true giants of world cinema.

David Hudson is gathering links to online tributes to the filmmaker. Below, FSFF has assembled an (updated/expanded) list of links to online and freely accessible studies of Chabrol's magnificent cinematic legacy.

• Acquarello, 'CLAUDE CHABROL: Le Boucher, The Story of Women, La Ceremonie, The Flower of Evil, The Bridesmaid, Bellamy', Strictly Film School, 2002
• Richard Armstrong, 'Claude Chabrol,' (Great Directors: A Critical Database) Senses of Cinema, September 2002
• David Cairns, 'Go Ask Alice', Shadowplay, August 8, 2008
• Claudette Charbonneau and Lucy Winer, 'Violette: Skilled, delicate, pernicious', from Jump Cut, no. 21, Nov. 1979, pp. 6-7
• John Conomos, 'Les Cousins', Senses of Cinema, Issue 37, 2005
• Charles Derry, 'Claude Chabrol: A career overview', The Claude Chabrol Project
• dkaz, 'image series: Les Biches (Chabrol, France, 1968)', D+Kaz, Jan 29, 2007
• Mary Donaldson-Evans, 'A Medium of Exchange: The Madame Bovary film', Dix-Neuf, No. 4, April 2005
• Christine Evans, 'I Fought the Law and the Law Won: Transgression, the Act, and Narratives of Aphanisis in Claude Chabrol’s Story of Women', Refractory, July 4, 2006
• Catherine Grant, 'Unsentimental Education: On Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes femmes - a video essay', Film Studies For Free, June 30, 2009
• Stefan Gullatz, 'Exquisite Ex-timacy: Jacques Lacan vis-à-vis Contemporary Horror', Offscreen Journal, March 31, 2001
• Dan Harper, 'Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge', Senses of Cinema, March 2001
• David Hudson, 'Chabrol @ 80', The Daily Notebook, June 24, 2010 
• Richard Jameson, 'Claude Chabrol – The Classicist', Parallax View, June 24, 2009
• Robert Kolker, The Altering Eye - Contemporary International Cinema (OUP, 1983) in: eLib, Hg. v. eLibrary Projekt, in: elib.at ( 16. Juni 2009 ) - numerous mentions of Chabrol - use 'find' in 'Edit'
• Julien Lapointe, 'La Cérémonie,' Senses of Cinema 13, 2001 Apr-May
• Kevin B Lee, 'Claude Chabrol: an online dossier', Shooting Down Pictures, March 27, 2008
• Peter Lev, 'Paul Gégauff', FilmReference.com, 2008
• Michel Marie and Richard Neupert, 'Chapter One: A Journalistic Slogan and a New Generation ', The French New Wave: An Artistic School (Oxford: Blackwell/Wiley-Interscience, 2008)
• Tony McKibbin, 'Slow Burn Suspense: The Films of Claude Chabrol', Images, Issue 9, December 2000
• Vladislav Mijic, 'Les Biches,' Senses of Cinema 13, 2001 Apr-May
• Gary Morris, 'Chabrol, Losey, Antonioni: Three Classic Eurofilms: Les Bonnes Femmes, Eva, Il Grido', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 31, 2010 
• Katja Nicodemus, 'Arming Isabelle', SignandSight, August 7, 2006
• Marie-Claire Ropars, 'A Cinematic Language', Rouge 11, 2007
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'French Provincial [POULET AU VINAIGRE]', JonathanRosenbaum.com, originally published in Chicago Reader, May 29, 1989
• Dan Sallitt/Kevin B Lee, 'Two Films By Claude Chabrol (Le boucher (1970) and La femme infidele (1969)) - 3 video essays', Shooting Down Pictures, March 27, 2008
• Andrew Slade, 'Chabrol for Beginners (and Other Interested Parties)', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 3, January 2001
• David Sterritt, 'Hitchcock, Hume, and the Matrix of Modern Cinema', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2007
• Quentin Turnour, 'Que la bête meure', Senses of Cinema, March 2001
• Tony Williams, 'Relations Between the Sexes in the Cinema of the Nouvelle Vague', WELL Project, February 28, 2002
• Ray Young, 'Stéphane Audran', Cinema and the Female Star - A Symposium Part 1, Senses of Cinema, 2002
• Ray Young,  Claude Chabrol Project 
• Ray Young, 'Ten Days’ Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blogathon', June 21-30, 2009

The eloquence of cinematic space: Eric Rohmer 1920-2010

Image from La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer, 1967)

"What Rohmer does, in essence, is precisely to give space to this elusive life of the heart, expanding the arena for those subtle and important personal choices which most of the time, for most of us, are squeezed below the surface made up of work and more conscious or pressing demands", Judith Williamson [Deadline at Dawn: Film Criticism 1980-1990, Marion Boyars, London, 1993, p. 180]

“After all I do not say, I show. I show people who move and speak. That is all I know how to do, but that is my true subject.” Eric Rohmer ["Letter to a Critic Concerning my Contes moraux"]

"Rohmer remained true to a restrained, rationalist aesthetic, close to the principles of the 18th-century thinkers whose words he frequently cited in his movies. And yet [his] work was warmed by an undercurrent of romanticism and erotic yearning, made perhaps all the more affecting for never quite breaking through the surface of his elegant, orderly films" 

Dave Kehr [The New York Times, January 11, 2010]

A shocked Film Studies For Free mourns the passing of Eric Rohmer, one of the key directors of the French New Wave and one of the most eloquent founders, audiovisually and verbally, of the discourse of modern cinema.

David Hudson of The Auteurs is busily gathering links to a fantastic range of eulogies to, and other worthwhile material about, this filmmaker. Below, FSFF offers up its own (customary) tribute in the form of a list of links to online, freely accessible, and notable scholarly resources which explore Rohmer's magnificent body of cinematic work:

• Michael J. Anderson, ' Face & Form in Rohmer: From Ma nuit chez Maud’s Talking Cinema to the Denial of Eloquence in Le Rayon vert', Tativille, August 9, 2009 

• Jay Antani, 'Chloe in the Afternoon', CinemaWriter.com, November 9, 2009

• Thomas Elsaesser, 'The Cinema of Irony', Monogram 5, 1973, 1-2
  

• Aurélien Ferenzi, 'Interview with Eric Rohmer, with a Rohmer filmography', Senses of Cinema, Issue 16, 2001

• Aaron Goldberg, 'The 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005 

• Dennis Grunes, '[On Eric Rohner's] A Tale of Winter (1992)', Dennis Grunes, January 11, 2010 (also see Grunes/Rohmer)

• Rahul Hamid, 'My Night at Maud's', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005

• Dan Harper, 'A Tale of Springtime', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005
  

• Daniel Hayes, 'Claire's Knee', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005

• Molly Haskell, 'Claire’s Knee: Rohmer’s Women', Criterion Collection, 2006  
  

• Alexander C. Ives, 'The Grace of Suffering: Rohmer's Full Moon in Paris', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005
  

• Kevin B. Lee, 'Le signe du lion / The Sign of Leo (1959, Eric Rohmer)', Shooting Down Pictures, November 11, 2009
  

• Jacob Leigh, ‘The Caprices of Rosine or the Follies of a Fortnight: Parallel Intrigues in Eric Rohmer’s Conte d’automne’, Undercurrent Issue 2, July 2006

• Philip Lopate, 'La Collectionneuse: Marking Time', Criterion Collection, 2006 
  

• Bill Mousoulis, (comp.), "Rohmer Talk." Senses of Cinema, Issue 5, 2000

• Bill Mousoulis, 'Interview with Mary Stephen Rohmer's editor, Senses of Cinema, Issue 5, 2000

• Manuel Ramos Martínez, 'Betrayed Borders: Double Agents and the Crisscrossing of Conflicts', Sarai Reader 2007: Frontiers
  

• Steven Rybin, 'Place de l'Etoile', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005

• Damion Searls, 'On Eric Rohmer: 1920-2010', n+1, January22, 2010
  

• Tamara Tracz, 'Eric Rohmer', Senses of Cinema, 2003  

• Tamara Tracz, 'Triple Agent: Portrait of the Unknowable Other, Reflection of the Unknowable Self', Senses of Cinema, Issue 34, 2005
  

• Fiona A. Villella , 'Magic Realism in Autumn Tale', Senses of Cinema, Issue 5, 2000

• Ginette Vincendeau, 'Eric Rohmer: Blueprints for a Brilliant Oeuvre',   Criterion Collection Essays, 2008
  

• Leah Vonderheide, Literariness in the Films of Eric Rohmer, MA Thesis, University of Canterbury, 2008

• YouTube videos (part 1 and part 2): excerpts of Claire Denis's film of Serge Daney interviewing Jacques Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer (from 3 mins 30 secs). A must watch for those who haven't yet seen Denis's Jacque Rivette, The Watchman.

Online theses on the work of Jean-Luc Godard

Image from Vivre sa vie/My Life to Live (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)

Film Studies For Free was delighted to discover that Douglas Morrey's wonderful PhD thesis on the work of Jean-Luc Godard was now openly accessible online. Then, ecstatic, it found two more, highly worthwhile pieces of graduate research work on that filmmaker. The direct links are given below for your own delectation, delight, and film-educational betterment....

• Gary Elshaw, 'The Depiction of late 1960's Counter Culture in the 1968 Films of Jean-Luc Godard', MA e-thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, November 2000
• Douglas Morrey, Jean-Luc Godard and the other history of cinema. PhD e-thesis, University of Warwick, 2002
• Thibaut Schilt, 'Marginal Pleasure and Auteurist Cinema: the Sexual Politics of Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Catherine Breillat and François Ozon', PhD e-thesis, Ohio State University 2005
  

Agnès Varda Podcast and Links

Film Studies For Free is working on a longer post on video essays, but it had to rush to its readers, in the meantime, with the hot news of a great podcast interview with French director and film essayist Agnès Varda by a longstanding admirer and acquaintance of hers, radio journalist Ruth Seymour for the Politics of Culture slot at KCRW. Their principal topic of conversation was Varda's latest documentary Les Plages d'Agnès/ The Beaches of Agnès (France, 2009). The interview has been online since yesterday and FSFF sends its thanks for the rapid tip-off to Sasha Berman.

The podcast can be accessed at the KCRW website by clicking HERE. For those interested the English-language press kit (pdf) for The Beaches of Agnès can be accessed HERE. See also Nick Dawson's great recent interview with Varda for Filmmaker Magazine HERE.

Below is an FSFF selection of links to highly worthwhile and freely-accessible online material pertaining to this great filmmaker.

Video essay by Varda (in French):

Réponse de femmes, Notre corps, notre sexe - un documentaire d'Agnès Varda (1977) 7 mins 48 secs

'In 1975, it was the Year of the Woman. [French TV channel] Antenne 2 asked seven female filmmakers the question : “How does it feel to be a woman?”. They had to answer with a seven-minute movie. Agnès Varda chose to answer with the cine-leaflet “Réponses de femmes”. It is a possible answer concerning women’s bodies and the feminine condition. In this short movie, women, from female children to old women, chat about sex, desire, advertising and children (to have some or not) : “our object-body, our taboo-body, our body with or without children, our sex, etc...”. How can we experience our body? How can we experience our sex? On a white set, women, dressed or naked, try to answer the question “What is a woman?”. One answers: “To be a woman is to be born in a female body”. Nothing more, no idea of feminine essence, or predisposition to motherhood, ideas against which the feminist movement was struggling. A pregnant and naked woman, dancing and laughing loud, made a lot of viewers react : Antenne 2 got a lot of written reproaches. This cine-leaflet was aired on Antenne 2 the 23rd of June 1975. It was also nominated to Cesars 76, category documentary short-movie.' By Feminism in Cinema weblog.

See IMDB entry on this film HERE.

Video interviews and talks:

• 'Moving Images: Agnès Varda' two hour long webcast at the Tate Modern, London, April 25, 2002
• Agnès Varda , 'On Cléo from 5 to 7', at the European Graduate School (3 minute long RealPlayer video)
• Agnès Varda, 'On the Gleaners and I', at the European Graduate School in 2004 (6 short videos)
  

Scholarly articles in English:

• Yvette Bíró, 'Agnès Varda’s Open Harbour', Rouge, 9, September 2006
• Virginia Bonner, 'Beautiful Trash: Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse', Senses of Cinema, Issue 45, October–December 2007
• Helen Carter, 'Agnes Varda,' (Great Directors: A Critical Database) Senses of Cinema, 23, Nov-Dec 2002
• Carloss James Chamberlin, 'Drought de Seigneur [on Le Bonheur], Senses of Cinema, March 2004
• Andrew Chan, 'The Criterion Collection #74: Vagabond', The House Next Door Online, January 21, 2008
• Chris Darke, 'Vagabond: Freedom and Dirt', Criterion.com, 2008
  
• Mike Hakata, 'Agnès Varda, Questions at Twenty-Four Frames a Second [review of Alison Smith, Agnès Varda (Manchester University Press, 1998)]', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 3, 1999
• Peter Kemp, 'Jacquot de Nantes', Senses of Cinema, April 2004
• Adrian Martin, 'Cléo from 5 to 7: Passionate Time', Criterion.com, 2008
• Jim Morrissey, 'Paris and voyages of self-discovery in Cléo de 5 à 7 and Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain', Studies in French Cinema, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 2008
  
• Amy Taubin, 'Le Bonheur: Splendor in the Grass', Criterion.com, 2008
  
• Ginette Vincendeau, 'La Pointe Courte: How Agnès Varda "invented" the New Wave', Criterion.com, 2008
  
• Holly Willis, 'Vagabond', Senses of Cinema, March 2004
• Jake Wilson, 'Trash And Treasure: The Gleaners And I', Senses of Cinema, 23, Nov-Dec 2002
  

Scholarly article in French:

• Brigitte Rollet, 'Femmes cinéastes en France : l'après-mai 68,' Clio, numéro 10-1999
  

Scholarly article in Spanish:

• Miguel Angel Lomillos, 'Reconstruyendo la identidad. Agnès Varda se pasea con su cámara digital', Trama y fondo, Nº. 19, 2005 , pags. 77-88

Video Essay 1: On Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes femmes

Mystery Man in Les Bonnes femmes (1960)

It's a really B I G D A Y here at Film Studies For Free. But do, please, be gentle...

This posting brings you the first ever little video essay about a film studies topic (in this case, a single film) produced by this blog's author: Unsentimental Education: On Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes femmes.

The exercise probably only shows that there's a mighty long way to go with this format for this author before anything near full proficiency in it can be claimed (for example, the voiceover commentary would have sounded a lot better had the person delivering it not been quite so nervous/terrified during the recording). But it's a good enough beginning for what FSFF sincerely hopes will go on to be a regular, if occasional, feature.

The essay has been produced, as previously promised, to coincide with, and thus to contribute to, the final day of the wonderful Chabrol blogathon hosted by Flickhead's blog (see HERE for a list of all the fantastic contributions, so far, to the event).

Some supplementary material about this strange, beguiling film Les Bonnes femmes/The Good Time Girls (France/Italy, 1960, directed by Chabrol), together with a link to a full transcript of the video essay's commentary and some pedagogical and critical reflections on the process of making it, wlll be added to this post as soon as possible. So, do please come back for that. (Updated July 8, 2009: transcript accessible HERE).

But, time was of the essence to join in with the blogathon. So all else can wait. Here below, then, is the essay, archived at FSFF's new supplementary site, for related videos, at Vimeo. It contains a few significant plot spoilers (as few as possible...). Also, please note that, for the purposes of its critical-scholarly analysis and commentary, the essay transforms many of the original elements of the film that it 'quotes', employing newly created still images (and new sounds), slowed motion, and quite heavy (at times) re-editing (including reordering) of image and sound/music.

In other words, you must see the original film, if you haven't done so already. Les Bonnes femmes is currently available on DVD thanks to Kino Video (Region 1 only). It can be ordered from that company's website HERE, or from Amazon.com HERE

Going the distance with Claude Chabrol

Film Studies For Free is rather partial to a good film blogathon and there's potentially a very good one coming up that FSFF readers absolutely must check out. In honour of Claude Chabrol's 79th birthday this June 24, Flickhead aka Ray Young is hosting Ten Days’ Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blogathon from Sunday, June 21 through Tuesday, June 30.

To paraphrase the kind of clichéd British crime drama dialogue in which the classy Chabrol himself would never indulge, Young has 'plenty of previous' when it comes to the films of this near octogenarian: he is the author of the Claude Chabrol Project website which, among other great resources, hosts detailed interviews with and articles about Chabrol.

The Flickhead blogathon is sure to link to further comprehensive web resources on Chabrol, so below, just to flag up the e-event, is Film Studies For Free's little list of links to online scholarly highlights pertaining to this as yet most under-studied great director.

Film Studies For Free's author is aiming to join in with the Chabrol fest next week, so... à bientôt (s'il vous plaît...). [The link to FSFF's video essay - 'Unsentimental Education: On Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes femmes' is HERE.]

• Acquarello, 'CLAUDE CHABROL: Le Boucher, The Story of Women, La Ceremonie, The Flower of Evil, The Bridesmaid, Bellamy', Strictly Film School, 2002
• Richard Armstrong, 'Claude Chabrol,' (Great Directors: A Critical Database) Senses of Cinema, September 2002
• David Cairns, 'Go Ask Alice', Shadowplay, August 8, 2008
  
• Claudette Charbonneau and Lucy Winer, 'Violette: Skilled, delicate, pernicious', from Jump Cut, no. 21, Nov. 1979, pp. 6-7
• Charles Derry, 'Claude Chabrol: A career overview', The Claude Chabrol Project
• dkaz, 'image series: Les Biches (Chabrol, France, 1968)', D+Kaz, Jan 29, 2007
• Mary Donaldson-Evans, 'A Medium of Exchange: The Madame Bovary film', Dix-Neuf, No. 4, April 2005
• Catherine Grant, 'Unsentimental Education: On Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes femmes - a video essay', Film Studies For Free, June 30, 2009
  
• Stefan Gullatz, 'Exquisite Ex-timacy: Jacques Lacan vis-à-vis Contemporary Horror', Offscreen Journal, March 31, 2001
• Dan Harper, 'Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge', Senses of Cinema, March 2001
• Robert Kolker, The Altering Eye - Contemporary International Cinema (OUP, 1983) in: eLib, Hg. v. eLibrary Projekt, in: elib.at ( 16. Juni 2009 ) - numerous mentions of Chabrol - use 'find' in 'Edit'
• Julien Lapointe, 'La Cérémonie,' Senses of Cinema 13, 2001 Apr-May
• Kevin B Lee, 'Claude Chabrol: an online dossier', Shooting Down Pictures, March 27, 2008
• Peter Lev, 'Paul Gégauff', FilmReference.com, 2008
  
• Tony McKibbin, 'Slow Burn Suspense: The Films of Claude Chabrol', Images, Issue 9, December 2000
• Vladislav Mijic, 'Les Biches,' Senses of Cinema 13, 2001 Apr-May
• Marie-Claire Ropars, 'A Cinematic Language', Rouge 11, 2007
• Dan Sallitt/Kevin B Lee, 'Two Films By Claude Chabrol (Le boucher (1970) and La femme infidele (1969)) - 3 video essays', Shooting Down Pictures, March 27, 2008
• Andrew Slade, 'Chabrol for Beginners (and Other Interested Parties)', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 3, January 2001
• David Sterritt, 'Hitchcock, Hume, and the Matrix of Modern Cinema', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2007
• Quentin Turnour, 'Que la bête meure', Senses of Cinema, March 2001
• Tony Williams, 'Relations Between the Sexes in the Cinema of the Nouvelle Vague', WELL Project, February 28, 2002
• Ray Young, 'Stéphane Audran', Cinema and the Female Star - A Symposium Part 1, Senses of Cinema, 2002

Coup de foudre: François Truffaut links

Antoine et Colette (François Truffaut, 1962) also see here and here

Film Studies For Free's human avatar watched François Truffaut's Antoine et Colette (1962) at the weekend and it was love at first sight, that is to say, cinephilic déjà vu, like the first experience of watching Les Mistons (1957), or even Les Quatre cent coups (1959), all over again...

Enough impenetrable solipsism, already: let's get back to FSFF's regular stock in trade.

Below are links to some great, scholarly Truffaut resources - mostly essays, freely available to all online. Merci de clicquer!

Please do be sure, also, to check out the magnificent events and screenings which form part of 'The Nouvelle Vague - 50 Years on', organised by University of London Screen Studies Group and the AHRC-supported French Cinema in Britain Research Project at the University of Southampton, to be held at the Institut français/Ciné Lumière in London later this week (conference programme HERE).

• Acquarello, 'Death in France: Liebestod and The Green Room', Senses of Cinema, June 2000
• Dudley Andrew, 'Jules and Jim', International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Vol. 1: Films, 3rd ed. (Detroit: St. James Press, 1997)
• Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr, 'The Bride Wore Black (François Truffaut, 1967)', Destructible Man, November 20, 2007
• John Conomos, 'Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, or the Sea, Antoine, the Sea', Senses of Cinema, June 2000
• Jonathan Dawson, 'Mississippi Mermaid', Senses of Cinema, 2008
• Georges Delerue on his musical scores for Truffaut's films
• Georges Delerue on his friendship with Truffaut
• Bruce Eder, 'Two English Girls', Criterion Collections Film Essays
• Danny Fairfax, 'Illusion 24 frames per second: François Truffaut's La Nuit Américaine', Senses of Cinema, 2005
• Daria Galateria, 'Jules and Jim: An Amorous Cyclone', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 23, December 1998 (trans. AK Bierman; originally published in La Repubblica, 9 July 1997)
• Juan Carlos González A., 'François Truffaut- Profile', Senses of Cinema, January 2003 (trans. Tristan Vasquez; originally published in Spanish in the Revista Universidad de Antioquia No. 269 (Medellín, Colombia, July–September 2002)
• Rhys Graham, 'Because of Tenderness: Thoughts on the Performance of Jean-Pierre Léaud', Senses of Cinema, 2000
• Dan Harper, 'La Peau douce, Senses of Cinema, March 2004
• Richard Harrison, 'The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, Dir: Francois Truffaut, France, 1959, 1962, 1968, 1970 and 1979', Scope, November 2004
• John Hess, 'La Politique des Auteurs', Jump Cut, no. 1, May-June 1974
• John Hess, 'La Politique des Auteurs Part 2', Jump Cut, no. 2, July-August 1974
• The Alfred Hitchcock/François Truffaut Interview tapes, numbered 1-25, at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats (gathered and posted by Tom Sutpen)
• Diane Holmes and Robert Ingram, François Truffaut, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998) limited preview via Google Books
• Annette Insdorf, 'The 400 Blows', Criterion Collection Film Essays
• Kent Jones, 'Antoine and Colette', Criterion Collections Film Essays
• Maximilian Le Cain, 'Love in Flight: Francois Truffaut's La Peau Douce', Senses of Cinema, June 2004
• Kevin B Lee, 'Les deux anglaises et le continent / Two English Girls (1971, Francois Truffaut)', Shooting Down Pictures, 24 Jun 2008
• David Melville, 'Duet for Three: Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent', Senses of Cinema, 2008
• Richard Raskin, 'A Note on Closure in Truffaut's Les 400 Coups', P.O.V, Number 2, November 1996
• Mike Robins, 'Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses, Senses of Cinema, March 2004
• Marjorie Rosen, 'Truffaut’s trifle in Day for Night', Jump Cut, no. 1, 1974, p. 13
• Charles Thomas Samuels, 'François Truffaut (Interview)', originally published as "Encountering Directors", Paris, September 1 and 3, 1970, Euroscreenwriters added March 10
• Charles Taylor, 'Tout Truffaut', Salon.com, April 2004
• François Truffaut, 'A Certain Tendency of French Cinema', originally published in
  Cahiers du Cinéma, no. 1, January 1954
• Bob Wake, 'Review of Truffaut by Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana [1999]', Cambridge Book Review, Issue #4, Winter 1999-2000
• David Walsh, 'The films of François Truffaut', World Socialist Web Site, 25 October 1999
• Fredrik von Zweigbergk, 'Fifteen Years Gone By: A Review of François Truffaut by Diane Holmes and Robert Ingram', Film-Philosophy, vol. 4 no. 2, January 2000

Also see:

• 'François Truffaut: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library'
• The Official François Truffaut website
• François Truffaut videos at YouTube
• Catherine Grant, 'Film directing in La Nuit américaine/Day for Night: agency within constraints', Directing Cinema, 10 September 2008