Postcards from the Cinema [Paperback]

Serge Daney (Author), Paul Grant (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1845206517 | ISBN-13: 978-1845206512 | Publication Date: March 20, 2007 | Edition: Tra

Postcards from the Cinema is the book Serge Daney, one of the greatest of film critics, never wrote. It is based around an interview that was to be the starting point for a book, a project cut short by Daney's death. Postcards turns a history of cinema into a profound meditation on the art and politics of film. Daney's passionate and lucid engagement with film, combined with his concern for journalistic clarity, effectively created film criticism as a genre. Equally at home with the theories of Deleuze, Lacan and Debord as he was with the movie-making of Bunuel, Godard and Ray, Daney was also a fan of Jerry Lewis and Hitchcock. At the same time - and before his time - he championed the critical analysis of television and other audio-visual media. Long-awaited, this is the first book-length translation of Daney's work, testimony to a life lived with a fierce love of film.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This long overdue introduction in English to the greatest French film critic since AndrÈ Bazin helps to show what keeps Daney's work vital, eye-opening, and even timely."--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Critic, Chicago Reader
"Perched well above cinema studies, Serge Daney wrote and spoke of films in thrilling sentences, unrivalled in insight, moral fervor and sheer genius. Easily the best critic of his day."--Dudley Andrew, Yale University
"Serge Daney was the end of criticism as I understood it."--Jean Luc Godard

"Only Serge Daney could serve as the guide through this labyrinth of images."

--Wim Wenders

"Serge Daney knew something about cinema that no one else knew."--Olivier Assayas

"Our most scrupulous and inspired film critic."--Raymond Bellour

"Cinema is the only thing at our disposal with which we can recognize ourselves in today's images. As an instrument it's inevitably inadequate, but it's the only one."

--Serge Daney

About the Author

Serge Daney was a writer, and eventually editor-in-chief, for the highly influential film journal Cahiers du Cinéma. He went on to write for the newspaper Libération, and founded the film journal Trafic. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Berg Publishers; Tra edition (March 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845206517
• ISBN-13: 978-1845206512
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #600,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential, December 18, 2007

By 

Jonathan E. Haynes "jehaynes" (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Postcards from the Cinema (Paperback)

"Postcards from the Cinema" begins with a long prose piece entitled "The Tracking Shot in Kapo." This was intended to be the opening chapter of a book that Daney died before completing. Imagining what that book might have been like is awe-inspiring. "The Tracking Shot" is both a confession of a life lived "cinematically" and a defense of mise-en-scene oriented criticism; it is a tribute to an ethics of movie-watching Daney must have believed was dying along with him. And it is shattering, a total vindication of Daney's guru-like status among cinephiles. I will see films differently having read it. The rest of "Postcards" consists of interviews conducted by Serge Toubiana, his erst-while co-editor at Cahiers du cinema. Daney is remarkably candid and interesting in this format as well (only one of the interviews was reviewed by Daney himself; the others, I assume, are transcriptions). While there are many moments when Daney's speech, like Godard's, becomes rather impressionistic, there is nothing obscurantist about him. He is simply trying to talk about things that are nearly impossible to talk about, and he vigilantly prunes his discourse of banalities (I especially appreciated his nuanced account of Cahiers' militant period). Many have claimed that "Postcards" was an odd choice to be the first Daney translated into English. This may be true. It IS a bit bizarre to encounter Daney at the end of his life, talking about a more or less complete body of work, with which most American readers will have little or no experience. And yet, "The Tracking Shot" alone justifies this publication and makes "Postcards" the film book of the year. (N.B. I do think the publisher is asking too much - the book itself is a rather shoddy production, rather like the Lacan seminars, and does not even include an index...nevertheless you will not regret owning it, simply because its contents are so dazzling)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best cinema critic ever, August 10, 2009

By 

Christophe Petit "oscar" (france) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Postcards from the Cinema (Paperback)

Serge Daney is the best thinker on cinema i've ever read. He really deserves a large audience. Moreiover, there is no abstract obscurantisms is his vivid prose as it can be the case with some critics. He goes staight to the point with different perspectives with quick and deep insights and no laborious theoretical system. However, his knowledge and his capacity for abstration is impressive. There are also some writting between him and the philosopher gilles deleuze that i recommend.