What Is Cinema? Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Andre Bazin (Author), Hugh Gray (Translator), Jean Renoir (Introduction), Dudley Andrew (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 13, 2004

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."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

André Bazin is a great film critic and essayist, arguably the best France ever produced. His impact on the international cinema was monumental and continues to be felt today. He popularized the auteur theory, the idea that directors were the authors of their films. He was one of the first to take American "B"" movie genres, such as Westerns and films noir, seriously. He waxed eloquently on the Italian neorealist movement of the late '40s and '50s and inspired the "New Wave" of French directors, many of whom wrote for the journal he founded and edited, the legendary Cahiers du Cinema. François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to him.

Bazin had a keen eye for cinematic detail and technique, but was also one of the cinema's great sociologists, psychologists, and historians. Volume two of What Is Cinema? collects some of his most characteristic writings. It contains essays on the aesthetic of neorealism; individual neorealist films by Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Federico Fellini; the brilliance of Charlie Chaplin; and the mythmaking qualities of the Western. The volume ends with an appreciation of the great Jean Gabin and three essays on sex in the movies, including the delightful "Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl." Bazin's essays are short, smoothly written, revelatory, and filled with remarkable insights and a profound love for his subject. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Although Andre Bazin died shortly before the onset of what we now regard as the modern cinema, our understanding of this cinema wouldn't be the same without him. He's also one of the most scrupulous humanists and polemicists we've had, on a par with George Orwell, and these essays map out the busy highways we're all still navigating." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic for the Chicago Reader"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (December 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520242270
• ISBN-13: 978-0520242272
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Is Cinema?, June 29, 2000

By 

john lynch - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Is Cinema? (Volume II) (Paperback)

What is Cinema? Volume One and What is Cinema Volume 2 are English translations drawn from the original French four-volume work. They are not the entire four-volume work, but include some of the more important essays. In France itself, the four-volume work was later boiled to a one-volume set of selections. This French version was later used for the selections in the Spanish and Portuguese versions. The Italian version is different from the others, but also drawn from the four-volume work. Much of the four-volume original French work that has been omitted from the English What is Cinema? volumes I and II can be found in Cardullo's more recent collection "Bazin at Work."

Since Bazin's passing, film theory ventured more deeply into such things as semiotics, Freudian and Lacanian analyses, and sociological/Marxist perspectives. However, Bazin was one of the first and arguably most important writers to take film discourse beyond the "funny" "sexy" "scary" level. Some of the places film discourse has gone since the time of Bazin would be difficult or impossible for an unitiated person to comprehend. This is not so with Bazin, a man who also did such things as take Charlie Chaplin films to show at factories during lunch hour.

Although Bazin passed away more than 40 years ago, he remains relevant even if his writings have been subject to some critical analysis from writers like Brian Henderson and Noel Carroll. Moreover, in reading Bazin, one often has moments of recognition that are applicable to more recent things in the theatres; for example, a remark Bazin makes about Marilyn Monroe's skirt flying up is pertinent to discussion of the Austin Powers films, Bazin's remarks about such things as films about arctic expeditions, bullfighting documentaries, or films of Chinese executions may have a certain relevance in talking about the phenomenon of "The Blair Witch Project" . . .

46 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Significant work - atrocious translation, December 3, 2000

By 

Theodoros Natsinas (Thessaloniki, Greece) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Is Cinema? (Volume II) (Paperback)

André Bazin was one of the most important writers on film. His views have been influential worldwide. The term Bazinian realism has become one of the major theoretical categories in film studies. The impact of Bazin's work on English-language film studies has been generated, to a large degree, by this two-volume collection of essays. A number of major debates that have been going round for years now (decades actually) in English language works center on issues arising from these essays; e.g. the relation between objects and their photographs. However it must be stressed that these English language essays are re-workings by their "translator" rather than faithful renderings of the originals. Hugh Gray, the translator, not only chose some of the essays from the original French editions but also treated them with great liberty. Sentences and footnotes are missing, others are combined without reason; expressions are made more "flowery"; and meanings are changed. I cannot tell whether the translator was not up to the task of doing this job properly or he decided to mistreat his subject to such a degree consciously. In any case it is a great pity that Bazin's work is available in English only in this unfortunate form.

The original woks deserve 5 stars; it is impossible to decide how to rate this particular version.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic writing on cinema, November 3, 2007

By 

Steward Willons (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: What Is Cinema? Vol. 1 (Paperback)

I would like to offer a different perspective on this particular edition. Theodoros Natsinas writes a very persuasive review detailing the translations of Bazin's work. However, I think it's important to understand that Hugh Gray was the foremost proponent of Bazin's theoretical work in the USA, as well as an accomplished scholar himself. Considering that point, it seems that Gray is actually in the best position to translate Bazin due to his intimate understanding. It's always important to remember that translation is an art and it's never as simple as translating a sentence word-by-word.

I'm sure Natsinas has reviewed the French and English in more detail than I have, but my experience with Gray's translation has been very favorable. The main point in writing this review is to encourage prospective readers to go ahead and read these volumes. I held off buying them on Natsinas' recommendation, but I feel it's overly harsh and (no offense) misleading.

Regardless - they're the only translations we have. Most Bazin in anthologies use the Gray translations, so like it or not, it's the version everyone is reading in English. I say, buy and enjoy.