This is the most accurate, thoughtful and inspired translation of Bazin (or, for that matter, of any French film theorist) into English we have seen in a very long time. Barnard’s own nationality and his bilingual status have given him the technical resources required to transfer Bazin’s language in a faithful yet transparent prose. What makes the book so unique, however, is the sheer mass of information contained in its critical apparatus. Barnard has taken up the challenge of cleaning up the apparent mess created by previous English versions of Bazin’s work, commenting upon a number of key passages and concepts and making Bazin’s prose more accessible and enjoyable than ever before. Any serious film scholar should make the extra effort necessary to obtain a copy of this book.
— Paolo Cherchi Usai, Journal of Film Preservation
Read a PDF of this review and more comments on and reviews of the caboose Bazin.
What is Cinema?
translated with annotations by Timothy Barnard
Rejoice! This definitive translation of selected essays from André Bazin’s What is Cinema?, the cornerstone of modern-day film theory, finally makes his true ideas available to English readers. Bazin shines through in this accurate, readable and elegant translation, which has already been adopted as the standard version of this essential text by leading film scholars. Rarely does a new translation radically alter our understanding of a thinker’s work. This is that book.
The caboose edition of What is Cinema? collects the most important articles found in the original four-volume French edition. In the first of these volumes, published the month of his death in 1958 at the age of 40, Bazin tackled the philosophical issues raised by film and the photographic image in mid-century French intellectual circles, responding to the giants Sartre and Malraux in a style that pioneered the philosophical film essay. These essays are complemented by studies of directors central to Bazin’s universe: Chaplin, Wyler, Tati (an article long out of print in English and re-translated here) and Jean Painlevé. In later, posthumous volumes, Bazin addressed issues around film’s relations with literature and theatre and the questions raised for film aesthetics by Italian neo-realism.
This edition of What is Cinema? is the only corrected and annotated volume by Bazin in any language. The translator’s meticulous research into Bazin’s sources has led him to a connection between the ideas of Bazin and Bertolt Brecht and to a pseudonymous article believed to have been written by Siegfried Kracauer.
What is Cinema? is the most important event in English-language film publishing in a generation. Whatever one’s specialisation, no film library is complete without this handsome, cloth-bound and sewn volume. The titles of Bazin’s seminal articles are now part of the film studies lexicon—when they haven’t been corrected here:
- Ontology of the Photographic Image
- The Myth of Total Cinema
- On Jean Painlevé
- An Introduction to the Charlie Chaplin Persona
- Monsieur Hulot and Time
- William Wyler, the Jansenist of Mise en Scène
- Editing Prohibited
- The Evolution of Film Language
- For an Impure Cinema: In Defence of Adaptation
- Diary of a Country Priest and the Robert Bresson Style
- Theatre and Film (1)
- Theatre and Film (2)
- Cinematic Realism and the Italian School of the Liberation
- Download a PDF of errata to print out and insert in your copy of the caboose What is Cinema?
- The translator's footnote on Bazin's use of the term 'découpage' is available for classroom use outside Canada for a modest fee. Please contact caboose for more information.
For samples please select any of the chapter headings listed above.
352 pp., 6” x 8”, index, cloth, ISBN 978-0-9811914-0-9, $50 CAD
Vastly superior to the two volumes published by the University of California Press. I'm especially taken with the graceful flow of the translation — Jonathan Rosenbaum
For the first time, Timothy Barnard has given us the meticulous and scholarly edition of What is Cinema? that every lover of Bazin has dreamt of. The translator’s notes alone, with their enthralling discussions of important theoretical problems, make this edition worth consulting without delay — Jacques Aumont, Université Paris 3
One of the boldest moves ever seen in anglophone cinema studies. This new translation challenges us to jettison received wisdom and take a fresh look at what Bazin actually wrote, linking him tellingly to Malraux and Kracauer (an astounding and ingenious intuition). Barnard’s mission is to strip the questions in each essay bare for others to address. This tender and chivalrous sentiment is reinforced by painstaking translator’s notes, certain of which will undoubtedly become famous in their own right. — Dudley Andrew and Prakash Younger, Yale University and Trinity College
Read Paolo Cherchi Usai’s review in the Journal of Film Preservation (Brussels) (no. 81, Fall 2009). Download PDF
Read Jacques Aumont’s review (in French) in CiNéMAS (Montreal) (vol. 20, no. 1, Fall 2009). Download PDF
Read Dudley Andrew and Prakash Younger’s review in CiNéMAS (Montreal) (vol. 20, no. 1, Fall 2009). Download PDF
Read Donato Totaro’s review in the on-line film journal Offscreen.
See what Girish Shambu and the readers of his popular blog have to say about the book.
Watch for Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's review in the summer 2010 issue of Film Quarterly.
