Les Cahiers du Cinéma online
The “e” stands for “electronic,” as well as for “English.”, the March 2007 issue was the first to be published simultaneously in French on paper and, in its entirety, in English at www.e-cahiersducinema.com.
This double evolution of Les Cahiers (the paper magazine plus the magazine on line, the French magazine plus the English edition) comes in response to the two great movements of our times, toward digital distribution and toward the globalization of the media.The internet version of the magazine give access to a new mode of distribution as well as a new approach to criticism, by opening up the possibilities of hypermedia.To publish in English, of course, is a way of reaching a large number of new readers, but we hope it will also be a way of making a different voice heard in the world — a way of proposing a fresh, rigorous and contemporary approach to the cinema and its place in present-day culture.
Cahiers du cinéma (Notebooks on Cinema) is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma (Review of the Cinema) involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 (Objective 49) (Robert Bresson, Jean Cocteau and Alexandre Astruc, among others) and Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin (Cinema Club of the Latin Quarter). Initially edited by Éric Rohmer (Maurice Scherer), it included amongst its writers Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and François Truffaut.
Cahiers re-invented the basic tenets of film criticism and theory. A 1954 article by Truffaut attacked La qualité française (the "Tradition of French Quality") and was the manifesto for the auteur theory — resulting in the re-evaluation of Hollywood films and directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Robert Aldrich, Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang, and Anthony Mann.
Cahiers du Cinema authors also championed the work of directors Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini, Kenji Mizoguchi, Max Ophüls, and Jean Cocteau, by centering their critical evaluations on a film’s mise en scène.
The magazine also was essential to the creation of the Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave, of French cinema, which centered on films directed by Cahiers authors such as Godard and Truffaut.
See online : www.e-cahiersducinema.com
