Cinema

K L I N C K S I E C K

Foreign Rights

K L I N C K S I E C K

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Droits étrangers - Foreign RightsMarie-Pierre CiricTéléphone 33 (0)1 43 54 47 57 E-mail : mpciric@klincksieck.com

Catalog translated by Carol Macombermacuse@ix.netcom.comtel/fax. (717) 355-2472

Table des MatièresContents

Frédéric SOJCHER, Cinema Practices Frédéric SOJCHER, The Film-Makers Manifesto Frédéric SOJCHER, Actor Direction : Carnate, IncarnateFlorence FIX, Melodrama : Temptation of TearsDaniel DESHAYS, Hearing the CinemaMichel BOUQUET, An Acting LessonFilm Director and Producer : A Tumultuous Relationship ? (collective work)Daniel SERCEAU, Living with the CinemaJean MARIGNY, What is Fascinating about Vampires ?Jean-Louis LEUTRAT & Suzanne LIANDRAT-GUIGUES, The Cinema as Food for ThoughtClaude AZIZA, Peplum : a Disreputable GenreSonia SCHOONEJANS, A Year with Fellini. Journal of a Film-ShootMichel REILHAC, Defending the Future of Independent Film-MakingFrançois NINEY, The Documentary and its ImitatorsFrédéric SOJCHER, Jean-Jacques Rousseau : Film-Maker of the AbsurdRené PRÉDAL, The Cinema in the Era of Small CamerasJean-Louis LEUTRAT & Suzanne LIANDRAT-GUIGUES, Western(s)Jean-Luc NANCY, The Evidence of Film. Abbas KiarostamiChristian METZ, Essays on Cinematic Signification

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Film-maker Frédéric Sojcher heads a Masters programme in screen writing and film direction and production at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Pratiques du cinémaCinema Practices

What do we mean by practices of the 7th art? Those adopted by film-makers and film producers, spectators, critics and instructors.Frédéric Sojcher reveals the inadequacies of the European audiovisual policy and tackles the challenges encountered by the French cinema from a new angle. He identifies the cultural and economic stakes of film distribution and relates the Belgian cinema’s heroic struggle to survive.As he mentions the various films he has directed (with Lorànt Deutsch, Patrick Chesnais, Serge Gainsbourg, Michael Lonsdale, Micheline Presle, etc.), he asks questions which range far beyond his own film repertoire.Pratiques du cinéma reads like a history of films from their inception to their reception.

2011328 pages

Practices of the 7th art, from every possible angle

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Film-maker Frédéric Sojcher heads a Masters programme in screen writing and film direction and production at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Le manifete du cinéasteThe Film-Maker’s Manifesto

Do we really know what a film-maker is? Or the relationship between screenplay and production? What is involved in directing actors? How does a film crew help (or not) to create a film? What tense or harmonious relations exist between the film-maker and his film production? Why must every film be a battle whose outcome is always uncertain? All such questions are answered in Manifeste du cinéaste, which reveals what lies behind the film-making’s décor. Numerous examples allow readers to better grasp how methods used to finance and distribute films are changing how we relate to the world.This is nothing less than a genuine vade-mecum.

2011208 pages

A genuine vade-mecum devoted to film-making, revealing what lies behind cinema’s décor

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Film-maker Frédéric Sojcher heads a Masters programme in screen writing and film direction and production at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

La direction d’acteur. Carnation, incarnationActor Direction : Carnate, Incarnate

The term ‟actor direction” poses a problem in itself. Who directs who and how? The confusion may arise from the English term ‟director,” which designates the person who directs a production (just as a ‟movie director” designates a film-maker). It is worth recalling that in Hollywood’s early days, the main job of film-makers was to direct actors on the set. In fact, there is actually a job which consists of setting the pace for actors, guiding them, reassuring them, highlighting them, helping them to reach the full potential of their artistic talent for their sakes, and for the film itself. This book offers fascinating contributions by Olivier Assayas, Patrice Chéreau, Michel Deville, Karim Dridi, Bruno Dumont, and Claude Lelouch, each of whom defends a different vision of film-making. Despite their diverse opinions, they all attest to having the same appreciation of actors. All speak frankly about their experiences and, beyond the anecdotes, describe their relationship with actors, their expectations and their work styles. These are actual lessons on the cinema — not just theories — presented undogmatically. No ‟method” has all the answers : the most interesting thing to be learned from these ‟real-life cases” is precisely that each of the latter is linked to the personality of unique films and singular film-makers.

2011240 pages

Florence Fix is a senior lecturer in Comparative Literature at Université de Bourgogne, Dijon. Her research and teaching specifically deal with post-Romantic European literature, notably the theatrical arts.

Le mélodrame : la tentation des larmesMelodrama : Temptation of Tears

Melodrama emerged in the 18th century as a form of theatre allied with text and music and in which tears were commonplace. For people did cry then, in salons as well as in the National Assembly gallery, men and women alike, in their private lives as well as in public places. Tears were a sign of their sincerity, and holding back one’s emotions was deemed suspicious.Two hundred years later, any show of sensitivity has become a sign of sentimentality and although modern-day individuals may pour out their hearts on the telephone, in blogs, or on Facebook, they no longer cry in public. The temptation for tears has persisted, yet our timidity about confronting raw emotions has caused us to relegate it to novels and films, where it can be programmed to appear on acceptable occasions.This book – which explores topics as vastly different as the plays of Pixérécourt, Rostand and Hugo, the film Titanic, Twilight , the Bollywood phenomenon, the popularity of Love Story and, before that, Douglas Sirk’s films – prefers to view “melodrama” as an occasion to enjoy tears and traces its development and motivations within our recent culture.

2011184 pages

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Daniel Deshays heads the sound training programme at the National school of the performing arts ; he also founded the sound training programme at the Prestigious national school of fine arts.

Entendre le cinémaHearing the cinema

Who is giving any thought to sound in the cinema? No one, really. There is no school which includes in its programme classes on the current status of sound, nor is there any theory on the various forms of sound being taught to student film directors, film editors or even future sound technicians, let alone producers.No historical overview of existing forms of sound is offered to those whose job it will be to work on producing this visible and audible artistic object : the film.Some are content to examine existing sound techniques and to try to produce a ‟good sound” – in other words, a conforming sound.Yet sound, just as much as the visual aspects of a film, calls for creativity and inventiveness. This is what author Daniel Deshays shows us here by expanding upon the ideas introduced in Pour une écriture du son (in the ‟50 Questions” Collection), as he rethinks the role of sound in order to repel its planetary standardisation in the cinema.

2010192 pages

Rethinking the role of sound in the cinema in order to combat its planetary standardisation

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Michel Bouquet is a famous French actor.

La leçon de comédieAn Acting Lesson

As a well-researched and precise profile of the actor’s work, La Leçon de comédie is the perfect antidote to all the long-winded speeches and quips about the theatre, to all the prejudices and other simplistic theories about this profession – which is really not one – and to theories claiming that, in order to act, one must be as natural ‟as one is in real life,” that actors are puppets or instruments of the Director-King, that the script is only a pretext, and that the theatre is a rather harmless and antiquated place of entertainment.

No, not everyone can be an actor, and yes, there is an art to interpreting a role. Through this work, Michel Bouquet has managed to restore all of its value and significance to acting.

2010208 pages

Portrait of a precise, disciplined and vigilant actor.Interviews with Jean-Jacques Vincensini

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A collective work

Cinéaste et producteur : un duo infernal ?Film Director and Producer : A Tumultuous Relationship ?

The producer-director duo constitutes the core of film-making. Yet like all couples, they may not be meant to stay together forever. Divorce, break-up, tensions – there are many metaphors to define how the relationship functions. There have also been numerous ‟wonderful stories” which have helped certain film-makers’ careers flourish. If this relationship may be called ‟tumultuous,” it is because it comprises all of the elements which can lead to conflict : large sums of money at stake, oversized egos, and the need to juggle artistic ambitions with market demands.

Jean-Jacques Beineix, Lucas Belvaux, Robert Guédiguian, Benoît Jacquot, Patrice Leconte, Patrick Sobelman and Bertrand Tavernier contribute their own viewpoints and put into perspective their own experiences as producers and directors in dealing with the current challenges of the French cinema.

2010208 pages

Is the film producer-director relationship now threatened by television ?

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Daniel Serceau teaches at Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He has worked as an independent art film studio director and programmer, assistant director, and film critic. In addition to many articles, he has published several works on Kenji Mizoguchi and Jean Renoir, and another on Nicholas Ray. He is continuing research on his theory of the Seventh Art, the early French cinema and works as a cinema theatre operator. He has also written a novel.

Vivre avec le cinémaLiving with the Cinema

Film studies have long been dominated by what Jacques Bouveresse calls ‟the phobia of extra-textuality” – which is also that of meaning: the ‟real” subject of the cinema should be – the cinema. is nHowever, thisot how viewers perceive films, and if all film language must necessarily be derived from form work, the latter’s ultimate aim is nonetheless the work’s intelligibility. For, beyond their primary and necessary function as entertainment, fiction films meet the basic human need to find answers – even if only hypothetical, incomplete and transitory ones – to the question of ‟how to live”, in and for what world, and how to be ourselves – questions which confront all of us daily. Thus the cinema complements moral philosophy and ethics by exploring our contradictions (sometimes more effectively than the latter two disciplines do).

2010192 pages

Beyond their function as entertainment, films meet the basic human need to find answers – even if only hypothetical, incomplete and transitory ones – to the question of ‟how to live”

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Jean Marigny is a Professor Emeritus at Université Stendhal-Grenoble 3 (English and American Literature), where he founded the Groupe d’études et de recherches sur le Fantastique. In addition to a thesis on vampires in Anglo-Saxon literature, he is the author of Sang pour sang, le Réveil des vampires (Découvertes Gallimard, 1992) and Le Vampire dans la littérature du XXe siècle (Champion, 2003), as well as of anthologies, collective works and numerous articles.

La fascination des vampiresWhat is Fascinating about Vampires

With the recent success of the tetralogy Twilight by U.S. writer Stephenie Meyer, and of the first film based upon it, vampires are once again in the limelight.For more than a century, Dracula and his cronies have been omnipresent in fantasy literature and cinema, and have been fascinating a constantly growing and ever more diversified public to such an extent that it is no exaggeration to claim that we are now dealing with a genuine modern-day myth.The purpose of this book’s 50 questions is to examine this myth’s distant origins in order to better grasp why and how it has become one of the contemporary imaginary’s most popular themes. What is a vampire? Where does it come from? How did it become a part of modern literature? Why has it become one of the recurrent themes of today’s fantasy cinema? Lastly, why do vampires continue to be a source of fascination in what has become a rationalist world ?

2009224 pages

Why and how has the vampire myth become one of the major themes of the contemporary imaginary ?

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Jean-Louis Leutrat is a professor at Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle. His published works include books on « westerns » and film reviews. He has also just finished writing a Saint-Simon anthology. Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, who teaches film studies at Université de Lille III, has published several works on Visconti, Rivette and Godard

Penser le cinémaThe Cinema As Food for Thought

Man has always enjoyed feasting on images ; he has been defined as « the animal who goes to the cinema ». As such, he cannot help contemplating cinema as food for thought. This book attempts to answer two questions : « What did people expect of the cinema ? (i.e., what expectations were expressed by each successive generation) and « What has it accomplished and what may it still accomplish ? » In short, what conclusions can we now draw from it and what future lies in store for this medium which — compared to other « modern » art forms — is very special, indeed ?In this work, the authors strive to open reader’s minds to the thought process behind film-makling, discuss its subtle appeal and identify what causes it to occasionally leave something to be desired. Ultimately, they may also be attempting to reveal « the secret behind some high-profile affair » that might explain why people have so much enjoyed going to the cinema for the last one hundred years.

2010216 pages

Man has always enjoyed feasting on images ; he has been defined as « the animal who goes to the cinema ». As such, he cannot help contemplating cinema as food for thought

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An Honorary Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature at Sorbonne nouvelle (Paris III), Claude Aziza collaborated on the publication by Les Belles Lettres of the following books : Alexandre Dumas’ Isaac Laquedem (2005), Mémoires d’Horace (2006), E. G. Bulwer-Lytton’s Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi (2007), and Guide de l’Antiquité imaginaire (2008). He also contributed to the publication of L’Histoire et du Monde de la Bible.

Le Péplum, un mauvais genrePeplum : A Disreputable Genre

‟Peplum” is a disreputable film genre which relates stories that take place in mythical or distant times. It praises the exploits of muscular heroes and scantily dressed heroines.As a general audience and family-oriented genre, it is compelled to twist the camera every which way in order to tell the stories of biblical romances, Roman orgies, insane emperors and lecherous empresses – without shocking anyone – at least, in theory.Yet, despite being produced on shoe-string budgets, filmed in a rush on sets made of cardboard, and packaging History’s muse in ways that show its alluring underbelly, a very different antiquity is revealed in these films – one that jumps out at us from the dusty reference pages in Technicolor and 3-D, which make it seem twice as real, both because the production taps into our fantasies and because, in attempting to tell us about our past, it actually tells us about our present.

2009192 pages

‟Sword and sandal” epics : Antiquity in Technicolor and 3-D

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Sonia Schoonejans has led a multifaceted career as a dancer, writer, lecturer and exhibition organiser. Since 2001, she has been teaching the history of dance at the Centre de formation à l’enseignement de la danse et de la musique in Nantes. For Arte, she produced the series Un siècle de danse, which won First Prize in the Video Dance competition. She just published Le Geste de Lacan at Que and is the director of Complexe’s collection «Territoires de la danse.»

Une année avec Fellini. Journal de tournageA Year with Fellini : Journal of a Film-Shoot

Federico Fellini invites Sonia Schoonejans, a young Belgian choreographer, to follow him during the various stages of producing his film La Cittá delle donne and to keep a journal.The result is this book — published for the first time in French — which presents a lively and moving testimony of the Master’s life and work, and of how the actors and scenes were prepared for shootings. Marcello Mastroianni, Nino Rota (who died before the rushes began), and producers Renzo Rossellini and Daniel Toscan du Plantier are but a few of the figures readers will encounter in this work. Here they will also find Balthus and Francis Ponge and other film-makers — Akerman, Leone, Scorsese — attempting to shed light on some part of the Fellini mystery, after meeting him.On these pages, we accompany Fellini in his daily routine, from his breakfast to his favourite trattoria in the evening. We accompany him as he deals with an interruption of the film-shoot, or a demonstration by feminists. Sonia Schoonejans makes it possible for us to envision the magic as it happens and perceive the film-maker’s genius as he gradually transforms his previously concealed screenplay into a masterpiece.

2009208 pages

During a stay in Rome, Sonia Schoonejans met Federico Fellini. The Maestro, smitten with her, spent a year corresponding with the young woman by mail and talking with her by phone, trying to convince her to come see him

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Michel Reilhac has been the director of «Forum des images» and a film producer and director. He now heads Arte France’s ‟Unité cinéma.”

Plaidoyer pour l’avenir du cinéma d’auteurDefending the Future of Independent Film-Making

What is independent film-making and why should it be defended? In this book, Michel Reilhac, the head of Arte France Cinéma, explores the artistic and economic issues surrounding the cinema, which also reflect a choice of society.The field of independent film-making is undergoing extensive changes caused by the changeover to digital technology and its decoupling from the popular cinema, as well as by the sudden transformation of viewers’ behaviour and the astonishing integration of the Internet into our daily lives.In confronting such perils, rather than simply interpret this as a serious crisis, Michel Reilhac chooses to adopt a resolutely constructive outlook by taking an inventory of the assets and advantages available to today’s independent film-makers (despite how the market appears) so as to come to terms with the necessary adaptations without losing one’s soul in the process – akin to inspecting one’s weapons and troops before marching off into battle in closed-rank formation.

2009208 pages

It is now an established fact that independent film-making is undergoing extensive changes

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François Niney is a philosopher, literary critic and documentary film-maker. He taught cinematic studies at Université Paris 3-Sorbonne nouvelle and at La Fémis. His most recent published work is L’Épreuve du réel à l’écran (2002). His last completed documentary film was Marcel Ophuls, parole et musique (published in DVD with Veillées d’armes by Marcel Ophuls, Arte Video, 2006).

Le documentaire et ses faux-semblantsThe Documentary and Its Imitators

Documentaries seem to be very fashionable these days, judging from their success at the most recent Cannes Film Festival. We have also been witnessing an explosion of ‟reality shows” on television, the so-called ‟documentary” TV series and the wave of ‟docu-fiction” programmes. In their effort to attract viewers, documentaries (or shows claiming to be such) have even started to be produced in the least likely place – in theatres.Can this attraction be attributed to people’s voyeuristic taste for the sensational or to the fact that documentaries cost less to produce than fictional shows do? Certainly not. Highly gifted filmmakers continue to turn out powerful shows that combine documentaries and fiction and reveal to us our perceptions and beliefs while also clarifying the world in which we live. Their innovative film techniques enable us to better distinguish between the respective impact of the two genres, to appreciate the skilful way in which they have been combined, and to recognise any attempt to deceive us.

2009208 pages

Invented as a device to ‟capture a slice of life,” documentaries seem very fashionable these days

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Film-maker Frédéric Sojcher heads a Masters programme in screen writing and film direction and production at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, cinéaste de l’absurdeJean-Jacques Rousseau : Film-maker of the Absurd

‟This man who reinvented the fairground cinema of the heroic ages, this self-taught, multi-talented man likes to cultivate the controversial and is not afraid to ‟push the envelope.” As a film producer, screenwriter, director and distributor of his own films, he is radically autocratic (...). He dares to do what no Godard, Resnais, Fellini or Warhol ever would.”— Jean-Pierre Bouyxou

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who has 39 films to his credit, including 4 full-length feature films) always appears masked in public and refers to himself as the ‟film-maker of the absurd.”

This book, co-ordinated by Frédéric Sojcher, explores his career and invites readers to enjoy an ‟ABC” of this type of cinema – an authentic surrealist anthology with a collection of accounts by various contributors .

2008238 pages

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best gag is that his name really is ‟Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” It is high time he was recognized as one of the most innovative film directors in the history of the 7th Art

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René Prédal, Emeritus Professor of Cinematographic Studies at Université de Caen, has written some forty books on the cinema. His latest published works are: Le Cinéma à Nice, histoire de la Victorine en 50 films, Esthétique de la mise en scène, Le Cinéma français des années 1990 and Le Cinéma français depuis 2000

Le cinéma à l’heure des petites camérasThe Cinema in the Era of Small Cameras

For the last ten years, digital technologies and small cameras have been aesthetically revolutionizing the cinema industry. From American independent films to Chinese documentaries (and vice-versa), as well as in the French art-house cinema, HD and mini-DV have made it possible to film more cheaply, faster and – even more importantly – differently. First used for news reporting or personal journals, they are now also being used to make superb fictional films. This 21st-century cinema is fuelling a wide-ranging debate on the nature of the 7th Art which is as enthralling for film directors and cinematographers as it is for cinephiles and theorists. These are the issues and history covered in this work, which relies upon the analysis of films produced by such directors as Alain Cavalier, Lars Von Trier, Abbas Kiarostami, David Lynch, Claude Miller, Pedro Costa and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, all of whom are changing the language, as well as the very nature, of cinematic expression.

2008210 pages

For the last ten years, digital technologies and small cameras have been aesthetically revolutionizing the cinema industry

18

Jean-Louis Leutrat is a professor at Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle. His published works include books on « westerns » and film reviews. He has also just finished writing a Saint-Simon anthology. Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, who teaches film studies at Université de Lille III, has published several works on Visconti, Rivette and Godard

Western(s)Western(s)

Even in this early 21st century, Western movies are still being made in the United States — less often perhaps than before, and more often on TV than in the cinema, but the genre is still very much alive. The type of movies produced and the plots and perceptions of the ‟Wild West” may have radically changed, but they are still as exciting now as they were in the past. The aim of this work is to review the history of the Western, which is not limited to a few deceased prominent actors or movie directors or to the brief Italian Western era. The Western is still very much alive today.

2007208 pages

Even in this early 21st century, Western movies are still being made in the United States — less often perhaps than before, and more often on TV than in the cinema, but the genre is still very much alive

19

Jean-Luc Nancy was formerly a professor at Université de Strasbourg. A student and friend of Derrida, he has published numerous essays under his own name or in collaboration with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe.

L’évidence du film. Abbas KiarostamiThe Evidence of Film : Abbas Kiarostami

In 1994, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the cinema, Cahiers du cinéma decided to produce a book in which one hundred authors would write about one hundred films in order to create an imaginary history of the cinema. In the very first pages, Jean-Luc Nancy thus describes the circumstances which led to the creation of L’évidence du film. Abbas Kiarostami, which may be construed as a long conversation with the Iranian film-maker about the relationship between images, photography and the cinema.In this book, the author addresses the topic of images and the spectator, analysing the subject based upon his interview with Kiarostami, a ‟director who makes films while at the same time distancing himself from the cinema.”

2007172 pages

Jean-Luc Nancy addresses the topic of images and the spectator, analysing the subject based upon his interview with Kiarostami, a ‟director who makes films while at the same time distancing himself from the cinema”

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Christian Metz, the major theorist of the semiological approach to cinematic experience in France, was born in 1931. He has notably published Le Signifiant imaginaire.

Essais sur la signification au cinémaEssays on Cinematic Signification

Published originally in two volumes, Essais sur la signification au cinéma is the fundamental work on the history of cinematic thought written by Christian Metz (1931-1993).Volume I (1968) marks the initial phase in Christian Metz’ effort to found a semiological approach to the cinematic experience : he is the first author to consider both the modes of thought inspired by modern linguistics and the aesthetic tradition of thought on the concept of « cinematic language ».Volume II (1972) completes those analyses, while recalling their origins. A first section consisting of articles written prior to 1968 (thus before the author’s enterprise), describes how this new approach, still too often (and inaccurately) referred to today as « semiology », closely — and in a particularly unprecedented way — hinges upon prior knowledge of cinematic thought.In a second section, through a set of self-critical breakthroughs and reversals, continuations and changes in direction, the reader will see the outline on this « second semiology » emerge that subsequently aroused the author’s interest (excess, non-renunciation), and would later play a part in Le signifiant imaginaire [ The Imaginary Signifier] (1977).

2003470 pages

Published originally in two volumes, Essais sur la signification au cinéma is the fundamental work on the history of cinematic thought written by Christian Metz (1931-1993)

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