THIS BOOK—and its companion volume, French Film Theory and Criticism, 1929–1939—originally was to have been written jointly by myself and Stuart Liebman. In fact, it was Stuart who initially conceived the project some six years ago and who had just as strong a commitment to its realization as I did. Unfortunately, by the end of the first year of research and writing, a number of unforeseen problems forced him to abandon his work on the project, and I determined to carry on with it alone. For having been able to see this book through to completion, however, I owe an enormous debt to Stuart. He has acted as a steadfast, enthusiastic supporter of the project throughout these past several years. He has closely read and critiqued each of the introductory historical essays more than once, generously contributed elegant translations of selected texts, and corrected some of my own translation efforts. The finished book, of course, is quite different from what it would have been, had Stuart done much of the writing himself. But I trust that a good deal of its initial purpose and design remain and that, as it now exists, the book will prove just as valuable as the one we planned together, in part because it has often been addressed to him.
I am also indebted to a number of other colleagues for reading the manuscript at various stages. Dudley Andrew and Kristin Thompson provided thorough, knowledgeable assessments of the entire manuscript, and I have incorporated their specific emendations as well as many of their helpful ideas. Donald Crafton, Paul Willemen, and Richard Allen each read initial drafts of the first introductory essay and made useful suggestions. Early on, Crafton generously offered to share the research he had done some years before on the earliest French writing on the cinema; and, toward the end, Emmanuelle Toulet graciously provided more invaluable information on these early writings, through her own extensive research in Paris archives. Others who offered assistance at one time or another include Marie Epstein, Jean Dréville, Bernard Eisenschitz, Gerard Troussier, Jacques Aumont, Glenn Myrent, Lenny Borger, Philippe d’Hugue, Linda Williams, Claudia Gorbman, Janet Altman, and Marie-Claire Lorrain of the Bureau d’accueil des professeurs d’universités étrangères in Paris.
A great number of archives have been essential to this project—several different departments of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, especially the Département des Arts du Spectacle (Arsenal), the Département des Périodiques, the Département des Imprimés, and the Annex at Versailles; the Bibliothèque d’IDHEC/Cinémathèque Française (thanks to Noëlle Giret) and the personal library of Gerard Troussier in Paris; the libraries of the Museum of Modern Art and the Lincoln Center in New York; the libraries of the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin—Madison, and the University of Southern California; the library of the Royal Film Archive of Belgium in Brussels; and the Inter-Library Loan Services of Cowles Library at Drake University.
Stuart Liebman and Claudia Gorbman have contributed excellent original translations of selected texts for the anthology sections of the book. Their contributions are credited as they appear. About twenty other translations have been published before: their original sources are acknowledged below, and the name of the translator accompanies each of these reprintings in the body of the book. The remaining translations are my own and render the original texts, I trust, with sufficient accuracy and clarity—for which I am indebted to Harrap’s New Standard French and English Dictionary (1972).
At Princeton University Press, I am once again extremely grateful for Joanna Hitchcock’s gracious encouragement and enthusiastic support for the manuscript, even as it grew inexorably into “another big book.” And Charles Ault’s meticulous copyediting corrected a good number of minor and not-so-minor mistakes in the manuscript as well as made the relationship between introductions and selected texts much more consistent.
This project was initiated with a summer grant from the Drake University Research Council (1981). During much of the research and writing, I was fortunate to have the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1983–1984). A much-appreciated American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (1986) and a sabbatical leave from Drake University then enabled me to complete the book while I was working on the research and initial writing stage of a further project on early French cinema.
Finally, my deepest appreciation once more goes to the woman who has consistently inspired me throughout the period of this project, who has read and commented on every version of the manuscript—a superb writer and scholar of Shakespeare in her own right—my best reader and collaborator, Barbara Hodgdon.
PERMISSION has been granted to reprint portions of this book, which originally appeared in slightly different formats in Cinema Journal 25. I (1985) and Framework, 32–33 (1986). Translations that previously have appeared elsewhere include:
Louis Aragon, “On Decor,” in The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema, ed. Paul Hammond (London: British Film Institute, 1978), 28–31.
Antonin Artaud, “Cinema and Reality.” Selected Writings, ed. Susan Sontag (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1976), 150–52.
Ricciotto Canudo, “The Birth of a Sixth Art,” Framework 13 (Autumn 1980), 3–7.
Henri Chomette, “Second Stage,” in René Clair, Cinema Yesterday and Today, ed. R. C. Dale (New York: Dover, 1972), 97–98.
René Clair, “Coeur fidèle,” Cinema Yesterday and Today, 70–73.
René Clair, “Pure Cinema and Commercial Cinema,” Cinema Yesterday and Today, 99–100.
René Clair, “La Roue,” Cinema Yesterday and Today, 54–55.
Colette, “The Cheat,” Colette at the Movies: Criticism and Screenplays, ed. Alain and Odette Virmaux (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980), 19–20.
Colette, “Mater Dolorosa,” Colette at the Movies, 24–25.
Robert Desnos, “Avant-Garde Cinema,” in The Shadow and Its Shadow, 36–38.
Germaine Dulac, “Aesthetics, Obstacles, Integral Cinégraphie” Framework 19 (1982), 6–9.
Jean Epstein, “Approaches to Truth,” Afterimage 10 (Autumn 1981), 35–36.
Jean Epstein, “Art of Incidence,” Afterimage 10 (Autumn 1981), 30–32.
Jean Epstein, “For a New Avant-Garde,” The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Criticism, ed. P. Adams Sitney (New York: New York University Press, 1978), 26–30.
Jean Epstein, “Magnification,” October 3 (Spring 1977), 9–15. Jean Epstein, “On Certain Characteristics of Photogénie,” Afterimage 10 (Autumn 1981), 20–23.
Jean Epstein, “The Senses 1 (b),” Afterimage 10 (Autumn 1981), 9–16.
Elie Faure, “The Art of Cineplastics,” Film: An Anthology, ed. Daniel Talbot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), 3–14.
Abel Gance, “My Napoleon,” Napoleon, Directed by Abel Gance (London: Thames Television, 1980), v.
Jean Goudal, “Surrealism and Cinema,” in The Shadow and Its Shadow, 49–56.
Marcel Gromaire, “A Painter’s Ideas about the Cinema,” Motion Picture 1.2 (Fall 1986), 4–5.
Fernand Léger, “A Critical Essay on the Plastic Quality of Abel Gance’s Film, The Wheel,” Functions of Painting, ed. Edward F. Fry (New York: Viking, 1973), 20–23.
Georges Méliès, “Cinematographic Views,” October 29 (Summer 1984), 23–31.
Emile Vuillermoz, “Abel Gance and Napoléon” in Norman King, Abel Gance: A Politics of Spectacle (London: British Film Institute, 1984), 43–48.
Emile Vuillermoz, “Napoléon,” in King, Abel Gance, 42–43.