Cahiers Catch-All Thread: From Auteur to Z

[domino harvey]

There are 354 films on the Cahiers Top Lists from 1951, 1955-1968. Assuming one has access, all but six are available in English-friendly copies via commercial releases and back channels. Here's what's MIA:

CIRCULATING W/O ENGLISH SUBS
Cyrano et d’Artagnan (Abel Gance 1963)
Il Terrorista (Gianfranco de Bosio 1963)
La Course de taureaux (Pierre Braunberger 1951)
Les Miracles n’ont lieu qu’une fois (Yves Allegret 1951)
Les Honneurs de la guerre (Jean Dewever 1960)

NOT CIRCULATING (?)
Marie Soleil (Antoine Bourseiller 1966)

If anyone has a line on English-friendly copies of any of the above, please speak up!

UPDATED 08/24/2025

[domino harvey]

I just paid attention to Rozier's list of the best French films since the liberation for Cahiers and thought it was priceless-- no wonder he and Godard got along!



KEY:

Spoiler

Zero de conduite is unchanged, the rest are portmanteaus:
Les Enfants du paradis + Voyage-surprise
Le Carrosse d'or + Casque d'or
A bout de souffle + Les mepris
La Belle et la Bête + Plein soleil
Farrebique ou Les quatre saisons + Hiroshima, mon amour
Manon + Procès de Jeanne d'Arc
Zazie dans le metro + La bataille du rail
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe + Partie de campagne
Touchez pas au grisbi + Les dames du Bois de Boulogne

[Godot]

Domino, can you please point me to an English-friendly (subtitled) release of this Renoir?
1959
13 Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

I see StudioCanal released a DVD on their Classics series, but no I could find no indication if it has English subtitles.
Thank you!

[Godot]

KEY:

Spoiler

Zero de conduite is unchanged, the rest are portmanteaus:
Les Enfants du paradis + Voyage-surprise
Le Carrosse d'or + Casque d'or
A bout de souffle + Les mepris
La Belle et la Bête + Plein soleil
Farrebique ou Les quatre saisons + Hiroshima, mon amour
Manon + Procès de Jeanne d'Arc
Zazie dans le metro + La bataille du rail
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe + Partie de campagne
Touchez pas au grisbi + Les dames du Bois de Boulogne

I like that "mélanges" double entendre, setting up his

Spoiler

portmanteaus

Quelle drôle!

[Glowingwabbit]

Domino, can you please point me to an English-friendly (subtitled) release of this Renoir?
1959
13 Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

I see StudioCanal released a DVD on their Classics series, but no I could find no indication if it has English subtitles.
Thank you!

I'm not sure if the standalone dvd does, but this collection has it with english subs: https://www.amazon.com/Collection-illus ... B0056YHMO2

[Godot]

... this collection has it with english subs: https://www.amazon.com/Collection-illus ... B0056YHMO2

Merci beaucoup, Glowingwabbit!
I already have the other 5 movies from that Optimum box set on DVD or Blu-ray, so not sure if it's worth $40 to pick up Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. But, leaning on the opinions of forum folk, I found a great review earlier in the forum by ellipsis7 on the Optimum box set here, and Domino listed Déjeuner as #1 on his (her?) Renoir auteur list a few months ago here, where knives had a nice (but mixed) short write-up about it, and Rayon Vert recommended it, and Steven H defended it glowingly in this post. So I will purchase on the strengths of these recommendations. Thank you all!

[spectre]

I just paid attention to Rozier's list of the best French films since the liberation for Cahiers and thought it was priceless-- no wonder he and Godard got along!



KEY:

Spoiler

Zero de conduite is unchanged, the rest are portmanteaus:
Les Enfants du paradis + Voyage-surprise
Le Carrosse d'or + Casque d'or
A bout de souffle + Les mepris
La Belle et la Bête + Plein soleil
Farrebique ou Les quatre saisons + Hiroshima, mon amour
Manon + Procès de Jeanne d'Arc
Zazie dans le metro + La bataille du rail
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe + Partie de campagne
Touchez pas au grisbi + Les dames du Bois de Boulogne

That's wonderful. Rozier already had a special place in my heart, and now I think I love him even more!

[aox]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but this seems pretty significant.

La rédaction a décidé de quitter les Cahiers du cinéma. Les journalistes salariés prennent la clause de cession, clause de conscience protégeant le droit du journaliste lors du changement de propriétaire d’un titre.

Le nouvel actionnariat est composé notamment de huit producteurs, ce qui pose un problème de conflit d’intérêts immédiat dans une revue critique. Quels que soient les articles publiés sur les films de ces producteurs, ils seraient suspects de complaisance.

La charte d’indépendance annoncée d’abord par les actionnaires a déjà été contredite par les annonces brutales dans la presse. Il nous a été communiqué que la revue devait « se recentrer sur le cinéma français ». La nomination au poste de directrice générale de la déléguée générale de la SRF (Société des Réalisateurs de Films), Julie Lethiphu, ajoute aux craintes d’une influence du milieu du cinéma français.

Il nous a été communiqué que la revue deviendrait « conviviale » et « chic ». Or les Cahiers du cinéma n’ont jamais été ni l’un ni l’autre, contrairement à ce que prétendent les actionnaires. Les Cahiers ont toujours été une revue critique engagée, prenant des positions claires. L’article le plus célèbre de la revue est celui de François Truffaut, « Une certaine tendance du cinéma français » (1954), fustigeant la bourgeoisie d’une partie du cinéma français. Ce serait dénaturer les Cahiers que d’en faire une vitrine clinquante ou une plateforme de promotion du cinéma d’auteur français.

Le nouvel actionnariat se compose également d’hommes d’affaires proches du pouvoir. Les Cahiers du cinéma ont pris parti contre le traitement médiatique des gilets jaunes, contre les réformes touchant l’université (Parcoursup) et la culture (le pass Culture) et mis en question à son arrivée la légitimité du ministre de la Culture, qui s’est d’ailleurs félicité publiquement du rachat de cette entreprise privée. Là aussi les actionnaires ont des intérêts qui nous interrogent.

Enfin, à l’heure où toute la presse a été rachetée par les grands des télécoms, et les patrons de Meetic, de Free, de BFM jouent aux business angels, nous refusons cette concentration dans les mains des mêmes de titres jadis libres.

La rédaction des Cahiers du Cinéma (27/02/20)

Translation per Chrome:

The editorial staff has decided to leave the Cahiers du cinéma. Salaried journalists take the transfer clause, a conscience clause protecting the journalist's right when there is a change of ownership of a title.

The new shareholding includes eight producers, which poses an immediate conflict of interest problem in a critical review. Whatever articles are published on the films of these producers would be suspected of complacency.

The independence charter first announced by the shareholders has already been contradicted by brutal announcements in the press. We were told that the magazine was to "refocus on French cinema". The appointment of Julie Lethiphu, the Managing Director of the SRF (Société des Réalisateurs de Films), to the position of Delegate General of the SRF (Société des Réalisateurs de Films), adds to the fears of an influence from the French film community.

We were told that the magazine would become "convivial" and "chic". However, the Cahiers du Cinéma have never been neither, contrary to what the shareholders claim. Les Cahiers has always been a committed critical review, taking clear positions. The most famous article of the review is that of François Truffaut, "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français" (1954), castigating the bourgeoisie of a part of French cinema. It would be a distortion of the Cahiers to turn them into a glitz and glamour showcase or a platform for the promotion of French auteur cinema.

The new shareholding is also composed of businessmen close to power. The Cahiers du Cinéma took a stand against the media treatment of the yellow jackets, against the reforms affecting the university (Parcoursup) and culture (the Culture pass) and questioned the legitimacy of the Minister of Culture on his arrival, who moreover publicly welcomed the takeover of this private company. Here too, the shareholders have interests that question us.

Finally, at a time when all the press has been bought by the big telecoms companies, and the bosses of Meetic, Free and BFM are playing business angels, we reject this concentration in the hands of the same titles that were once free.

The editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinéma (27/02/20)

[domino harvey]

But who will keep the Hong Sang-soo industry in business?!

[Michael Kerpan]

But who will keep the Hong Sang-soo industry in business?!

Pish tush!

[roujin]

Cinema Scope to the rescue.

[Nasir007]

Oh no! Essentially Cahiers will not be Cahiers anymore! There's no purity anywhere. Everything is tainted.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

But who will keep the Hong Sang-soo industry in business?!

Hong is one of the areas where Positif aligns with Cahiers. They did a good dossier on him a couple of years back.

[whaleallright]

This is very bad news.

I have often considered subscribing to Cahiers, but end up buying (or checking out from the library) stray issues instead, because the rate for overseas subscriptions is astronomical (as it is for Sight & Sound) and, because of the postal standards for magazines, you're liable to receive your copy a few months after it's out in France. I guess now that Cahiers has been eviscerated this is no longer a concern....

[Finch]

Variety says two journalists are actually staying on while film and theater critic and historian Antoine de Baecque and Charles Tesson, the current artistic director of Cannes Critics Week are considered for new editor in chief

[whaleallright]

Tesson edited Cahiers back in the 90s; he was great. but it must be awkward for him to consider accepting the job again after so many of his respected colleagues left in principled protest.

[Finch]

Yeah he may refuse it out of principle.

[DarkImbecile]

Don’t have a full English translation yet, but someone here might be able to help with that... either way, I think I get the gist.

[tenia]

Basically, they decided to resign because they saw a conflict of interests with the people who have bought the magazines, since there are many movie producers and the person who is going to be put at a CEO-equivalent job is someone from the SRF, the French Directors Society, an influent corporation.
They're also against what these people said they would do with the editorial line of the magazine : being convivial, hip and more focused on French cinema, "something the magazine has never been".
Finally, they explain the Cahiers have never been consensual in their critics, including in the politics opinion. They claim to have been especially vocal against the Macron presidency, while some of the people who have bought the magazine are rather part of the Macron galaxy.

[domino harvey]

1964
18 Foma Gordeev

For as much as some of their oddball choices are headscratching misses, when they’re right, they’re right. This was incredible, with Fuller/Welles-style in your (their?) face framing taken to 20X lethal overdose levels and a kinetic forward momentum that never lets up. Just 100% pure mise en scene bliss from start to finish. A film I never would have sought out if it was wasn’t for Cahiers/Chabrol

[domino harvey]

In case you were ever curious how far the worldwide twin reputations of Cahiers du Cinema and Henri Langlois went in 1968, here's the list of signees Cahiers managed to secure for Cahiers' March 1968 issue protesting Langlois' dismissal. This... might be almost everyone you can even think of who ever touched film and was still alive at the moment (of those Cahiers would have surely reached out to, Tashlin and Wyler are notably absent, but the list is still incredibly impressive)

[domino harvey]

English translation of Michel Mourlet's legendary article Sur un art ignore from Cahiers in 1959, a manifesto which introduced the Mac-Mahonists to Cahiers readers before they split to form their own competing cinema journal. If you've never heard of the Mac-Mahonians (or however else you'd like to conjugate denizens of the Mac Mahon movie theatre [as seen in A bout de souffle]), that's because inexplicably this only got an English translation within the last couple years. Fun fact: the quote from Le Mepris attributed to Andre Bazin actually came from Mourlet's article

More info on the MacMahonists in this excellent blog post as well and here is a Letterboxd list collecting all of the films advertised as playing the Mac Mahon from 1960-1963

[GoodOldNeon]

Cahiers du cinéma have partnered with Google to digitize all 820 issues of the magazine and create an online archive that is accessible via paid subscription.

[MichaelB]

Annoyingly, there doesn't seem to be an option to purely access the archive - you have to take out a subscription to the magazine in print form too.

Which is how the London Review of Books does it, and it's just as annoying; by the time the print version hits my doormat I've already read it online, and so it's a complete waste of printing and postage.

[domino harvey]

English translation of Michel Mourlet's legendary article Sur un art ignore from Cahiers in 1959, a manifesto which introduced the Mac-Mahonists to Cahiers readers before they split to form their own competing cinema journal. If you've never heard of the Mac-Mahonians (or however else you'd like to conjugate denizens of the Mac Mahon movie theatre [as seen in A bout de souffle]), that's because inexplicably this only got an English translation within the last couple years. Fun fact: the quote from Le Mepris attributed to Andre Bazin actually came from Mourlet's article

More info on the MacMahonists in this excellent blog post as well and here is a Letterboxd list collecting all of the films advertised as playing the Mac Mahon from 1960-1963

Scribd has a machine-translated English PDF of the only book on the Mac-Mahonists, Christophe Fouchet's Histoire Du Mac-Mahonisme. You have to reverse engineer a lot of the titles of Hollywood films because the translation translates the French titles of American films (so, for instance, John Berry's He Ran All the Way is credited as Threats in the Night since its French title is Menace dans la nuit), both otherwise on quick glance it's pretty coherent for an AI translation

Certainly on first look it's a much more useful resource than the awful essay on the Mac-Mahoniens in BFI's Paris in the Cinema compilation book, which I bought that book for and which turned out to be a shitty, completely useless term paper on the topic written by someone with absolutely nothing to say