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| La Revue du Cinéma | |
|---|---|
| Title | La Revue du Cinéma |
| Category | Film magazine |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Firstdate | 1928 |
| Finaldate | 1940s |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
La Revue du Cinéma was a French film magazine founded in 1928 that played a central role in interwar and postwar cinephilia, shaping critical discourse around Cinéma pur, surrealism, Soviet montage theory, German Expressionism, and the emerging auteurist debates that later influenced French New Wave. The periodical provided a forum for critics and filmmakers associated with Jean Epstein, Luis Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, and Georges Méliès to reassess film as an art form alongside discussions of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, D. W. Griffith, Abel Gance, and Feuillade. Its circulation intersected with institutions and events such as the Cinémathèque Française, the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, and the networks around Jean Cocteau, André Bazin, and Henri Langlois.
Launched in 1928 amid debates sparked by the success of The Jazz Singer, the magazine emerged in a milieu that included the journals Cahiers d'Art, Close Up, Camera Work, La Revue Musicale, and the activities of Pathé, Gaumont, and Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. Early issues debated sound film with references to Warner Bros., Fox Film Corporation, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the British Gaumont-British. During the 1930s the review responded to political and aesthetic shifts related to Popular Front (France), the Spanish Civil War, and the influence of Soviet Union film practice espoused by Vsevolod Pudovkin, Dziga Vertov, and Sergei Eisenstein. Occupation-era constraints coincided with press controls of Vichy France and pressures from organizations such as Propaganda Staffel and led contributors to migrate to other periodicals and institutions like Les Cahiers du Cinéma and the Cinémathèque Française. Postwar reconfigurations connected former staff to the revival of festivals including Cannes Film Festival and academic programs at Sorbonne and networks surrounding filmmakers like Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, and Jacques Tati.
The magazine articulated an editorial line influenced by proponents of formal analysis and aesthetic autonomy such as Jean Epstein, Louis Delluc, André Bazin, Henri Langlois, and Georges Sadoul, while also hosting voices aligned with political critique from figures linked to L'Humanité and anti-fascist circles including admirers of Soviet cinema and commentators on Charlie Chaplin and Pablo Picasso. Contributors included critics, historians, and filmmakers who later figured in institutions like Cinémathèque Française, Institut Lumière, Festival de Cannes, and academic chairs at Université de Paris. The roster featured names associated with Surrealist movement salons of André Breton, collaborators from Les Nouvelles Littéraires, and translators of essays by Sergei Eisenstein, Friedrich A. Kittler, and Walter Benjamin into French contexts. The editorial stance balanced advocacy for preservation, as practiced by Henri Langlois, with theoretical engagement comparable to essays in Transition and reviews in Sight & Sound.
Articles ranged from technical analyses of montage and mise en scène to historical surveys of pioneers like Georges Méliès, Alice Guy-Blaché, Lumière brothers, and D. W. Griffith. Notable pieces interrogated Soviet montage theory through readings of Battleship Potemkin, discussed German Expressionism via The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and profiled contemporary auteurs such as Fritz Lang, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ernst Lubitsch, Jean Renoir, and Alfred Hitchcock. The review published early French responses to Citizen Kane, essays on documentary film practice referencing John Grierson and Robert Flaherty, and retrospectives on silent comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Coverage included festival reports from Venice Film Festival and theoretical exchanges resembling debates at Collège de France seminars. Special dossiers treated restoration of works by Fellini, preservation campaigns led by Henri Langlois, and polemics about the role of film criticism that later echoed in Les Cahiers du Cinéma manifestos.
The magazine’s influence is evident in the formation of postwar critical institutions like Les Cahiers du Cinéma, the programming of Cinémathèque Française, and the pedagogy at Université de Paris II Panthéon-Assas and Université Paris Nanterre, where its methods informed film studies that engaged figures such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol. Its archival advocacy anticipated restoration projects at British Film Institute and Library of Congress, and its aesthetic debates prefigured auteur theory defended by critics in New York, London, and Rome. The periodical contributed to curatorial practices at Museum of Modern Art, influenced programming at Festival de Cannes, and shaped scholarly citation networks visible in works published by Cambridge University Press and University of California Press.
Published in French, the magazine appeared with variable periodicity in folio and quarto formats and used photographic stills, illustrations by artists connected to André Breton and Surrealist movement, and typographic designs informed by printers like Imprimerie Nationale and Arts et Métiers Graphiques. Typical issues contained reviews, manifestos, polemics, and bibliographic sections referencing holdings at Cinémathèque Française and collections assembled by Henri Langlois and curators at Musée du Louvre for interdisciplinary dialogues. Advertisements and notices linked to distributors such as Pathé, Gaumont, and Ciné-Services and reflected exhibition circuits encompassing Parisian venues like Le Champo, Le Louxor, and programming trends at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
The review provoked responses from establishment journals like Le Figaro, Le Monde, and Le Matin as well as rebuttals from polemical titles associated with Action Française sympathizers and pro-Vichy commentators during the occupation. Scholars and filmmakers debated its positions in forums that included conferences at Collège de France and exchanges published in Les Temps Modernes, while international reception registered in translations and citations in Film Quarterly, Sight & Sound, Cahiers du Cinéma, and Screen.
Category:Film magazines published in France Category:French film criticism