Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma (1968-1973)

Daniel Fairfax is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt and an editor of the online film journal Senses of Cinema.

• Volume I: Ideology and Politics, Acknowledgements, A Note on Translations, Introduction, Part I Theories of Ideology, 1. Cinema/Ideologie/Critique: An Epistemological Break?, 2. Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni: Crossed Lives, 3. Décalages: Young Mr. Lincoln de John Ford, 4. La Vicariance du Pouvoir and the Battle of Othon, 5. Technique et Ideologie by Jean-Louis Comolli, 6. Afterlives of the Apparatus, Part II Engagements with Politics, 7. The Radicalization of Cahiers: 1963-1969, 8. Cahiers du cinéma and the Rapprochement with the PCF: 1969-1971, 9. Cahiers du cinéma's Turn to Maoism: 1971-1973, 10. Cahiers du cinéma and Jean-Luc Godard, 11. Cahiers du cinéma in the Post-gauchiste Era: 1973-1981, 12. Bernard Eisenschitz: Cinema, Communism and History, 13. Jean-Louis Comolli: A Theoretical Practice of Political Cinema, Volume II: Aesthetics and Ontology, Part III Questions of Aesthetics, 14. Encounters with Structuralism, 15. Beyond Structuralism: Film Form and Écriture, 16. Re-reading Classical Cinema, 17. The Defense and Critique of Cinematic Modernism, 18. Encountering the World Through Cinema, 19. The Film Aesthetics of Jacques Aumont, 20. Two Ciné-fils: Pascal Kane and Serge Daney, Part IV Encounters with Ontology, 21. The Bazinian Legacy, 22. Jean-Pierre Oudart and Suture, 23. Realism and Psychoanalysis in Pierre Baudry, 24. Partial Vision: The Theory and Filmmaking of Pascal Bonitzer, 25. The Brain is the Screen: Cahiers du cinéma and Gilles Deleuze, 26. Film Ontology in the Age of New Media, Conclusion, Index of Names Cited.

Daniel Fairfax's book is an impressive work that casts new light on the history of Cahiers du cinéma. Thanks to exhaustive archival research, Fairfax re-establishes the coherent yet complex trajectory of the journal. It is an exemplary study: the outcome of true dedication, astute critical sensibility and a great passion for film., - Francesco Casetti, Yale University, During its 'red years,' the core contributors to Cahiers du cinéma rethought cinema in ways that have had lasting influence for contemporary film studies. This is an extraordinarily comprehensive work that not only yields a tremendous amount of information and theoretical nuance, but also offers new ways of understanding Cahiers in its Marxist phase., - Philip Rosen, Brown University, Listen to author Daniel Fairfax in conversation with Annie Berke, the Film Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, on the New Books in Film podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2yh5YCxk3ChglwhdSHZYZr, Fairfax's The Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma is an admirably researched work that treats its object with great sympathy while also acknowledging blunders made by the Cahiers group. -Joseph Jasnoch, Film Matters, vol. 15, no. 3, 2025