I admit, it was not very easy for me to read the book, actually the first volume of the series What is cinema? thanks to the Frenchman Andre Bazin. Part of a larger editorial project created in collaboration with UNATC PRESS. Aiming at a complete translation into Romanian of the book of the same name in four volumes published by the first edition in France between 1958 and 1962. The book consists of 65 essays, studies, chronicles, which means only a sequence, indeed, a large one, from the activity as a film critic and theoretician of a Catholic intellectual who ennobled art history with his works.

No, the fault for the difficulties I attempted is in no way Andre Bazin’s fault. And this is not even the responsibility of the Romanian translators of the book. Their efforts deserve all praise. They are Andrea Raciu, Andrei Rus, Gabriela Filippi, Andrea Chiper and Andrei Gorzo, the latter also acting as the project coordinator. The fault belongs solely to me. I will develop the idea below.

In this first volume of the series, there are countless references to the great films of neorealism, André Bazin made a significant contribution to defining the concept and implementing the genre. Catch and fix his style in words. There are comments on the films of the great silent period, which reached its peak in 1928 when it became “an art perfectly adapted to sublime embarrassment silence”. We also find numerous comments on Soviet films, a kind of artistic documentaries, in which various actors embodied Stalin, thereby contributing to the construction of the personality cult condemned in his chronicles by Bazin. This happens at a time when communist passions were at their peak in France and when Stalin was always right. As claimed, by the way, the great Sartre. I read this study with great interest An introduction to Charlot’s symbolism. That Charlot, who seemed to warn Hitler through his mustache, is unusually depicted in dictator. Andre Bazin wrote about the great Orson Welles and his legendary film, Citizen Kane. And also about other creators and films of American cinema. He did it at a time when French cinema entered into a not always quiet war with him. He did it without party charm, without abolitionist impulses, as if not wanting to be a kind of Gicke-Contra.

Here, in 1948, Bazin published in Revue du Cinéma, sample study William Willer or the Jansenism of mise-en-scène in which he analyzes from all points of view, especially the film The most wonderful years of our lives. According to Bazin, Villers individualizes himself by having nothing but style. Unlike his colleagues, such as Capra, Lang, Ford, who have both style and manner. Hence the slide to pastiche. So that Willer cannot have imitators, only disciples. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro