Film Criticism in Arts magazine (1952-1966). Godard, Rivette, Rohmer and Truffaut away from Bazin's paradoxes

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Location: ICA Theatre, Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, The Mall). Famously, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut all wrote for the Cahiers du Cinéma journal (run by André Bazin) before becoming renowned filmmakers. Yet, at the same time, they all also wrote for Arts, a largely polemical and politically controversial weekly magazine that was no less decisive in imposing their politique des auteurs", the cult of cinematic authorship that proved immensely influential on film culture ever since. This symposium aims to reconsider the articles they published on Arts, a body of writings that is certainly neglected, little-studied and in some cases downright unknown: around twenty articles by Rivette and over 150 by Rohmer were not even listed in any known bibliography until very recently. In so doing, it will provide a more accurate view of what the "politique des auteurs" originally was (most notably as regards its theoretical premises), also in order to engage with the still ongoing, very lively debate on cinematic authorship. More generally, this event intends to contribute to the current rediscovery of that crucial period of French film criticism, brought forth among others by the shortly-forthcoming, recently-announced publication of André Bazin's integral corpus of writings, and by the fresh release of a new, important biography on Eric Rohmer shedding a new light on his criticism.