Editing Cahiers du Cinéma (section)

==History==
The first issue of ''Cahiers'' appeared in April 1951.<ref>{{cite book|author=Julian Wolfreys|title=Modern European Criticism and Theory: A Critical Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BOlBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA398|access-date=5 May 2016|year=2006|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-2449-2|page=398}}</ref> Much of its head staff, including Bazin, Doniol-Valcroze, Lo Duca, and the various younger, less-established critics, had met and shared their beliefs about film through their involvement in the publication of ''Revue du Cinéma'' from 1946 until its final issue in 1948; ''Cahiers'' was created as a successor to this earlier magazine.<ref>{{cite book|author=Emilie Bickerton|title=A Short History of Cahiers Du Cinéma|year=2009|publisher=Verso|isbn=978-1-84467-232-5|page=13}}</ref>

Early issues of ''Cahiers'' were small journals of thirty pages which bore minimalist covers, distinctive for their lack of headlines in favor of film stills on a distinctive bright yellow background. Each issue contained four or five articles (with at least one piece by Bazin in most issues),<ref name="bickerton21">Bickerton 2009, p. 21-22.</ref> most of which were reviews of specific films or appreciations of directors, supplemented on occasion by longer theoretical essays.<ref name="bickerton15">Bickerton 2009, p. 15-16.</ref> The first few years of the magazine's publication were dominated by Bazin, who was the ''de facto'' head of the editorial board.<ref name="bickerton15"/><ref name="Kehr">{{Cite magazine |last=Kehr |first=Dave |date=1 September 2001 |title=Cahiers Back in the Day |url=https://www.filmcomment.com/article/cahiers-back-in-the-day/ |magazine=Film Comment |language=en |access-date=2020-12-24}}</ref>

Bazin intended ''Cahiers'' to be a continuation of the intellectual form of criticism that ''Revue'' had printed, which prominently featured his articles advocating for realism as the most valuable quality of cinema. As more issues of ''Cahiers'' were published, however, Bazin found that a group of young proteges and critics serving as editors underneath him were beginning to disagree with him in the pages of the magazine.<ref name="Kehr"/> Godard would voice his discontent with Bazin as early as 1952, when he challenged Bazin's views on editing in an article for the September issue of ''Cahiers.''<ref name="Godard">Godard, Jean-Luc (September 1952) ''Defense And Illustration of Classical Construction'' Cahiers du Cinéma</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=David Bordwell|title=On the History of Film Style|year=1997|publisher= Harvard University Press|isbn= 978-0674634299|page=77}}</ref> Gradually, the tastes of these young critics drifted away from those of Bazin, as members of the group began to write critical appreciations of more commercial American filmmakers such as [[Alfred Hitchcock]] and [[Howard Hawks]] rather than the canonized French and Italian filmmakers that interested Bazin.<ref name="bickerton21"/>

The younger critics broke completely with Bazin by 1954, when an article in the January issue by Truffaut attacked what he called ''La qualité française'' ({{literal translation| the French quality}}, usually translated as "The Tradition of Quality"), denouncing many critically respected French films of the time as being unimaginative, oversimplified, and even immoral adaptations of literary works.<ref name="Truffaut">Truffaut, François (January 1954) ''A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema'' Cahiers du Cinéma</ref><ref name="Kehr"/> The article became the manifesto for the ''politique des auteurs'' ({{literal translation| the policy of the authors |lk=no}}), which became the label for ''Cahiers'' younger critics' emphasis on the importance of the director in the creation of a film{{--}}as a film's "author"{{--}}and their re-evaluation of [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] films and directors such as Hitchcock, Hawks, [[Jerry Lewis]], [[Robert Aldrich]], [[Nicholas Ray]], and [[Fritz Lang]].<ref name="Guardian Macnab"/> Subsequently, American critic [[Andrew Sarris]] latched onto the word, "auteur", and paired it with the English word, "theory"; hence coining the phrase the "[[auteur theory]]" by which this critical approach is known in English-language film criticism.<ref>{{cite journal
 | last = Sarris  | first = Andrew
 | date=Winter 1962–1963
 | title = Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962
 | journal = Film Culture
 | volume = 27
 | pages = 1–8
 }}</ref>

After the publication of Truffaut's article, Doniol-Valcroze and most of the ''Cahiers'' editors besides Bazin and Lo Duca rallied behind the rebellious authors; Lo Duca left ''Cahiers'' a year later,<ref name="Kehr"/> while Bazin, in failing health, gave editorial control of the magazine to Rohmer and largely left Paris, though he continued to write for the magazine.<ref name="bickerton21"/> Now with control over the magazine's ideological approaches to film, the younger critics (minus Godard, who had left Paris in 1952, not to return until 1956)<ref>Richard Brody, pp. 31–34.</ref> changed the format of ''Cahiers'' somewhat, frequently conducting interviews with directors deemed "auteurs" and voting on films in a "Council" of ten core critics.<ref name="bickerton22">Bickerton 2009, p. 22-23.</ref> These critics came to champion non-American directors as well, writing on the ''[[mise en scène]]'' (the "dominant object of study" at the magazine)<ref name="bickerton28">Bickerton 2009, p. 28.</ref> of such filmmakers as [[Jean Renoir]], [[Roberto Rossellini]], [[Kenji Mizoguchi]], [[Max Ophüls]], and [[Jean Cocteau]], many of whom Bazin had introduced them to.<ref name="bickerton22"/>

By the end of the 1950s, many of the remaining editors of ''Cahiers'', however, were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the mere act of writing film criticism. Spurred on by the return of Godard to Paris in 1956 (who in the interim had made [[Une femme coquette|a short film]] himself), many of the younger critics became interested in making films themselves. Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Doniol-Valcroze, and even Rohmer, who had officially succeeded Doniol-Valcroze as head editor in 1958, began to divide their time between making films and writing about them.<ref name="bickerton32">Bickerton 2009, p. 32-33.</ref> The films that these critics made were experimental explorations of various theoretical, artistic, and ideological aspects of the film form, and would, along with the films of young French filmmakers outside the ''Cahiers'' circle, form the basis for the cinematic movement known as the [[French New Wave]].<ref name="Kehr"/><ref name="BrodyNY">Brody, Richard (20 June 2017) [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/notes-on-cahiers ''Notes on Cahiers''] The New Yorker</ref> Meanwhile, ''Cahiers'' underwent staff changes, as Rohmer hired new editors such as Jean Douchet to fill the roles of those editors who were now making films, while other existing editors, particularly Jacques Rivette, began to write even more for the magazine.<ref name="bickerton38">Bickerton 2009, p. 32-38.</ref> Many of the newer critical voices (except for Rivette) largely ignored the films of the New Wave for Hollywood when they were not outright criticizing them, creating friction between much of the directorial side of the younger critics and the head editor Rohmer. A group of five ''Cahiers'' editors, including Godard and Doniol-Valcroze and led by Rivette, urged Rohmer to refocus the magazine's content on newer films such as their own. When he refused, the "gang of five" forced Rohmer out and installed Rivette as his replacement in 1963.<ref name="bickerton41">Bickerton 2009, p. 38-41.</ref>

Rivette<ref>{{cite web| url = http://sensesofcinema.com/2016/jacques-rivette/jacques-rivette-cahiers-du-cinema/| title = Jacques Rivette and Cahiers du cinéma · Senses of Cinema| date = 8 February 2005}}</ref> shifted political and social concerns farther to the left, and began a trend in the magazine of paying more attention to non-Hollywood films. The style of the journal moved through literary modernism in the early 1960s to radicalism and [[dialectical materialism]] by 1970. Moreover, during the mid-1970s the magazine was run by a [[Maoist]] editorial collective. In the mid-1970s, a review of the American film ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'' marked the magazine's return to more commercial perspectives, and an editorial turnover: ([[Serge Daney]], Serge Toubiana, Thierry Jousse, Antoine de Baecque, and Charles Tesson). It led to the rehabilitation of some of the old ''Cahiers'' favourites, as well as some new film makers like [[Manoel de Oliveira]], [[Raoul Ruiz]], [[Hou Hsiao-hsien]], [[Youssef Chahine]], and [[Maurice Pialat]]. Recent writers have included Daney, [[André Téchiné]], [[Léos Carax]], [[Olivier Assayas]], Danièle Dubroux, and Serge Le Péron.

In 1998, the Editions de l'Etoile (the company publishing ''Cahiers'') was acquired by the press group {{Lang|fr|[[Le Monde]]}}.<ref>Dowell, Ben (10 February 2009) [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/feb/10/le-monde-sells-cahiers-du-cinema "{{Lang|fr|Le Monde}} sells influential cinema magazine {{Lang|fr|Cahiers du Cinéma}}"] ''The Guardian''</ref> Traditionally losing money, the magazine attempted a make-over in 1999 to gain new readers, leading to a first split among writers and resulting in a magazine addressing all visual arts in a [[post-modernism|post-modernist]] approach. This version of the magazine printed ill-received opinion pieces on [[reality TV]] or [[video game]]s that confused the traditional readership of the magazine.<ref name="NYT Itzkoff" /><ref name="Guardian Macnab" />

{{Lang|fr|Le Monde}} took full editorial control of the magazine in 2003, appointing [[Jean-Michel Frodon]] as editor-in-chief. In February 2009, ''Cahiers'' was acquired from {{Lang|fr|Le Monde}} by Richard Schlagman, also owner of [[Phaidon Press]], a worldwide publishing group which specialises in books on the visual arts.<ref name="NYT Itzkoff"/> In July 2009, Stéphane Delorme and Jean-Philippe Tessé were promoted respectively to the positions of editor-in-chief and deputy chief editor.

In February 2020, the magazine was bought by several French entrepreneurs, including [[Xavier Niel]] and [[Alain Weill]].<ref>{{cite web
| url=https://www.lesinrocks.com/2020/02/11/cinema/actualite-cinema/rachat-des-cahiers-du-cinema-entre-inquietude-et-optimisme/
| title=Rachat des Cahiers du Cinéma : entre inquiétude et optimisme
| date=2020-02-11
| quote=''Dans un communiqué, plusieurs journalistes de la rédaction ont exprimé leur crainte quant à l'avenir de la revue, tandis que dans une interview à Télérama, le directeur général Eric Lenoir promet du renouveau.''
| publisher=[[Les Inrockuptibles]]
| access-date=2020-03-01}}</ref> The entire editorial staff resigned, saying the change posed a threat to their editorial independence.<ref>{{cite web
| url=https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/medias/clap-de-fin-pour-la-redaction-des-cahiers-du-cinema-1180672
| title=Clap de fin pour la rédaction des " Cahiers du cinéma "
| date=2020-02-28
| quote='' 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 », souligne le communiqué.''
| publisher=[[Les Echos (France)|Les Echos]]
| access-date=2020-03-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| url=https://www.acrimed.org/La-redaction-quitte-les-Cahiers-du-cinema
| title=La rédaction quitte les Cahiers du cinéma (communiqué)
| date=2020-02-27
| quote='' 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.''
| publisher=acrimed.org
| access-date=2020-03-01}}</ref>