LETTERS
Kudos from a Longtime Supporter I first encountered Gary Crowdus and his fledgling magazine in the early 1970s. In the 1976 edition of The International Film Guide, I wrote, “If the Alternative Cinema ever elects an official magazine, then Cineaste should top the poll. Edited with persistence and good sense by Gary Crowdus, this periodical covers film theory and political cinema, and its interviews are always extensive.” By 1988, I was endorsing it even more enthusiastically: “Perhaps the finest anti-establishment movie magazine, never afraid to tackle controversial issues and never prone to Hollywood worship.” Returning to the readership fold after far too long an absence, I find that Cineaste has both matured and evolved. It has no need to be “antiestablishment” because there is no establishment in the film magazine field in the U.S. Gone are the days when one would eagerly await the arrival of Film Comment, American Film, Films in Review, or Premiere. This is both sad and inevitable. The Internet has siphoned off most of our intelligent film criticism, and the egregious blog lurks in every corner of the Web. It’s clear that the magazine’s center of gravity has shifted toward Europe—and beyond. The Fall issue’s main features were devoted to veteran names from the old continent—Chantal Akerman, Jerzy Skolimowski, Catherine Breillat, and Agnieszka Holland. All these cineastes, whether alive or dead, have had the courage to experiment with the film form, and to do so, moreover, without succumbing to the arcane or the esoteric. All too much writing on film dwells on content, rather than form. Thanks to Cineaste, I have a feeling that form is returning to the position of importance it held during the Golden Age of foreign cinema (1957–68?), when Antonioni, Godard, and Resnais were pushing the envelope of film expression. That the magazine appears to be in such robust health may well be due to the accessibility of virtually every kind of film. Almost every title referred to in interviews can be found on disc— DVD, Blu-ray, or 4K. Still more are alive and kicking on streaming platforms such as The Criterion Channel, Hulu, Sundance Now, Magnolia or in the U.K., the British Film Institute BFI Player or Curzon Home Cinema. I suspect that many a reader of Cineaste will take a disc out of its slipcase after reading a piece in the magazine and watch all or part of a film again with peeled eyes. So, while the streaming phenomenon has taken a serious chunk out of the exhibitors’ market, it has rendered the task, and duty, of a magazine like Cineaste that much more relevant. I’m happy to find that book reviews continue to occupy a goodly proportion of the pages in each issue. Of course, it’s my own stock in trade, but film books are still allotted far too little space in national papers or major arts magazines. And it’s commendable that Cineaste in its previous issue should put the spotlight on film archive librarians, without whom film historians like myself would be starved of oxygen. On the cusp of its Golden Jubilee, Cineaste has survived where others have withered away. Bravo, Cineaste!
Peter Cowie
Chailly-Montreux, Switzerland A Brief Review Comment
Cineaste is the most enjoyable and informative film magazine in English. Routinely, I find myself grabbed by some attractive article or interview, only to read the entire issue through, something I don’t do even with The New Yorker. In fact, I usually start with the book reviews, so as to keep up with topics and trends in our field. Reviews act like sandpaper, usually gently burnishing a new publication, but sometimes rubbing hard enough to produce the heat of friction. I appreciate the latter, because they can pry open a contrary perspective on a topic sealed off by the book’s covers. Darragh O’Donoghue clearly knows enough to pry open my French Cinema: A Very Short Introduction [Book Briefs, Cineaste, Fall 2024]. Thankfully he likes much of what he finds. What he doesn’t like are some of the choices he understands were dictated by the format. How did I neglect Vigo, for instance, an auteur I’ve published scores of pages on before? That was my mistake, especially since Vigo stands at the source of “The Cahiers Line,” a throughline that the book demonstrates has made French cinema stand out.
Instead of questioning omissions, I wish he had argued with this premise, since it justifies my choices. It also rhetorically demands the flow of the two-part final chapter in which, as he rightly puts it, the “greater gender and racial diversity of French cinema this millennium” (developed across ten pages), “ends with ten pages on…twenty-first-century inheritors of the New Wave spirit.” I won’t fault his failing to address other premises, such as French cinema’s alternation between “makeup” and “démaquillage,” its twenty-year periodicity, and its status among the arts. After all, his had to be a ‘brief review’ of a “very short introduction,” that happily grabbed his attention.
Dudley Andrew New Haven, CT
Long Overdue Praise for Film Librarians
Much gratitude is due Philippe Garnier for his wonderful piece on film librarians [“Let Us Now Praise Remarkable Librarians,”
Cineaste, Fall 2024]. I would like to add my own thanks to the late Ned Comstock. I talked to Ned on the phone (this was during the height of COVID) in the middle of his very last week before retiring from USC about my book on Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg forthcoming from Yale's Jewish Lives series. Though time was unusually tight for Ned, he emailed me an extraordinary collection of material, everything from a handwritten note from Lillian Gish to King Vidor about The Big Parade to transcripts of Thalberg's legendary story conferences. I remain today, as I was then, flabbergasted by his exceptional knowledge and generosity. His like may not be seen again.
Kenneth Turan Pacific Palisades, CA
A Reader for Decades I started reading Cineaste in California when I was studying film at San Francisco State in the 1970s. I subscribed when I moved to Oregon forty-five years ago and my current move to Washington wouldn’t be right without making sure my subscription followed me. Thank you for updating my mailing address. I have subscribed to other film journals over the years, but I have kept every single back issue of Cineaste I have acquired or received, and they have all moved with me once again, this time from Eugene to Seattle. Speaking of acquired back issues, I recently secured a copy of Cineaste’s very first issue published in 1967. On the first page of that issue, I was pleasantly surprised to read that your magazine was intended “for the young, developing filmmaker.” The description could have depicted me almost fifty years ago as a recently graduated history major beginning graduate studies in film studies and 16mm production. Your magazine spoke to my ambitions to do independent documentary filmmaking on historical and political subjects. Although my career eventually took me into broadcast journalism, I have consistently found your in-depth analysis of films in a social, political, and cultural context thoughtful and stimulating reading. Thank you for a most wonderful film journal. Its excellence, in my humble opinion, remains undiminished.
Bill Goetz Seattle, WA
Letters to the Editors
Readers’ letters of comment should be emailed to cineaste@cineaste.com. Please try to keep your letters to 500 or fewer words. Authors of letters chosen for publication will receive a free one-year subscription or an extension of their current subscription.
CINEASTE, Winter 2024 3
