The Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma (1968-1973)

The uprising which shook France in May 1968 also had a revolutionary effect on the country’s most prominent film journal. Under editors Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, Cahiers du cinéma embarked on a militant turn that would govern the journal's work over the next five years. Inspired by Marxist and psychoanalytic theory, the "red years" of Cahiers du cinéma produced a theoretical outpouring that was seminal for the formation of film studies and is still of vital relevance for the contemporary audiovisual landscape.

The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinéma (1968-1973) gives an overview of this period in the journal’s history and its aftermath, combining biographical accounts of the critics who wrote for Cahiers in the post 1968 period with theoretical explorations of their key texts.

Fairfax Daniel :

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

"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