Cinéma 61 N°57 Juin 1961

Paris: C.I.B.- Fédération française des Ciné- clubs, 1961. 12mo (18×13,5cm), illustrated wrappers. 160pp. Text in French. Mild edge wear with moderate rubbing and reading creases to spine. Contens clean and unmarked. Very good and better.

La Fédération française des ciné-clubs was a French association founded at the end of 1946 by Jean Painlevé that brought together more than 100,000 members from over 150 film clubs, until its end of activities in 1989. From 1947 to 1951, the F.F.C.C. published the internal newsletter Ciné-Club, which was transformed into the monthly review Cinéma in November 1954 with Pierre Billard as editor-in-chief.This issue of Cinéma presents all films shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961.

Pierre Ballard described them as only mediocore, but also notes that cinema is now at a historical moment with a néo-cinéma on the rise, focusing more on personal expression, spontaneity, and more directly linked the author. It is the same year that Last Year at Marienbad won the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival, and a year after Godard’s Breathless.

It also includes the piece Apologie de Chris Marker, which contains the commentary text of Marker’s then newly released film Description d’un combat, interwoven with a fantastic essay by Raymond Bellour and Jean Michaud. Description d’un combat was originally to be released under the title Letter from Tel Aviv, as a sequel of Letter from Siberia. Twelve years after Israel‘s declaration of independence, Chris Marker traveled through Israel documenting the young state with humor and poetry, connecting it to ancient mythology.