André Bazin (April 18, 1918–November 11, 1958) was a famous and influential French film critic and film theorist.

Biography

Bazin was born in Angers, France. He started to write on film in 1943 and was co-founder of the Cahiers du cinéma in 1951. As a spiritual father of the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) he was also a personal friend to Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Marcel Carné, Jean Cocteau, Henri Langlois, Luchino Visconti and Jean Renoir. He died in Nogent-sur-Marne , Île-de-France.

Bazin practically invented film studies – two of his translated collections of criticism are mainstays of film courses; What is Cinema, volumes 1 & 2. He wanted the film picture to be treated respectfully and believed in the unveiling potential of film: the possibility to depict reality. Bazin is known as a proponent of "appreciative criticism," wherein only critics who like a film can write a review of it, thus encouraging constructive criticism.

Bibliography

In English:

• What Is Cinema?, by André Bazin (1967)
• Orson Welles, by André Bazin (1979)
• French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistance: The Birth of a Critical Esthetic, by André Bazin (1982)
• The Cinema of Cruelty: From Bunuel to Hitchcock, by André Bazin (1982)
• Essays on Chaplin, by André Bazin (1985)
• Jean Renoir, by André Bazin (1992)
• Bazin at Work: Major Essays & Reviews from the Forties and Fifties, by André Bazin, Bert Cardullo (ed.) (1996)
• French Cinema from the Liberation to the New Wave, 1945-1958, by André Bazin, Bert Cardullo (ed.) (2004)

Online texts

• The Life and Death of Superimposition (1946)
• Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry? (1953)

External links

• André Bazin : An Unofficial Tribute to The World-Renowned Film Critic and Film Theorist
• André Bazin - Divining the real (page on BFI)
• André Bazin: Part 1, Film Style Theory in its Historical Context
• André Bazin: Part 2, Style as a Philosophical Idea