A Passion for Films : Henri Langlois & the Cinematheque Francaise

by Richard Roud

"Richard Roud has brought to life a man as picturesque and as contradictory as a Dickens character... Thanks to Roud... a thick and well-kept-up curtain of mystery rises to reveal to us the founder of the Cinémathèque Française, a man who was both unassuming and extravagant, a fabulous man, an obsessed man, and man animated by an idée fixe, a haunted man." -- François Truffaut, from the Foreword When Henri Langlois began collecting prints of films in the 1920s, most people -- even many in the film industry -- thought of movies as a cheap and disposable form of entertainment. Langlois recognized them as a priceless form of art and worthy of preservation. In 1935, he founded the Cinémathèque Française, the legendary film library and screening room in Paris which Jean Renoir described as "the church for movies" and Bernardo Bertolucci called "the best school of cinema in the world." Indeed, some of the world's most influential filmmakers -- including Godard, Resnais, Truffaut, Rivette, and Wenders -- learned their craft by watching the classic films Langlois devoted his life to saving from destruction and obscurity. As Richard Roud reveals in this "affectionate, intriguing biography" (Times Literary Supplement), Langlois was a brilliant and temperamental man who could be, by turns, charming and maddening. Marvelously creative, Langlois was also so incredibly disorganized that, once the Cinémathèque became a government institution, he was dismissed as its director in 1968 by then Minister of Culture André Malraux, an action which caused Europe's eminent film personalities to protest in the street of Paris until he was reinstated. By the time of his death in 1977, Langlois's genius for rediscovering the cinema of the past (he championed the works of Abel Gance, Carl Dreyer, and Louis Feuillade when they were considered passé by his contemporaries and defended Howard Hawks against the disdain of American intellectuals) and his desire to share his discoveries with the world (at a time when other film archives refused to screen any of the films in their collection) had inspired a great and abiding love of cinema in a generation of filmgoers, leaving behind a legacy director Nicholas Ray considered "perhaps the most important individual effort ever accomplished in the history of the cinema."

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Biography, France

256 pages, Paperback

Published June 17, 1999

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all Richard Roud is one of the great film historians/critics from the 60's and 70's - and still around I hope - and second of all this is a great biography on one of the great heroes of the 20th Century - Henri Langlois, the father of Cinematheque Francaise in Paris. Film collector galore, but also saved a lot of films during the german occupation. Supported a lot of filmmakers from the grand era as well as a meeting hall for the upcoming French New Wave. Cinema lovers unite by reading this really superb biography.

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 4 out of 5]

an affirming and inspiring little book to read in light of recent personal events lol. down with corporate cinemas and streaming services that first hoard then limit access to archives, up with independent cinemas and archives actually focused on showing their stuff. henri is the patron saint of cinema and so i love him.

[Empyrean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice history lesson on Langlois but that's all really. I'd liked to have gained some further insights into his eclectic taste and methods of curating certain films against one another but that isn't really the focus of Roud's work here. Certainly worth a read for those who are curious about the history of film curation and preservation - like Godard (I think) said, "we're all Langlois' children"

[AUGUSTO BAZAN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended to any body who loves cinema. The story of a self-made man whose passion saved the jewels of French and, later, world cinematography. I visited the Cinematheque Francaise and it is a living museum to the seventh art. And it was all his iniciative and work without or with very little official support. The book not only covers his life, but the history of cinema as he saw it.

[Victor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

FINAL:
I've been itching to read about Langlois, especially when I learned that a documentary, now on DVD, had been made about him about 8 years ago. This was a good basic overview of his life, work, personality and legacy. I thought the book flagged a bit in the latter stages, especially as it delved in too much detail into a City Center project in New York (which seems to go nowhere) that appeared to involve Langlois only marginally and was probably more of interest to Roud as an example of NYC politics. I honestly skimmed through these parts of the book. Apparently there's a newer bio of Langlois that goes more deeply into his personality and into the collective French psyche, vis a vis, their love of the cinema. I think I'd like to track down that book someday to get the rest of the story. But this one by Roud was a creditable first attempt to look at the legendary archivist, a man who has been called "the conscience of the cinema." He won an honorary Academy Award in 1973 for his efforts to save massive numbers of forgotten movies. I think it's pretty sad that, of all the great directors of the New Wave who got their start under Langlois' tutelage, only Alain Resnais actually bothered to show up at Langlois' funeral. I already had enormous respect for Resnais as a film artist; my admiration for him just shot up even more reading this. The rest of what I have to say is below.

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Initial thoughts:
Quite fortuitous that this should appear now on the clearance shelf at the bookstore, right as I'm in deep cinema mode, viewing many rare and/or famous titles -- titles that in many cases Langlois himself saved from general neglect and complete destruction. It's pretty clear that Langlois is every bit as important a figure in the history of the cinema as any of its great directors. The book states, not without good authority, that the French New Wave, and thus the entire modern postwar cinema, would not have happened if Langlois had not collected all of those old films, founded the Cinematheque Francaise in which to store and screen them and welcomed into that "church" practically every one of the future major directors the Nouvelle vague: Truffaut, Resnais, Rivette, Godard, and on and on. It was there that they learned what they needed to know to radically transform the movies and consequently change how we as viewers approach narrative - or, indeed, confront the explosion of narrative. Langlois, unlike his American archivist contemporary, Iris Barry at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, did not approach film collection as a selective activity; he did not judge good or bad. Every inch of exposed film mattered to him, and that's why films that were panned in their day or considered unfashionable at the time were saved, so that time and the judgment of the scholars, critics and audiences could catch up and change -- as so often happens with film. When practically everyone else was ready to trash the entire legacy of silent film, Langlois stepped up as virtually its one and only savior. Langlois was an eccentric and not prone to follow "scientific" or rigorous methods of archiving, to say the least. He was a poet among archivists; what he could not prove he could intuit. He understood, even without knowing what time and science have since proven correct, that films can only be preserved by showing them, just as a Persian rug fares best when walked upon. Roud quotes another cineaste, rightly, who called Langlois, the first "auteurist" -- partly because he realized that it was equally as important to save the works of contemporary directors as those of the old masters, even commercial ones less regarded than the artists of the past (Howard Hawks is cited as an example; Langlois was the first to recognize his importance and for decades the Cinematheque was the only place on Earth where you could see virtually all of his extant films). Reading this with great enthusiasm and interest. Roud's writing is clear, to the point and non theoretical. No bullshit = My cup of tea.