The Suspended Meaning: Cahiers du cinéma and the French New Wave in the Early Sixties

Abstract

How does Cahiers du cinéma react to the emergence of the French New Wave? What are the strategies implemented by the magazine when confronted to the risk that the politique des auteurs could end up as a politique de l’amitié? While other magazines –such as Positif or Présence du cinéma– focus themselves to attack the new cineastes, Éric Rohmer (who has become the chief editor since his former colleagues decided to start a career in filmmaking) strengthens his preference for clacisism and avoids to make references to modern films. His refusal to any engagement with contemporaneity creates a source of friction within the magazine and, in the end, Rohmer would be replaced by Jacques Rivette. A new cicle begins: the new chief editor believes that modern cinema demands modern forms of criticism and that it is not a question of extracting meaning from films anymore but, instead, now it is all about suspending it. From the perpective of historical criticism, this article tries to reconstruct the different stages of that conflictive transitional moment. My intention is to show that a certain notion of modern cinema and a new conception of the image emerge as a result of that controversy.