Janine Bazin

Intimate portrait of Abel Ferrara: the result is an eccentric road movie, with the restless film maker as a charming, shabby guide around New York by night.

Made for "Cinéma, de notre temps" series. Interview with Georges Franju (1912-1987), a figure of immense importance in the history of French cinema, not primarily for his films (exceptional though many of these are) but for being the co-founder, with Henri Langlois, of the Cinémathèque Française in 1936, France's most famous and important film archive.

Janine Bazin and André Labarthe approached Chantal Akerman about making a film for the series; eagerly, Akerman proposed a number of filmmakers—but all had already been done. So she suggested…“How about me?” Akerman creates a fascinating self-portrait that takes us through her career, aided by critics Emmanuel Burdeau and Jean Narboni and filmmaker Luc Moullet.

Paulo Rocha catches up with his “beloved subject” in Porto, where he made Douro, Faina Fluvial in 1929, and where today Oliveira reminisces about the figure of his father, his first experience of cinema as an actor, his past as a racing driver, his first technical experiences…

Paulo Rocha catches up with his “beloved subject” in Porto, where he made Douro, Faina Fluvial in 1929, and where today Oliveira reminisces about the figure of his father, his first experience of cinema as an actor, his past as a racing driver, his first technical experiences…

Made for "Cinéma, de notre temps" series. In a peaceful residence near the Loire River, Chabrol raised his favorite characters : monsters. In this documentary, we can see him actively working on the adaptation of Simenon's novel "Betty", and answering the questions posed by Jean Douchet (his former colleagues at the magazine "Cahiers du Cinéma"). Excerpts from The Butcher (Le Boucher), Violette Nozière, The Hatter's Ghost (Les Fantômes du chapelier) and Masks (Masques) will punctuate their meaningful and witty conversation.

This film of interviews with the film director Jacques Rivette was produced in collaboration with Serge Daney, film critic from “Cahiers du cinéma”, then of “Liberation”. In the course of their conversations, the two speakers discuss Rivette’s career, his relationships with the other film makers of the new wave, his use of “mise en scene” and his working with actors.

Amazing documentary shows rarely seen side of a master director. 1990 was a very good year for Martin Scorsese. After making a diverse group of films in the 80s, he reunited with Robert DeNiro for "Goodfellas" and later that year shot a segment for "New York Stories", an anthology film of three shorts by Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Francis Ford Coppola. During the editing, the French documentary series "Cinéma, de notre temps" filmed a documentary on the director, and it's a fascinating glimpse into his life, personality, and working habits as he edits his short with long-time collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker.

A documentary about American director David Lynch from the Cinéma, de notre temps series.

Gérard Courant applies the Lettrist editing techniques of Isidore Isou to footage of late 70's pop culture. Courant posits that his cinema offers an aggressive détournement to the French mainstream, reifying a Duchampian view of film: "I believe in impossible movies and works without meaning... I believe in the anti-movie. I believe in the non-movie. I believe in Urgent... My first full length movie that is so anti-everything that I sometimes wonder if it really does exist!"

Henri Langlois, founder and director of the Cinémathèque française, is interviewed in his museum at the Palais de Chaillot and talks about cinema. “Henri Langlois's anti-courses” are made up of a set of short films, or more exactly of chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a filmmaker or to a significant pivotal period of such or such a country and of such or such style, or to a group of men whose action was, at one time, decisive for the course of cinema.

Shot while he was preparing Un Flic, Melville carefully leads Labarthe through the trajectory of his career, from his daring debut The Silence of the Sea to his great successes of the 1960s, Le Samourai and Le cercle rouge. Labarthe also details the development of the Melville “myth: the dark glasses, the trenchcoats, the Ford Mustang, and his general tough-guy demeanor. This documentary first appeared as an episode on the French television series "Cinéastes de notres temps".

Episode of the French television series about the work of François Truffaut.

In the third part of a Cinéastes triptych on Jean Renoir, the director sits alone in a cinema analyzing scenes from La Marseillaise and The Rules of the Game, and discussing his editing and storytelling techniques.

Speaking as scenes from Anatahan are shown, for which he directed, photographed, wrote, and provided voiceover narration, film director Josef von Sternberg takes the viewer on a fantastic filmmaking journey in this presentation of Cinéastes de notre temps: Josef von Sternberg - From Silence Comes Another.

Episode of the French television series about the work of film director Jacques Becker. (A 27-minute excerpt from this show appears on the Criterion Collection's release of "Casque d'Or." )

An hour-long discussion between Fritz Lang and Jean-Luc Godard in which they discuss a variety of art forms, the role of the cinema, their collaboration together, and much more. (Filmed in 1964 but released for TV in 1967.)

Second in the documentary trilogy from mastermind Jacques Rivette, featuring a conversation between Jean Renoir and Michel Simon

The first of three documentaries by Rivette on Jean Renoir.

Celluloid and Marble is based on Rohmer's own articles published in "Cahiers du cinéma", discussing film in relation to the other arts, maintaining that, in an age of cultural self-consciousness, cinema was “the last refuge of poetry” - the only contemporary art form from which metaphor could still spring naturally and spontaneously.

An episode of the television program Cinéastes de notre temps in which the director gives his first on-camera interview.

Three-part interview with French film director Jean Renoir, conducted by French New Wave director Jacques Rivette.