very interesting french book:
http://www.champ-vallon.com/Pages/PagesOrd'A/LiandratGagnebin2.html
>-- Original Message --
>Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:54:47 +0100
>Reply-To: Film-Philosophy Salon <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Michael Chanan <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: The Essay Film
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>In historical terms, the essay film is not to be considered ?different?
from
>documentary but a type or style of documentary. It is no more possible to
>define it than to define documentary as such. (It would be better to think
>of documentary in the same sort of way that Wittgenstein would have us think
>of forms of life like games, which come in families and are related by
>family resemblance; and in that case, documentary is like an extended family
>of films which overlap with fiction in some respects but not others. Essay
>films might then be regarded as a branch of the documentary family, but
this
>metaphor shouldn?t be pushed too far.)
>
>The term was introduced in post-war France (as ?film d?essai?) to describe
>documentaries which approached their subject in the same way as a literary
>essay - not to present a factual report but a space of reflection on a theme
>- and calling it an essay also indicated the personal voice of the
>film-maker. The paradigms were such films as Le Sang des Bêtes and Hôtel
>des
>Invalides by Franju, which comprise strictly observed images, but as the
>idiom evolved it readily expanded to encompass any and every kind of visual
>material. Chris Marker, who is perhaps the film essayist par excellence,
>was
>doing this already in Letter from Siberia in 1958.
>
>If you can read French, there?s a good webpage at
>http://www.cotecourt.org/html/categorie.asp?id=39, which includes the full
>listings of a 20-programme retrospective.
>
>Michael Chanan
>blog at http://humaninbristol.blogspot.com
>
>
>
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