The Radicalization of Cahiers: 1963-1969

This chapter gives an account of the political radicalization of Cahiers du cinéma between the years 1963 (when Éric Rohmer was ousted as editor-in-chief and replaced by Jacques Rivette) and 1969 (when “Cinéma/ Idéologie/Critique” was published). Whereas in the 1950s, Cahiers had been studiously eclectic in its political leanings, under Rohmer it veered towards the far right. Rivette’s editorship saw a corrective to this course, a tendency that was escalated when Comolli succeeded him in 1965. The left-wing orientation in the second half of the 1960s witnessed Cahiers’ participation in a number of key battles: from the censorship of La Réligieuse to the sacking of Henri Langlois as head of the cinémathèque and the national upheaval of May ’68, which affected the cinema as much as it did the rest of French daily life. At the same time, a younger crop of critics—including Serge Daney, Bernard Eisenschitz, Sylvie Pierre and Jacques Aumont—gravitated towards Cahiers during these years.