Roland Barthes' Cinema

The most famous name in French literary circles from the late 1950s till his death in 1981, Roland Barthes maintained a contradictory rapport with the cinema. As a cultural critic, he warned of its surreptitious ability to lead the enthralled spectator toward an acceptance of a pre-given world. As a leftist, he understood that spectacle could be turned against itself and provoke deep questioning of that pre-given world. And as an extraordinarily sensitive human being, he relished the beauty of images and the community they could bring together.

1. Offers the first systematic English-language critical treatment of Barthes' writing on cinema

2. Provides detailed analysis of the various stages of Barthes's intellectual itinerary

3. Examines Barthes's explicit and implicit dialogue with France's leading postwar film critic, André Bazin

4. Includes nine translated texts written by Barthes about cinema, as well as an exclusive interview with renown public intellectual Jacues Raciére