André Bazin

His call for objective reality in film, as understood through the use of deep focus as well as the lack of montage, were linked to his belief that the interpretation of an entire movie or a specific scene should be left to the spectator. This placed him in opposition to prior film theorists, such as many writing during the 1920s and 1930s, who had emphasized how the cinema could manipulate reality. Bazin insisted that movies morally should serve as personalized projects by their directors to the degree that each and every one represents a director's individual vision, which reflected his broader psychological and philosophical beliefs about culture and the arts. Although his death at forty, occurring as his writing career gained momentum, kept him from witnessing the seminal works in the French New Wave period firsthand, Bazin's viewpoints exercised a large influence on those filmmakers. For instance, François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to Bazin in 1959.

• Name — André Bazin • Born — 18 April 1918 • Birthplace — Angers, Third French Republic • Died — 11 November 1958 • Place of death — Nogent-sur-Marne, France • Occupation — Film critic, film theorist • Education — École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud

André Bazin was born in Angers, France on 18 April 1918. After graduating from the École normale supérieure at Saint-Cloud in 1941, he pursued a career as a teacher, but was denied a teaching post due to his stammer. He then took part in the student organisation Maison des Lettres in Paris, where he founded a ciné-club during the German occupation of Paris. Bazin met future film and television producer Janine Kirsch while working at Labour and Culture, a militant organization associated with the French Communist Party during the war. They married in 1949 and had a son named Florent. Bazin was diagnosed with leukemia in 1954. He died at Nogent-sur-Marne on 11 November 1958, at the age of 40.

• François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to Bazin, who died one day after shooting began on the film. • Richard Linklater's film Waking Life features a discussion between filmmaker Caveh Zahedi and poet David Jewell regarding some of Bazin's film theories. There is an emphasis on Bazin's Christianity and the belief that every shot is a representation of God manifested in creation.

• Bazin, André. (2018). André Bazin: Selected Writings 1943–1958 (Timothy Barnard, Trans.) Montreal: caboose, • Bazin, André. (1967–1971). What is cinema? Vol. 1 & 2 (Hugh Gray, Trans., Ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. • Bazin, André. (1973). Jean Renoir (François Truffaut, Ed.; W.W. Halsey II & William H. Simon, Trans.). New York: Simon and Schuster. • Bazin, André. (1978). Orson Welles: a critical view. New York: Harper and Row. • Andrew, Dudley. André Bazin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. • Bazin, André. (1981). French cinema of the occupation and resistance: The birth of a critical esthetic (François Truffaut, Ed., Stanley Hochman, Trans.). New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co. • Bazin, André. (1982). The cinema of cruelty: From Buñuel to Hitchcock (François Truffaut, Ed.; Sabine d'Estrée, Trans.). New York: Seaver Books. • Bazin, André. (1985). Essays on Chaplin (Jean Bodon, Trans., Ed.). New Haven, Conn.: University of New Haven Press. LCCN 84-52687 • Bazin, André. (1996). Bazin at work: Major essays & reviews from the forties and fifties (Bert Cardullo, Ed., Trans.; Alain Piette, Trans.). New York: Routledge. (HB) (PB) • Bazin, André. (2005). French cinema from the liberation to the New Wave, 1945–1958 (Bert Cardullo, Ed.) Peter Lang Pub Inc.. UNO Press, University of New Orleans Press, [New Orleans, La.], ©2012,

• La politique des auteurs, edited by André Bazin. Interviews with Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni, Carl Theodor Dreyer and Roberto Rossellini • Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? (4 vols.), by André Bazin, originally published 1958–1962 (1958, 1959, 1961, 1962). New edition: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2003. • André Bazin – Écrits complets (2 vol.), éditions Macula, 2018

• What Is Cinema Vol. 1 and 2 on Internet Archive • "The Life and Death of Superimposition" (1946) • "Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry?" (1953) *