A Passion for Films : Henri Langlois & the Cinematheque Francaise
"In this most engaging biography Richard Roud draws an affectionate portrait of Henri Langlois, a co-founder and the director of the Cinémathèque Française, a film library and screening room in Paris, tracing from November 1914 when he was born in Turkey until his death in January 1977... Roud is extremely informative, telling the reader about the wide variety of activities accomplished by Langlois both in France and abroad... What gives the whole book balance and integrity is the fact that the author's focus remains on Langlois' activities as an archivist who collects and exhibits films to thepublic as opposed to an archivist who just collects and stores them in a locked place... Roud provides us with an intensely vivid and illustrative account of the man whom Truffaut once described as a man as picturesque and as contradictory as a Dickens character, and the contribution he made to film culture both in France and abroad. Theimage of Henri Langlois which emerges from this book is certainly an intriguing figure with his absolutely extraordinary passion for films." -- Sachiko Shikoda, Scope: An On-Line Journal of Film Studies"Richard Roud has written a truly great and important book that cannot fail to be considered a major contribution to film history." -- Marcel Ophuls, American Film"Part scholarly biography and part personal memoir... this is a good place to start learning about one of film's most charismatic figures." -- Library Journal"A Passion for Films is a perfect title for Richard Roud's loving biography of Langlois... His book is also a personal memoir and a brief history of film archives and archivists. Most important, A Passion for Films provides an account of how Langlois virtually single-handedly created what we call today a film culture." -- Dan Isaac, New York Times Book Review"The greatest value of this book is the clear outline it gives of Langlois's career and the history of film archives... Langlois was a flawed man and a curator who aired his films a little too boldly sometimes. But as Roud argues, he was a key instigator of the last great burst of creative energy in filmmaking: the New Wave. America has so poor a record in preserving its own films that the story of Langlois's efforts makes a great lesson." -- David Thompson, New Republic