ABSTRACT
As with Chapter 17, this chapter looks at works of contemporary modernist cinema, but the geographical focus is shifted from Western Europe to other parts of the world: the Eastern bloc, Latin America and Japan. While a certain degree of cultural alienation is unavoidable in their consideration of films from these regions, certain directors also became key points of reference for Cahiers during this period. The years 1968–1970 saw an intense interest in the work of Miklós Jancsó, with Jean-Louis Comolli and others writing at length on its thematization of Hungarian history and its formal rooting in direct cinema techniques, while Glauber Rocha and the cinema novo of Brazil was heralded (especially by Sylvie Pierre) as a highly politicized and visually exhilarating movement. But it was Japense cinema, and most notably the films of Nagisa Oshima, that was of most interest, captivating Cahiers critics such as Pascal Bonitzer with their combination of political radicalism and psychoanalytic symbolism.
