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André Bazin on Documentary

Cinema's Urge to Explore
by André Bazin (Author), Dudley Andrew (Editor), Natasa Durovicova (Translator), Deborah Glassman (Translator)
Hardcover Paperback eBook
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Apr 2026
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 445
ISBN: 9780520399440
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.5
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About the Book

Documentary is at the core of André Bazin’s immensely influential views of cinema. This collection, curated by renowned film scholar Dudley Andrew, brings to English-language readers sixty-two articles in which Bazin interrogated films about geography, history, animals, painting, and, especially, distant lands and peoples. Both an advocate and critic of popular science and exotic travelogues, Bazin applauded the creativity of impure forms like docu-fiction and the genre he baptized as the “essay film.” Engaging minor short subjects, as well as classic works by Robert Flaherty, Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais, and Chris Marker, Bazin’s incisive prose is at once intricately beautiful and playfully entertaining—and his brilliant reflections on both the morality and the aesthetics of documentary remain compelling and urgent today, when spectacles sold as reality flood our screens.

About the Author

André Bazin (1918–1958) was a supremely influential French film critic and theorist, and cofounder of the renowned Cahiers du cinema.

Dudley Andrew is author of many books, including What Cinema Is!: Bazin's Quest and its Charge, and has edited several collections of André Bazin’s writings. Named a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, he is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and of Film at Yale University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Deborah Glassman has translated numerous scholarly works, including Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Intersecting Lives and History of Structuralism, both by François Dosse. Formerly the director of the CIEE-UC film program in Paris, she has worked for decades in France, Tunisia, and other Francophone countries.

Nataša Durovicová is a film scholar and translator who works on the history of language transfers in cinema. She recently retired from her position as house editor of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, where she also taught the program's translation workshop. 

 

Table of Contents

Contents
 
Acknowledgments     
 
Introduction: Exploring Bazin on Documentary
           
PART ONE. FILMS OF EXPLORATION  
1. The Evolution of the Exploration Film       
2. Kon-Tiki; The Grandeur and Servitude of Filmed Reportage         
3. Scott of the Antarctic: Ice Without Eskimos          
4. Le Monde de silence (dir. Jacques Cousteau)        
5. A Terrific Program: Annapurna, Water Birds, Le Grand Méliès     
6. Spiritual Adventures: Naufragé volontaire and La Forêt sacrée    
7. La Forêt sacrée (The sacred forest)
8. Iawa: Man, the Unknown  
9. Now Showing: Lost Continent       
10. Lost Continent     
11. A Mock Documentary: Lost Continent    
12. Naked Amazon, “Dressed Up” Just a Bit  
13. Empire in the Sun
14. The Last Paradise 
15. Will Italian Cinema Abandon . . . Neorealism for Neo-exoticism?          
16. The Flute and the Arrow at Cannes         
17. Hunters, Learn to Hunt!   
18. Paysans noirs (Black farmers)      
19. A Teacher in Africa: La Plus Belle des vies 
20. Les Maîtres fous (dir. Jean Rouch)
 
PART TWO. DOCUMENTARY SUBJECTS          
A. Environment and the Humans Within It
21. Landscape in Cinema       
22. The Tour de France of French Cinema     
23. Farrebique, the Paradox of Realism        
24. Long Live Farrebique!      
25. Louisiana Story    
26. A Great Film: Flaherty’s Louisiana Story  
27. Crin Blanc (White Mane) 
 
B. Animals in the Lead
28. The Science Film: Accidental Beauty       
29. Animal Films Reveal the World of Cinema          
30. The Great Adventure       
31. The Perils of Perri
32. In the Sands of Central Asia, an Admirable Documentary          
33. Pity for the Animals         
34. Toro: A Revolution in Realism      
35. Afternoon of the Bulls: Ninety Minutes of Truth
36. Death Every Afternoon: La Course de taureaux  
 
C. The Extraordinary Within the Ordinary
37. Here’s Proof That the Short Is a Spectacle          
38. Sports Reporting in Televised News        
39. Winter Olympics: Skiing and Cinema      
40. Soviet Documentaries: In the Circus Arena and Whaling in the Antarctic          
41. Lourdes et ses miracles    
42. A Tele-Lensed Film: Little Fugitive
 
D. Bringing History Back to Life
43. La Bataille du rail (The Battle of the Rails)           
44. La Bataille du rail and Ivan the Terrible   
45. On Why We Fight: History, Documents, and Newsreels 
46. A True Film: Leclerc          
47. In Search of Lost Time: Paris 1900           
48. Clemenceau by Clemenceau       
49. André Gide, Alive and Well!        
50. Hôtel des Invalides (dir. Georges Franju) 
 
E. The New French Documentary
51. Statues Always Die Twice (dir. Alain Resnais and Chris Marker) 
52. Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog, dir. Alain Resnais)      
53. En liberté sur les routes d’URSS and Chris Marker’s Dimanche à Pékin 
54. Lettre de Sibérie (dir. Chris Marker)        
55. Lettre de Sibérie in a New Style: The “Documented Essay”
 
F. Documentary at the Edge: Art and Death
56. God, the Painter, and the Film on Art      
57. Picasso, Clouzot, and Metamorphosis     
58. Le Mystère Picasso          
59. Death on the Screen
           
G. Envoi
60. Every Film Is a Social Documentary         
 
ADDENDUM: TWO ESSENTIAL ESSAYS TRANSLATED BY HUGH GRAY
61. Cinema and Exploration  
62. Painting and Cinema        
 
Appendix: Chronological List of Articles        
Index of Film Titles     
General Index