Thursday, March 05, 2009

Last Thoughts; birth of a journal (now online)

Thanks to the generosity of Vertigo Magazine, this text is now available online.

Last Thoughts; birth of a journal
Translated by Tom Milne, Vertigo Magazine, Vol. 1 No.1 Spring 1993. Originally published in French in Trafic, no. 1, Winter 1991.

After leaving Libération and "television criticism" in 1991, Serge Daney's ultimate "positive act" (in his words) was the creation of the film review Trafic, which continues to publish today. This is the translation (of extracts of?) the text Daney wrote in the first issue.

I remember reading it with all the excitement of discovering a major new film publication. The issue contains texts from Godard, Monteiro, Robert Kramer, and others. Now, I find the text a bit too symptomatic of Daney's last writings. There's a lot of melancholy. But he still manages to explore further one of the concepts he was keen on: resistance.

Anyway, enjoy! And thanks again to Vertigo.

2 comments:

  1. There seems to be a passage missing in the PDF,

    right after
    "Just as too many young aspirants don’t so much want to ‘make a film’ as to ‘be a film-maker’ at least once in their lives, it is possible that the audience for Silence of the Lambs is more anxious to ‘see cinema’ (and state-of-the-art cinema at that; in other words, obviously non-televisual) than to go on ..."

    (in the next page it continues "... really takes place..., which doesn't seem correct)

    Anyone has the missing sentences? Much obliged!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Stoffel,

    You're right. There's something not right here. I feel bad I didn't spot this one. And I don't even have the original text!

    Best place would be to ask Vertigo directly. They were very friendly when I contacted them and were happy enough to put the text on-line for free.

    ReplyDelete

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