Tifenn Brisset

Hitchcock Before Cahiers: Postwar Auteurism in L’Écran Français

The most famous and documented part of Hitchcock’s relationship to France is the critical reception by Cahiers du Cinéma during the 1950s. But close attention to L’Écran Français, another film magazine (now forgotten), reveals its importance in the construction of Hitchcock's authorship. This presentation covers the highlights of my essay called "Hitchcock and L'Écran Français, at the Roots of the Politique des Auteurs?", soon to be published in Re-viewing Hitchcock: New Critical Perspectives (Robert Kapsis, ed.). As far as we know, Roger Thérond and Jean-Charles Tacchella were the first ones to take Hitchcock so seriously, as early as 1945. This presentation presents some of the writings in this quite unfairly forgotten journal, which anticipated the positive reception of Hitchcock that we normally associate with the Cahiers critics.

About
Tifenn Brisset has a doctorate in philosophy and is a lecturer in film studies in the Language, Literature, Performing Arts, Information and Communication, Journalism Department at Grenoble Alpes University, France. Her doctoral thesis focused on the links between philosophy and the cinema. Her essays on Hitchcock have appeared in several publications, including The Hitchcock Annual, L’Avant-Scène Cinema, LaFuria Umana, Positif, and Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism (forthcoming).