Itinéraire d'un ciné-fils with English subtitles

Paul Grant reports that a copy of Pierre-André Boutang & Dominique Rabourdin's 1992 documentary/interview with Daney is available with English subtitles. This was screened in 2003 by the Harvard Film Archive as part of a Daney festival.

Original is available in DVD in French from Montparnasse editions.

Documenta texts

Several translations seem to appear in Documenta catalogs:

- "Baby seeking bathwater" in Documenta Documents 1, Kassel, 1996, pp. 22-31. Original text is "Bébé cherche eau du bain" published in Libération in 1991.

- Documenta Documents 2 claims to contain "Diverse articles by the French film theoretician and social critic Serge Daney deal with the image in advertising, with the moving image in film as well as with paradigmatic films by Godard and Rossellini." I don't have the detail of these. One of the articles could be "From movies to moving".

- Documenta X contains the translation of "Before and after the image" that is available on Steve Erickson's website.

Steve Erickson's website

Steve Erickson, a New York film critic, lists on his website many English translations of Daney's writings. This was (and still is) the original effort to make Daney available on the Internet. All credit to him for starting this effort and triggering many subsequent similar efforts (such as this blog).

Below is a list of the articles that can be found on Steve's website (and not available elsewhere) with the equivalent French reference:

• "On Salador"- Originally published as “Sur Salador” in Cahiers du cinéma, issue 222, July 1970, page 39, unknown translator
• "Godardian Pedagogy" - Translated by Bill Krohn and Charles Cameron Ball, originally published as "Le thérrorisé (pédagogie godardienne)" in Cahiers du cinéma, issue 262, January 1976, pages 32-42.
• "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" - Translated by Steve Erickson, originally published "L'invraisemblable vérité" in Libération on July 18, 1981
• "Stalker" - Translated by Frank Matcha with Steve Erickson, originally published in Libération on November 20th, 1981
• "Coup De Torchon" - Translated by Steve Erickson, with assistance from Philippe St-Germain, originally published in Libération on November 6, 1981
• "The Thread (An Obituary Of Jean Eustache)" - Originally published "Le fil (mort de Jean Eustache)" in Libération on November 16, 1981, translated by Steve Erickson
• "Too Early/Too Late"- Translated by Jonathan Rosenbaum, published in English in a catalogue for a Straub/Huillet retrospective at the Public Theater in New York, originally published as "Trop tôt / trop tard" in Libération on February 20-21, 1982
• "From The Large To The Small Screen" - Originally published as "Du grand au petit écran" in Libération on November 16, 1987
• "Television And Its Shadow" - Originally published as "La télévision et son ombre" in Libération on November 13, 1987
• "Back To The Future" - Originally published as "Retour vers le futur" in Libération on December 24, 1987
• "Waiting For The Snow" - Originally published as "En attendant la neige" in Libération on December 24, 1987
• "The Godard Paradox" - taken from the book Forever Godard, Black Dog Publishing, 2003, originally written in 1986
• "CEDDO" - a review of Ousmane Sembene's movie originally published in Cahiers du cinéma, issue 304, October 1979, page 51-53 and republished in La rampe.

Cinema in transit - aborted translation project

[UPDATED 6/5/2020]

Steve Erickson - the pioneer when it comes to making translations of Serge Daney available online - had found the existence of an unpublished project to translate Daney in English:

"Thanks to the graciousness of editor Paul Willemen, I've finally managed to get a copy of the manuscript for Daney's CINEMA IN TRANSIT, an unpublished English-language anthology acquired by the British Film Institute in 1994."

The scope of the project is a great selection of texts from Devant la recrudescence des vols de sacs à mains and Ciné Journal (articles written for Libération between 1981 and 1991) but the quality of the translation is not always great and, in my experience, almost always requires corrections or re-work. I have used it to help with some translations but would advise against publishing it as it is.

Max, mon amour (Max my love) - review

I'm not sure about the chances to get hold of this but the website of the Museum Informatics Project mentions that Daney's review of Nagisa Oshima's Max mon amour is in the press kit published by Greenwich Film Production S.A.

Philippe Garrel’s L’Enfant secret (1982)

Rouge (excellent film magazine by the way) has this translation of Daney's review of Garrel's L'enfant secret.

Philippe Garrel’s L’Enfant secret (1982), Rouge, issue 1, 2003, translated by Fergus Daly and Adrian Martin

The tracking shot in Kapo

Senses of cinema has a translation of one of Daney's last texts: The Tracking Shot in Kapo

The tracking shot in Kapo, Senses of Cinema, Jan-Feb 2004, Issue 30.

Originally published as "Le travelling de Kapo" in Trafic, issue 4, P.O.L. Editions, 1992. It was also published in Perséverance: Entretien avec Serge Toubiana, P.O.L. Editions, 1994.

The translation is by the author of this blog.

Introduction

This blog attempts to keep track of all the english translations of texts by French film critic Serge Daney.

If a link is not provided, then the article is not available directly online and I do not have a copy.

Please use the Comments for questions.

Good reading,
Laurent Kretzschmar