The Serpent's Egg (now available online)

UPDATE JUNE 2019: post replaced by this one.

Updated post with a link to the text, thanks to Steve Erickson.

The English edition of Cahiers du cinema has translated the special issue on "Two great moderns: Bergman and Antonioni" which has a translation of Daney's review of The Serpent's Egg (Bergman, 1977).

The Serpent's Egg
Cahiers du cinema, Special issue "Two great moderns", October 2007, pp. 35-36, Translation by Tom Mes. Initially published as "L'oeuf du serpent" in Cahiers du cinema, issue 285, February 1978, Page 45

Daney doesn't like the film but makes an interesting analysis on how this movie about the rise of Nazism takes the wrong approach:

"The entirely reactive The Serpent’s Egg is left-wing anti-fiction. The investigation, the will to solve the mystery is not driven by a hunger for truth, or by the desire to denounce and have clarity of vision, but by fear.

(...)

A film on the active nature of fear. As a form of resistance, it doesn’t amount to very much. "

Daney in other languages

The lack of English translations of Daney has just become more apparent after I’ve found many books of Daney in other languages.

With Daney’s key texts available in German, Italian and Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese, one wonders if the English-speaking film lovers are the only ones missing out on his writings.

Spanish

Argentinean publishers have released Daney’s texts from three of his books (La Rampe, Ciné Journal as well as the whole of Persevérance).

• Cine, Arte Del Presente, 2004, Buenos Aires, Santiago Arcos Editor
• Perseverancia: Reflexiones Sobre El Cine, 1998, Buenos Aires. Editiones El amante

German

A book called “Of the World in Pictures proposes late texts and interviews, including Perseverance.

• Von der Welt ins Bild, 2000, Berlin, Vorwerk 8 Verlag

Italian

Italian publishers have made the most consistent effort with no less than four books released since Daney’s death and covering his key texts from the time of Libération to Perséverance.

• Lo sguardo ostinato, Riflessioni di un cinefilo, Editrice Il Castoro, 1995
• Il cinema, e oltre, Diari 1988-1991, Editrice Il Castoro, 1997
• Cinema, televisione, informazione, Edizioni E/O, 1999
• Ciné Journal, Marsilio editori, 1999

Portuguese

The Sao Paolo 31st International Cinema Mostra is publishing a Brazilian/Portuguese translation of La rampe.

The English speakers are in fact in the same positions as Japanese speakers with only Perseverance – the only Daney book with no film criticism – available.

Let's have a thought for the South Korean students who contacted me to translate Daney from English to Korean. Publishers, one more effort. Please.