New Grammar

[Updated July 2019]

Bernadette Corporation published translations of Serge Daney in their magazine Made in USA in 1999. The magazine is available on Apple Books and it's well worth it (for a few dollars or sterling, you get the full magazine, plus two translations of Daney!).

What Out of Africa Produces

Extract: "Out Of Africa belongs to an actual 'genre': the film-which-is-an-ad-for-cinema, oscarizable genre which runs on a mixture of professionalism and pandering nostalgia [note: to designate this genre of films, Jean-Claude Biette has found an unbeatable expression: 'filmed cinema'.]. The annoying thing is that, on tv, this genre doesn't hold up. Or rather, it return to its original state: the ad." 

Made in USA, Issue 1, Fall/Winter 1999-2000, Translated by John Kelsey, pp. 106-8. First published in Libération on 11 October 1988; reprinted in Devant la recrudescence des vols de sac à main - cinéma, télévision, information, Aléas éditions, 1991.

New Grammar

First paragraph: "The annoying thing about television is that we still talk about it using the words of cinema. We're ridiculous and don't know it. We talk of shots, we talk of montage, of camera movements, of flash-backs. We act as if time in television was linear and its space was homogeneous. We (and our poor words) are completely wrong. We should change the vocabulary one of these days. And since the benefit of televised sports is to make this question a bit more concrete, we should make use of it."

Follows a brilliant text on the meaning of slow-motions, instant replays, close-ups and zooms on television during the 1984 Olympics. 

Made in USA, Issue 1, Fall/Winter 1999-2000, Translated by Antek Walczak, pp. 108-9. First published in Libération on 4 August 1984; reprinted in Ciné Journal, 1981-1986, Cahiers du cinéma / Seuil, 1986.