A shower of tributes, across borders. Upon the announcement of his death in Paris, on the afternoon of Monday, November 13, figures and institutions of the seventh art, colleagues from all over the world saluted in the media and social networks, his career, his insatiable love of cinema , its immense culture.
Michel Ciment may well have had a harsh tooth – very harsh sometimes – against certain films and the criticism of Cahiers du cinéma (“the historical enemy”)but also what he called ” The Bermuda Triangle “ (newspapers Release, The world, The Unrockuptibles), he has established himself among several generations as one of the great references in the field he has spent time covering, through voice and writing: cinema. A passion which brought together all the others which we could say animated him equally: literature, painting, theater, music.
Professor of American civilization at the University of Paris VII, historical critic of the journal Positiveradio man where he was a permanent member of the France Inter show The Mask and the Feather for half a century, author of several remarkable works, Michel Ciment died at the age of 85, his spirit, curiosity, capacities for enthusiasm or indignation intact.
“The French interlocutor of the greatest”
“ Only death could order him to shut up », writes Jérôme Garcin in his tribute published in The Obs. This long traveling companion of Michel Ciment Mask and the Feather affirmed on the latter that he was “ the most refined, the most erudite of critics. The least jaded, too. As if time, which usually tends towards disillusionment, had no control over its enchantment “.
So we heard his voice again, for the last time, at the end of September on France Inter. A fortnight later, on October 18, Michel Ciment was able to attend, moved, the ovation he received at the Louis Lumière Festival in Lyon where his sixty years of critical writing were celebrated, some of his texts having been read in front of the public by Thierry Frémaux. In a press release, the director of the Lumière Institute stressed on Tuesday that the death of Michel Ciment had “plunged into infinite sadness”. Recalling in passing that the journalist and essayist was “ the French interlocutor of the greatest, including Stanley Kubrick, to whom he dedicated a work read throughout the world [Kubrick, Calmann Levy, 1980]), Joseph Losey, Jane Campion, Theo Angelopoulos, John Boorman or Elia Kazan [auxquels il consacra des livres]. He was also a talent scout, traveling from festival to festival to support young international creation..
You have 45% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.