This could be the perfect holiday gift if you’ve ever dreamed of living in a 1960s French film. Philippe R. Doumic, l’œil du cinéma, with its 200 black and white portraits, is the souvenir book of an eternally youthful era.
All the icons of the 1960s French cinema have passed before his lens: Anna Karina, Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve. Some of his photos are legendary, known to all cinephiles, such as this image of Jean-Luc Godard, dark glasses and cigarette in his mouth, examining a piece of film. Yet, during his lifetime, Philippe R. Doumic never rose to fame. When he passed away in 2013, many had forgotten his name, yet his photographs continue to populate magazine covers. They bear witness to a time when French cinema was rich, young and beautiful.
In those days, just as the New Wave was beginning to make its mark, Philippe Doumic was hired by Unifrance, the agency that promoted French cinema worldwide.
In the space of a decade, he produced over twenty thousand portraits. When he passed away, his daughter Laurence Doumic discovered two large boxes that had remained untouched for years. Inside, hundreds of negatives and many never-seen-before photographs. To discover them today in the beautiful book published by Capricci, accompanied by a moving introduction, is to plunge immediately sixty years back in time, as if it were yesterday.
Jacques Perrin is so young, Jean Marais so handsome. All these filmmakers – Agnès Varda, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy – are not yet forty, they still have their lives ahead of them. And those not-so-unknown faces: Dany Carrel, Geneviève Page, Jean-Louis Maury. What has become of them? Here they are, at least frozen in their happiness for eternity, in this extraordinary collection of portraits that will delight all cinephiles and the most nostalgic.
Philippe R. Doumic,
L’œil du cinéma, Capricci,
240 pages,
Price : 55.90€