Jean Mitry

Jean Mitry (French: [mitʁi]; 7 November 1904, Soissons, Aisne – 18 January 1988, La Garenne-Colombes) was a French film theorist, critic and filmmaker, a co-founder of France's first film society, and, in 1938, of the Cinémathèque Française.

Jean Mitry on the cover of The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema

Work

The first lecturer of film aesthetics in France, Mitry was one of the first intellectuals responsible for taking film studies out of the era of the film club and into that of the university.

Mitry was one of few major film theorists who worked in film production himself. He edited Alexandre Astruc's short film Le Rideau Cramoisi (1953) and directed two films of his own, Pacific 231 (1949), set to Arthur Honegger's music, and Images pour Debussy (1952), set to the music of Claude Debussy.

Selected filmography

• The Enigma of the Folies-Bergere (1959)

Works

• Introduction to film aesthetics (1960)
• Dictionary of cinema (1963)
• The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema (1965)
• History of cinema, 5 volumes (1967–1980)
• Experimental Cinema: History and perspectives (1974)
• Semiotics and the Analysis of Film (new edition 2000)