J. Hoberman presents Moi, un noir

Dir. Jean Rouch, 1958, 70 min

Introduced and book signing of Across the Movi-Verse: Writing on Film, 2011–2021 with J. Hoberman

To celebrate the publication of Across the Movi-verse, a brand-new anthology of J. Hoberman’s previously uncollected essays, tributes, reviews and ruminations from his post-Village Voice career, on subjects including the films of the Obama era, film maudit, Chantal Akerman, and Triumph of the Will, L’Alliance New York welcomes the legendary critic to present Jean Rouch’s seminal feature Moi, un noir, considered by Jean-Luc Godard to be “The greatest French film since the Liberation” and the subject of Hoberman’s essay “Moi, un noir: The Film is the Search.” “Working out his own particular destiny as an ethnographic filmmaker in France’s West African colonies, Rouch invented the French New Wave,” Hoberman writes. Moi, un noir, made in collaboration with the Nigerian longshoreman Oumarou Ganda, is “the movie that first put forth the echt-1960s notion that life itself is a sort of movie.”

J. Hoberman is “One of the few film writers whose work has no expiration date.”—Ted Loos, New York Times

J. Hoberman in person for introduction and book signing. Across the Movi-verse is published by Film Desk Books.