This could be the perfect holiday gift if you've ever dreamed of living in a 1960s French film. Philippe R. Doumic. L'oeil du cinéma, with its 200 black and white portraits, is the souvenir book of an eternally youthful era.

All the icons of 1960s French cinema passed before his lens: Anna Karina, Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve. Some of his photos have become legendary, known to all cinephiles, such as this image of Jean-Luc Godard, dark glasses and cigarette in beak, 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 Nouvelle Vague was beginning to make its mark, Philippe R. Doumic was hired by Unifrance, the agency promoting the image of French cinema abroad. Doumic was hired by Unifrance, the agency that promoted the image of French cinema internationally. Over the course of a decade, he produced more than 20,000 portraits. When he passed away, his daughter Laurence Doumic-Roux discovered two large boxes that had remained untouched for years. Inside, hundreds of negatives. Many never-before-seen photographs. To discover them today in the beautiful book published by Capricci, accompanied by a moving introduction, is to plunge back sixty years, as if it were yesterday.
Jacques Perrin is so young, Jean Marais is 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-entirely-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'OEIL DU CINÉMA
TEXT BY LAURENCE DOUMIC-ROUX
ÉDITIONS CAPRICCI
55,90 €
CAPRICCI.FR