Bazin, the founding editor of Cahiers, made a more measured assessment: "René Clair has remained in a way a film-maker of the silent cinema. Whatever the quality and importance of his recent films, expression through the image always predominates over that of the word and one almost never misses the essence if one can only vaguely hear the dialogue." It was also in a special number of Cahiers du Cinéma reviewing the current state of the French cinema in 1957 that Clair received one of his most positive appreciations: "A complete film author who, since the silent era, has brought to the French cinema intelligence, refinement, humour, an intellectual quality that is slightly dry but smiling and in good taste.... Whatever may follow in his rich career, he has created a cinematic world that is his own, full of rigour and not lacking in imagination, thanks to which he remains one of our greatest film-makers." Such appreciations have subsequently been rare, and the self-contained artificiality of Clair's films, his insistence on the meticulous preparation of an often literary script, and his preference for filming in studio sets rather than on location increasingly set him apart from modern trends in film-making. The paradox of Clair's reputation has been further heightened by those commentators who have seen François Truffaut as the French cinema's true successor to Clair, notwithstanding the occasions of their mutual disdain. Filmography Feature films Paris qui dort (1924) Paris Asleep The Crazy Ray Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge (1925) The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge Le Voyage imaginaire (1926) The Imaginary Voyage La Proie du vent (1927) The Prey of the Wind Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (1928) An Italian Straw Hat Les Deux Timides (1928) Two Timid Souls Sous les toits de Paris (1930) Under the Roofs of Paris Le Million (1931) The Million À nous la liberté (1931) Freedom for Us Quatorze Juillet (1933) Bastille Day Le Dernier Milliardaire (1934) The Last Billionaire The Ghost Goes West (1935) Break the News (1938) The Flame of New Orleans (1941) I Married a Witch (1942) Forever and a Day (1943) It Happened Tomorrow (1944) And Then There Were None (1945) Le silence est d'or (1947) Silence Is Golden Man About Town La Beauté du diable (1950) Beauty of the Devil Les Belles de nuit (1952) Beauties of the Night Les Grandes Manœuvres (1955) The Grand Maneuver Summer Manoeuvres Porte des