Authors: Susan Hayward, Ginette (Eds.) Vincendeau, Ginette Vincendeau
ISBN-13: 9780415161183, ISBN-10: 0415161185
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Date Published: January 2000
Edition: 2nd Edition
The second edition of this innovative textbook brings together leading scholars to provide detailed analyses of twenty-two key films within the canon of French cinema, from the 1920s to the 1990s. Films discussed include:
* masterpieces such as Renoir's La Bete Humaine and Carne's Les Enfants du Paradis
* popular classics such as Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Ma Nuit chez Maud
* landmarks of the New Wave such as Les 400 Coups and A bout de souffle
* important films of the 1990s such as Nikita and La Haine
The films are considered in relation to such issues as the history of French cinema, the social and cultural contexts of their production and reception, the relationship with Hollywood cinema, gender politics, authorship and genre. Each article is accompanied with a guide to further reading and a filmography of the director, and the new edition also includes a fully revised introduction and a bibliography on French cinema.
List of plates | ix | |
Notes on contributors | xi | |
Preface | xv | |
Acknowledgements | xvii | |
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | In the name of the father: Marcel Pagnol's 'trilogy' Marius (1931), Fanny (1932), Cesar (1936) | 27 |
3 | The fleeing gaze: Jean Renoir's La Bete humaine (1938) | 42 |
4 | Poetic realism as psychoanalytical and ideological operation: Marcel Carne's Le Jour se leve (1939) | 63 |
5 | Beneath the despair, the show goes on: Marcel Carne's Les Enfants du paradis (1943-5) | 78 |
6 | The sacrament of writing: Robert Bresson's Le Journal d'un cure de campagne (1951) | 89 |
7 | A breath of sea air: Jacques Tati's Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1952) | 100 |
8 | Casque d'or, casquettes, a cask of ageing wine: Jacques Becker's Casque d'or (1952) | 112 |
9 | No place for homosexuality: Marcel Carne's L'Air de Paris (1954) | 127 |
10 | The script of delinquency: Francois Truffaut's Les 400 coups (1959) | 142 |
11 | 'It really makes you sick!': Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle (1959) | 158 |
12 | The fall of the gods: Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mepris (1963) | 174 |
13 | Mise-en-scene degree zero: Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai (1967) | 189 |
14 | Eye for irony: Eric Rohmer's Ma nuit chez Maud (1969) | 202 |
15 | Sex, politics and popular culture: Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses (1973) | 213 |
16 | The anti-carnival of collaboration: Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien (1974) | 227 |
17 | Maternal legacies: Diane Kurys' Coup de foudre (1983) | 240 |
18 | Representing the sexual impasse: Eric Rohmer's Les Nuits de la pleine lune (1984) | 253 |
19 | Beyond the gaze and into femme-filmecriture: Agnes Varda's Sans toit ni loi (1985) | 269 |
20 | Versions, verse and verve: Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) | 281 |
21 | Recycled woman and the postmodern aesthetic: Luc Besson's Nikita (1990) | 297 |
22 | Designs on the banlieue: Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995) | 310 |
Selected bibliography on French cinema | 328 | |
Index | 337 |