Marcelline Block and Jennifer Kirby
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474456012
- eISBN:
- 9781474490672
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474456012.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In their chapter, Marcelline Block and Jennifer Kirby consider cinematic lineage and influence. This chapter argues that Gondry’s most recent feature, Microbe & Gasoline, a picaresque narrative, ...
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In their chapter, Marcelline Block and Jennifer Kirby consider cinematic lineage and influence. This chapter argues that Gondry’s most recent feature, Microbe & Gasoline, a picaresque narrative, draws from the conventions of the road movie through its focus on social outsiders, light-hearted depiction of run-ins with the police, and emphasis on male bonding. This film also provides commentary on the notion and definition of “home” in France. Microbe & Gasoline, which follows two teenage boys taking a 250-mile-long journey through France in a makeshift house on wheels, links a coming-of-age narrative to a growing awareness of the complexities and divisions within France. In this film, Gondry depicts his trademark childhood play and whimsy alongside a sobering adult realization of injustices in the world. Representing yet another form of border crossing, the film blends conventions from the American road movie with the French road movie’s potential for what Gott calls “elaborating flexible, transnational and multicultural alternatives to a monolithic version of France.” It serves to reinforce Gondry’s status as an auteur whose work is frequently transnational in character, recalling Hill’s claim that Gondry is the spiritual heir to Jean Cocteau and Georges Méliès, as well as Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg.Less
In their chapter, Marcelline Block and Jennifer Kirby consider cinematic lineage and influence. This chapter argues that Gondry’s most recent feature, Microbe & Gasoline, a picaresque narrative, draws from the conventions of the road movie through its focus on social outsiders, light-hearted depiction of run-ins with the police, and emphasis on male bonding. This film also provides commentary on the notion and definition of “home” in France. Microbe & Gasoline, which follows two teenage boys taking a 250-mile-long journey through France in a makeshift house on wheels, links a coming-of-age narrative to a growing awareness of the complexities and divisions within France. In this film, Gondry depicts his trademark childhood play and whimsy alongside a sobering adult realization of injustices in the world. Representing yet another form of border crossing, the film blends conventions from the American road movie with the French road movie’s potential for what Gott calls “elaborating flexible, transnational and multicultural alternatives to a monolithic version of France.” It serves to reinforce Gondry’s status as an auteur whose work is frequently transnational in character, recalling Hill’s claim that Gondry is the spiritual heir to Jean Cocteau and Georges Méliès, as well as Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg.
Andrew A. Erish
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780813181196
- eISBN:
- 9780813181202
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813181196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
For more than a century, the origin story of the American film industry has been that the founders of Paramount and Fox invented the feature film, that Universal created the star system, and that ...
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For more than a century, the origin story of the American film industry has been that the founders of Paramount and Fox invented the feature film, that Universal created the star system, and that these three companies (along with the heads of MGM and Warner Bros.) were responsible for developing the multi-billion-dollar business we now know as Hollywood. Unfortunately for history, this is simply not true. Andrew A. Erish's definitive history of this important but oft-forgotten studio compels a reassessment of the birth and development of motion pictures in America. Founded in 1897, the Vitagraph Company of America (later known as Vitagraph Studios) was ground zero for American cinema. By 1907, it was one of the largest film studios in America, with notable productions including the first film adaptation of Les Misérables (1909); The Military Air-Scout (1911), considered to be one of the first aviation films; and the World War I propaganda film The Battle Cry of Peace (1915). In 1925, Warner Bros. purchased Vitagraph and all of its subsidiaries and began to rewrite the history of American cinema. Drawing on valuable primary material overlooked by other historians, Erish challenges the creation myths marketed by Hollywood's conquering moguls, introduces readers to many unsung pioneers, and offers a much-needed correction to the history of commercial cinema.Less
For more than a century, the origin story of the American film industry has been that the founders of Paramount and Fox invented the feature film, that Universal created the star system, and that these three companies (along with the heads of MGM and Warner Bros.) were responsible for developing the multi-billion-dollar business we now know as Hollywood. Unfortunately for history, this is simply not true. Andrew A. Erish's definitive history of this important but oft-forgotten studio compels a reassessment of the birth and development of motion pictures in America. Founded in 1897, the Vitagraph Company of America (later known as Vitagraph Studios) was ground zero for American cinema. By 1907, it was one of the largest film studios in America, with notable productions including the first film adaptation of Les Misérables (1909); The Military Air-Scout (1911), considered to be one of the first aviation films; and the World War I propaganda film The Battle Cry of Peace (1915). In 1925, Warner Bros. purchased Vitagraph and all of its subsidiaries and began to rewrite the history of American cinema. Drawing on valuable primary material overlooked by other historians, Erish challenges the creation myths marketed by Hollywood's conquering moguls, introduces readers to many unsung pioneers, and offers a much-needed correction to the history of commercial cinema.
