Claire Gorrara
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199246090
- eISBN:
- 9780191697555
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199246090.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter discusses the ways the French film industry responded to the arrival of American films and the introduction of film noir.
This chapter discusses the ways the French film industry responded to the arrival of American films and the introduction of film noir.
David Platten
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719078163
- eISBN:
- 9781781705056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719078163.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter argues that the French popular film is a contradiction in terms: French cinema has long been associated with high culture, and despite the iconoclastic verve and youth appeal of the ...
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This chapter argues that the French popular film is a contradiction in terms: French cinema has long been associated with high culture, and despite the iconoclastic verve and youth appeal of the Nouvelle Vague, the longer-term impact of this hugely influential movement was to reinforce perception of French film as self-reflexive and demanding rather than aimed at a wide audience. It defines cinema as an intrinsically popular medium. Not only does cinema's visual storytelling appeal across levels of education and class, but the ontological shift its invention produced in the subject's relationship to space, time and other subjectivities gave pleasure to the mass of the population. Developments in cinema's wonderful capacity to take people elsewhere continue to thrill a socially diverse public, and to inflect their vision in the widest senses of the word.Less
This chapter argues that the French popular film is a contradiction in terms: French cinema has long been associated with high culture, and despite the iconoclastic verve and youth appeal of the Nouvelle Vague, the longer-term impact of this hugely influential movement was to reinforce perception of French film as self-reflexive and demanding rather than aimed at a wide audience. It defines cinema as an intrinsically popular medium. Not only does cinema's visual storytelling appeal across levels of education and class, but the ontological shift its invention produced in the subject's relationship to space, time and other subjectivities gave pleasure to the mass of the population. Developments in cinema's wonderful capacity to take people elsewhere continue to thrill a socially diverse public, and to inflect their vision in the widest senses of the word.
Ian Aitken and Camille Deprez
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474407205
- eISBN:
- 9781474430487
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474407205.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Introduction sets out an overview of the book and summaries of the individual chapters in the book. In addition, the Introduction also provides a justification for the geographical scope and time ...
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The Introduction sets out an overview of the book and summaries of the individual chapters in the book. In addition, the Introduction also provides a justification for the geographical scope and time frame of the book, attempts to arrive at a definition of the colonial documentary film, and seeks to establish and analyse the encounter between colonialism and documentary cinema in South and South-East Asia. In addition, the Introduction also attempts to reassess current understandings of the colonial documentary film.Less
The Introduction sets out an overview of the book and summaries of the individual chapters in the book. In addition, the Introduction also provides a justification for the geographical scope and time frame of the book, attempts to arrive at a definition of the colonial documentary film, and seeks to establish and analyse the encounter between colonialism and documentary cinema in South and South-East Asia. In addition, the Introduction also attempts to reassess current understandings of the colonial documentary film.
Lisa Purse
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638178
- eISBN:
- 9780748670857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638178.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter considers action cinema in relation to issues of globalisation and the international film marketplace, and looks at the stylistic exchanges that result in the light of recent debates ...
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This chapter considers action cinema in relation to issues of globalisation and the international film marketplace, and looks at the stylistic exchanges that result in the light of recent debates about whether multi-country co-productions can (or should) protect a national cultural identity. Arguing that many countries, not just the US, are now attempting an ‘internationalising formula’ for the action movie that will maximise their international box office potential, the chapter makes a case study of a particular region, focusing on recent films of the French production company EuropaCorp. The contemporary French action ?lm has become a key site of controversy in national debates about cultural imperialism, cultural identity and indigenous ?lm style. Looking at Banlieue 13 and Danny the Dog the chapter analyses the stylistic and representational tensions that can result from putting the internationalising formula into practice.Less
This chapter considers action cinema in relation to issues of globalisation and the international film marketplace, and looks at the stylistic exchanges that result in the light of recent debates about whether multi-country co-productions can (or should) protect a national cultural identity. Arguing that many countries, not just the US, are now attempting an ‘internationalising formula’ for the action movie that will maximise their international box office potential, the chapter makes a case study of a particular region, focusing on recent films of the French production company EuropaCorp. The contemporary French action ?lm has become a key site of controversy in national debates about cultural imperialism, cultural identity and indigenous ?lm style. Looking at Banlieue 13 and Danny the Dog the chapter analyses the stylistic and representational tensions that can result from putting the internationalising formula into practice.
Gillian Doyle
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748698233
- eISBN:
- 9781474416122
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698233.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter positions the role and development of UK film policy within the domain of politics and political culture. It highlights the culture-commerce dichotomy that has run through UK film policy ...
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This chapter positions the role and development of UK film policy within the domain of politics and political culture. It highlights the culture-commerce dichotomy that has run through UK film policy for decades. It also highlights the growth of digital and creative economy policy thinking and the positioning of film policy within this discourse. The latter part of the chapter explores international models of film support, contrasting the UK approach with that of France.Less
This chapter positions the role and development of UK film policy within the domain of politics and political culture. It highlights the culture-commerce dichotomy that has run through UK film policy for decades. It also highlights the growth of digital and creative economy policy thinking and the positioning of film policy within this discourse. The latter part of the chapter explores international models of film support, contrasting the UK approach with that of France.
Marja Warehime
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719068225
- eISBN:
- 9781781703267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719068225.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter presents a profile of the French film director Maurice Pialat. Pialat's work inspires comparison with legendary figures such as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson, yet he does not have the ...
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This chapter presents a profile of the French film director Maurice Pialat. Pialat's work inspires comparison with legendary figures such as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson, yet he does not have the international reputation one might expect, given his gifts as a director and his importance in French cinema history. Pialat's death in 2003 inevitably situated him as a filmmaker of the 1980s, the decade in which his work began to receive serious critical attention and attracted a broader public. Yet by 1983, when A nos amours won the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc and the César for best film, he had been making films for over twenty years. Perhaps one of the most telling moments in Maurice Pialat's ongoing relationship with film and the French film-going public was the scandal at Cannes over the attribution of the Palme d'or in 1987. If the name Pialat is not without significance to the French filmgoing public, it is partly because he acquired the reputation of a singularly difficult and demanding director, who provoked and psychologically abused his actors and collaborators.Less
This chapter presents a profile of the French film director Maurice Pialat. Pialat's work inspires comparison with legendary figures such as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson, yet he does not have the international reputation one might expect, given his gifts as a director and his importance in French cinema history. Pialat's death in 2003 inevitably situated him as a filmmaker of the 1980s, the decade in which his work began to receive serious critical attention and attracted a broader public. Yet by 1983, when A nos amours won the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc and the César for best film, he had been making films for over twenty years. Perhaps one of the most telling moments in Maurice Pialat's ongoing relationship with film and the French film-going public was the scandal at Cannes over the attribution of the Palme d'or in 1987. If the name Pialat is not without significance to the French filmgoing public, it is partly because he acquired the reputation of a singularly difficult and demanding director, who provoked and psychologically abused his actors and collaborators.
Alison J. Murray Levine
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786940414
- eISBN:
- 9781789629408
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786940414.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Vivre Ici analyzes a selection of films from the vast viewing landscape of contemporary French documentary film, a genre that has experienced a renaissance in the past twenty years. The films are ...
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Vivre Ici analyzes a selection of films from the vast viewing landscape of contemporary French documentary film, a genre that has experienced a renaissance in the past twenty years. The films are connected not just by a general interest in engaging the “real,” but by a particular attention to French space and place. From farms and wild places to roads, schools, and urban edgelands, these films explore the spaces of the everyday and the human and non-human experiences that unfold within them. Through a critical approach that integrates phenomenology, film theory, eco-criticism and cultural history, Levine investigates the notion of documentary as experience. She asks how and why, in the contemporary media landscape, these films seek to avoid argumentation and instead, give the viewer a feeling of “being there.” As a diverse collection of filmmakers, both well-known and less so, explore the limits and possibilities of these places, a collage-like, incomplete, and fragmented vision of France as seen and felt through documentary cameras comes into view. Venturing beyond film analysis to examine the production climate for these films and their circulation in contemporary France, Levine explores the social and political consequences of these “films that matter” for the viewers who come into contact with them.Less
Vivre Ici analyzes a selection of films from the vast viewing landscape of contemporary French documentary film, a genre that has experienced a renaissance in the past twenty years. The films are connected not just by a general interest in engaging the “real,” but by a particular attention to French space and place. From farms and wild places to roads, schools, and urban edgelands, these films explore the spaces of the everyday and the human and non-human experiences that unfold within them. Through a critical approach that integrates phenomenology, film theory, eco-criticism and cultural history, Levine investigates the notion of documentary as experience. She asks how and why, in the contemporary media landscape, these films seek to avoid argumentation and instead, give the viewer a feeling of “being there.” As a diverse collection of filmmakers, both well-known and less so, explore the limits and possibilities of these places, a collage-like, incomplete, and fragmented vision of France as seen and felt through documentary cameras comes into view. Venturing beyond film analysis to examine the production climate for these films and their circulation in contemporary France, Levine explores the social and political consequences of these “films that matter” for the viewers who come into contact with them.
Caroline Eades
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031229
- eISBN:
- 9781617031236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031229.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores the relationship between the Italian neorealist and French New Wave movements, and suggests that their connection is “complex,” concocted out of similarities rather than direct ...
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This chapter explores the relationship between the Italian neorealist and French New Wave movements, and suggests that their connection is “complex,” concocted out of similarities rather than direct linkages. It asks the following question: Can we assume that the influence of neorealism on New Wave directors lies precisely in the realization that it was neither new nor realistic, at least for a younger and restless generation?Less
This chapter explores the relationship between the Italian neorealist and French New Wave movements, and suggests that their connection is “complex,” concocted out of similarities rather than direct linkages. It asks the following question: Can we assume that the influence of neorealism on New Wave directors lies precisely in the realization that it was neither new nor realistic, at least for a younger and restless generation?
Ben McCann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719091148
- eISBN:
- 9781526124111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091148.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter will analyse Duvivier’s career in Hollywood. He was first invited to Hollywood by MGM in 1938 to direct The Great Waltz, and then moved to America shortly after the German occupation of ...
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This chapter will analyse Duvivier’s career in Hollywood. He was first invited to Hollywood by MGM in 1938 to direct The Great Waltz, and then moved to America shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940. He directed four films there during this period, including Lydia (1941) and The Impostor (1944), a loose remake of La Bandera (1935). The chapter explores the various techniques and themes that Duvivier developed during this period, and looks at the critical reception of his films in both French and American trade journals.
The chapter also poses the question of whether a distinctively French cinematic sensibility can be recalibrated within the confines of the Classic Hollywood Cinema (CHC) tradition. Duvivier adapted to a different set of professional and commercial imperatives that enabled him to transcend infrastructural barriers and impose a distinctly French style on the American film industry.Less
This chapter will analyse Duvivier’s career in Hollywood. He was first invited to Hollywood by MGM in 1938 to direct The Great Waltz, and then moved to America shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940. He directed four films there during this period, including Lydia (1941) and The Impostor (1944), a loose remake of La Bandera (1935). The chapter explores the various techniques and themes that Duvivier developed during this period, and looks at the critical reception of his films in both French and American trade journals.
The chapter also poses the question of whether a distinctively French cinematic sensibility can be recalibrated within the confines of the Classic Hollywood Cinema (CHC) tradition. Duvivier adapted to a different set of professional and commercial imperatives that enabled him to transcend infrastructural barriers and impose a distinctly French style on the American film industry.
Margaret Atack
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198715153
- eISBN:
- 9780191694929
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198715153.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This book studies ‘May 68’ in fiction and in film. It looks at the ways the events themselves were represented in narrative, evaluates the impact these crucial times had on French cultural and ...
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This book studies ‘May 68’ in fiction and in film. It looks at the ways the events themselves were represented in narrative, evaluates the impact these crucial times had on French cultural and intellectual history, and offers readings of texts that were shaped by it. The chosen texts concentrate upon important features of May and its aftermath: the student rebellion, the workers strikes, the question of the intellectuals, sexuality, feminism, the political thriller, history, and textuality. Attention is paid to the context of the social and cultural history of the Fifth Republic, to Gaullism, and to the cultural politics of gauchisme. The book aims to show the importance of the interplay of real and imaginary in the text(s) of May, and the emphasis placed upon the problematic of writing and interpretation. It argues that re-reading the texts of May forces a reconsideration of the existing accounts of postwar cultural history. The texts of May reflect on social order, on rationality, logic, and modes of representation, and are this highly relevant to contemporary debates on modernity.Less
This book studies ‘May 68’ in fiction and in film. It looks at the ways the events themselves were represented in narrative, evaluates the impact these crucial times had on French cultural and intellectual history, and offers readings of texts that were shaped by it. The chosen texts concentrate upon important features of May and its aftermath: the student rebellion, the workers strikes, the question of the intellectuals, sexuality, feminism, the political thriller, history, and textuality. Attention is paid to the context of the social and cultural history of the Fifth Republic, to Gaullism, and to the cultural politics of gauchisme. The book aims to show the importance of the interplay of real and imaginary in the text(s) of May, and the emphasis placed upon the problematic of writing and interpretation. It argues that re-reading the texts of May forces a reconsideration of the existing accounts of postwar cultural history. The texts of May reflect on social order, on rationality, logic, and modes of representation, and are this highly relevant to contemporary debates on modernity.
Felicity Chaplin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526109538
- eISBN:
- 9781526128263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526109538.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The association of woman with Paris and death was a popular trope in nineteenth-century French culture and finds expression in cinematic representations of the Parisienne as femme fatale. This ...
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The association of woman with Paris and death was a popular trope in nineteenth-century French culture and finds expression in cinematic representations of the Parisienne as femme fatale. This chapter considers la Parisienne as femme fatale in Jules Dassin’s Du rififi chez les hommes (1955), Marcel Carné’s Le jour se lève(1939) and Le quai des brumes(1938), and Jean-Luc Godard’s A bout de souffle (1960). These films can be considered examples of French film noir and their female protagonists read as femme fatales. However, the femme fatale of French film noir is different from the femme fatale of American film noir; she comes from a different cultural tradition and is informed by a different cultural figure.
This chapter argues that the development of the femme fatale as a cinematicarchetype passed through a cultural tradition not usually associated with the noir genre: nineteenth-century French culture and the tradition of the filles d’Eve embodied in the type la Parisienne. The French version of this archetype grew out of the popular nineteenth-century trope of the association of woman with the city and death. Indeed, there is an aesthetic and narrative overdetermination of the femme fatale by the figure of la Parisienne, particularly through iconographical motifs associated with the type, like fashion, ambiguity, sexuality and dangerLess
The association of woman with Paris and death was a popular trope in nineteenth-century French culture and finds expression in cinematic representations of the Parisienne as femme fatale. This chapter considers la Parisienne as femme fatale in Jules Dassin’s Du rififi chez les hommes (1955), Marcel Carné’s Le jour se lève(1939) and Le quai des brumes(1938), and Jean-Luc Godard’s A bout de souffle (1960). These films can be considered examples of French film noir and their female protagonists read as femme fatales. However, the femme fatale of French film noir is different from the femme fatale of American film noir; she comes from a different cultural tradition and is informed by a different cultural figure.
This chapter argues that the development of the femme fatale as a cinematicarchetype passed through a cultural tradition not usually associated with the noir genre: nineteenth-century French culture and the tradition of the filles d’Eve embodied in the type la Parisienne. The French version of this archetype grew out of the popular nineteenth-century trope of the association of woman with the city and death. Indeed, there is an aesthetic and narrative overdetermination of the femme fatale by the figure of la Parisienne, particularly through iconographical motifs associated with the type, like fashion, ambiguity, sexuality and danger
Tami Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038471
- eISBN:
- 9780252096365
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038471.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter focuses on Dulac's wartime activism and literary writings, as well as the debut of her film career—from her first activities as a film producer for Pathé (La Lumière du coeur, 1916) to ...
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This chapter focuses on Dulac's wartime activism and literary writings, as well as the debut of her film career—from her first activities as a film producer for Pathé (La Lumière du coeur, 1916) to her first directorial efforts (Soeurs ennemies to Le Bonheur des autres, 1917–18)—and evaluates the historical significance of her incursion into and negotiated course within the French film industry as a female artist and entrepreneur. A close examination of archival sources documenting Dulac's early professional activities provides insight into her humanist egalitarianism, universalism, and her strong belief in the emancipatory potential of art, as well as her early rhetorical strategies.Less
This chapter focuses on Dulac's wartime activism and literary writings, as well as the debut of her film career—from her first activities as a film producer for Pathé (La Lumière du coeur, 1916) to her first directorial efforts (Soeurs ennemies to Le Bonheur des autres, 1917–18)—and evaluates the historical significance of her incursion into and negotiated course within the French film industry as a female artist and entrepreneur. A close examination of archival sources documenting Dulac's early professional activities provides insight into her humanist egalitarianism, universalism, and her strong belief in the emancipatory potential of art, as well as her early rhetorical strategies.
Tony Perrello
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604734539
- eISBN:
- 9781621031048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604734539.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the transnational career of Alexandre Aja, one of the hot young horror directors who has migrated from his native country to the U.S film industry. It focuses on the ...
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This chapter examines the transnational career of Alexandre Aja, one of the hot young horror directors who has migrated from his native country to the U.S film industry. It focuses on the characteristic features of Aja’s style and his thematic preoccupations, which have survived the transition from France to the United States. What emerges from the analysis is a reconsideration of the classic auteur’s creative autonomy within the context of genre cinema’s ability to transcend national and cultural boundaries.Less
This chapter examines the transnational career of Alexandre Aja, one of the hot young horror directors who has migrated from his native country to the U.S film industry. It focuses on the characteristic features of Aja’s style and his thematic preoccupations, which have survived the transition from France to the United States. What emerges from the analysis is a reconsideration of the classic auteur’s creative autonomy within the context of genre cinema’s ability to transcend national and cultural boundaries.
Christian Viviani
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474406550
- eISBN:
- 9781474416146
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474406550.003.0013
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the appeal of Preston Sturges’s movies among post-WWII French film critics. Focusing on La Revue du cinema (founded in 1946), it tries to understand why, after being hailed in ...
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This chapter discusses the appeal of Preston Sturges’s movies among post-WWII French film critics. Focusing on La Revue du cinema (founded in 1946), it tries to understand why, after being hailed in France as one of the major filmmakers emerging in Hollywood in the 1940’s, Preston Sturges was nevertheless overlooked by the “auteur theory,” which was soon to bloom in Cahiers du cinema (founded in 1951). This chapter also deals with the appreciation of Preston Sturges’s works by André Bazin, a towering figure in post-war French film criticism, and in publications like Cahiers du cinema and Positif, including the recent rediscovery of his films.Less
This chapter discusses the appeal of Preston Sturges’s movies among post-WWII French film critics. Focusing on La Revue du cinema (founded in 1946), it tries to understand why, after being hailed in France as one of the major filmmakers emerging in Hollywood in the 1940’s, Preston Sturges was nevertheless overlooked by the “auteur theory,” which was soon to bloom in Cahiers du cinema (founded in 1951). This chapter also deals with the appreciation of Preston Sturges’s works by André Bazin, a towering figure in post-war French film criticism, and in publications like Cahiers du cinema and Positif, including the recent rediscovery of his films.
Andrew V. Uroskie
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226842981
- eISBN:
- 9780226109022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226109022.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
For decades, the canonical histories of postwar avant-garde cinema have begun with the “mythopoetic” and “visionary” ideas of Deren and Brakhage, in utter neglect of the radical Lettrist cinema by ...
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For decades, the canonical histories of postwar avant-garde cinema have begun with the “mythopoetic” and “visionary” ideas of Deren and Brakhage, in utter neglect of the radical Lettrist cinema by which Brakhage was himself inspired. This chapter explores the brief flowering of Lettrist cinema in Paris of the early ‘50s as establishing the aesthetic and theoretrical foundation of the Expanded Cinema and intermedia practices of the 1960s and ‘70s. Isidore-Isou’s Treatise on Slobber and Eternity (1951) inaugurates the movement with its conception of a radically disjunctive aesthetics, prefiguring both the sound/image mismatch of Jean-Luc Godard and the critical film essays of Chris Marker. Maurice Lemaître’s Has the Film Begun? (1952) extends this disjunctive conception to cinema’s theatrical situation, presenting an idea of synthetic cinema-performance which frustates the distinction between the local and cinematic space.Less
For decades, the canonical histories of postwar avant-garde cinema have begun with the “mythopoetic” and “visionary” ideas of Deren and Brakhage, in utter neglect of the radical Lettrist cinema by which Brakhage was himself inspired. This chapter explores the brief flowering of Lettrist cinema in Paris of the early ‘50s as establishing the aesthetic and theoretrical foundation of the Expanded Cinema and intermedia practices of the 1960s and ‘70s. Isidore-Isou’s Treatise on Slobber and Eternity (1951) inaugurates the movement with its conception of a radically disjunctive aesthetics, prefiguring both the sound/image mismatch of Jean-Luc Godard and the critical film essays of Chris Marker. Maurice Lemaître’s Has the Film Begun? (1952) extends this disjunctive conception to cinema’s theatrical situation, presenting an idea of synthetic cinema-performance which frustates the distinction between the local and cinematic space.
Reidar Due
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231167338
- eISBN:
- 9780231850513
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231167338.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter studies the classical narrative French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. French classical love films also possess a moral core, but the structure of morality in classic French cinema is ...
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This chapter studies the classical narrative French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. French classical love films also possess a moral core, but the structure of morality in classic French cinema is very different from that of American films. Morality in French film is often embedded in a social world shown to be more or less corrupt. French cinema also displays a subtler and less verbal eroticism than that of the classical American film. Many classical French films display desires that are not romantic or compatible with any kind of marital solution. An example of this is Melville and Cocteau's 1951 psychological study La Chambre, which depicts an incestuous relationship between brother and sister. Classical French cinema is a cinematic narrative form, in which characters are often bound to a place as to their fate.Less
This chapter studies the classical narrative French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. French classical love films also possess a moral core, but the structure of morality in classic French cinema is very different from that of American films. Morality in French film is often embedded in a social world shown to be more or less corrupt. French cinema also displays a subtler and less verbal eroticism than that of the classical American film. Many classical French films display desires that are not romantic or compatible with any kind of marital solution. An example of this is Melville and Cocteau's 1951 psychological study La Chambre, which depicts an incestuous relationship between brother and sister. Classical French cinema is a cinematic narrative form, in which characters are often bound to a place as to their fate.
Martin O'Shaughnessy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719091506
- eISBN:
- 9781781708590
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091506.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Laurent Cantet is of one France’s leading contemporary directors. He probes the evolution and fault-lines of contemporary society from the home to the workplace and from the Republican school to ...
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Laurent Cantet is of one France’s leading contemporary directors. He probes the evolution and fault-lines of contemporary society from the home to the workplace and from the Republican school to globalized consumption more acutely than perhaps any other French film-maker. His films always challenge his characters’ assumptions about their world. But they also make their spectators rethink their position in relation to what they see. This is what makes Cantet such an important film-maker, the book argues. It explores Cantet’s unique working ‘method,’ his use of amateur actors and attempt to develop an egalitarian authorship that allows other voices to be heard rather than subsumed. It discusses his way of constructing films at the uneasy interface of the individual, the group and the broader social context and his recourse to melodramatic strategies and moments of shame to force social tensions into view. It shows how the roots of the well-known later films can be found in his early works. It explores the major fictions from Ressources humaines to the recent Foxfire, Confessions of a Girl Gang. It combines careful close analysis with attention to broader cinematic, social and political contexts while drawing on a range of important theorists from Pierre Bourdieu to Jacques Rancière, Michael Bakhtin and Mary Ann Doane. It concludes by examining how, resolutely contemporary of the current moment, Cantet helps us rethink the possibilities and limits of political cinema in a context in which old resistances have fallen silent and new forms of protest are only emergent.Less
Laurent Cantet is of one France’s leading contemporary directors. He probes the evolution and fault-lines of contemporary society from the home to the workplace and from the Republican school to globalized consumption more acutely than perhaps any other French film-maker. His films always challenge his characters’ assumptions about their world. But they also make their spectators rethink their position in relation to what they see. This is what makes Cantet such an important film-maker, the book argues. It explores Cantet’s unique working ‘method,’ his use of amateur actors and attempt to develop an egalitarian authorship that allows other voices to be heard rather than subsumed. It discusses his way of constructing films at the uneasy interface of the individual, the group and the broader social context and his recourse to melodramatic strategies and moments of shame to force social tensions into view. It shows how the roots of the well-known later films can be found in his early works. It explores the major fictions from Ressources humaines to the recent Foxfire, Confessions of a Girl Gang. It combines careful close analysis with attention to broader cinematic, social and political contexts while drawing on a range of important theorists from Pierre Bourdieu to Jacques Rancière, Michael Bakhtin and Mary Ann Doane. It concludes by examining how, resolutely contemporary of the current moment, Cantet helps us rethink the possibilities and limits of political cinema in a context in which old resistances have fallen silent and new forms of protest are only emergent.
Tami Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038471
- eISBN:
- 9780252096365
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038471.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter discusses how Germaine Dulac played a groundbreaking role in the evolution of the cinema both as art and social practice. Over the course of her film career (1915–42), Dulac ...
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This introductory chapter discusses how Germaine Dulac played a groundbreaking role in the evolution of the cinema both as art and social practice. Over the course of her film career (1915–42), Dulac directed more than thirty fiction films, many marking new cinematic tendencies, from Impressionist to abstract. A careful study of Dulac's life and work establishes the importance of her voice in the diffusion and legitimization of French film and film culture, as evidenced through her prolific writings and lectures. She also played a prominent role in several cultural organizations such as the Society of Film Authors (SAF), the French Federation of Cine-Clubs (FFCC), the International Council of Women (ICW), the International Educational Cinematographic Institute(IECI), and the League of Nations' International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), among others.Less
This introductory chapter discusses how Germaine Dulac played a groundbreaking role in the evolution of the cinema both as art and social practice. Over the course of her film career (1915–42), Dulac directed more than thirty fiction films, many marking new cinematic tendencies, from Impressionist to abstract. A careful study of Dulac's life and work establishes the importance of her voice in the diffusion and legitimization of French film and film culture, as evidenced through her prolific writings and lectures. She also played a prominent role in several cultural organizations such as the Society of Film Authors (SAF), the French Federation of Cine-Clubs (FFCC), the International Council of Women (ICW), the International Educational Cinematographic Institute(IECI), and the League of Nations' International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), among others.
Delphine Bénézet
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169752
- eISBN:
- 9780231850612
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169752.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter provides an overall description of the works of French New Wave film director Agnès Varda. It first looks into her Salut les Cubains! (1964), a distinctive political ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overall description of the works of French New Wave film director Agnès Varda. It first looks into her Salut les Cubains! (1964), a distinctive political documentary, mostly made of animated photographs that she took on trips to Cuba in December 1962 and January 1963, a period filled with political and social changes in Cuba. The photos feature many of the traits found in Varda's other artistic projects. It is informed by its political and historical context and shaped by the conditions in which it was made. The strategies that Varda deploys in her films testify to her lasting commitment to represent women within history. This concern not only with women on screen but with the act of ‘filmer en femme’, as she calls it, makes her an important figure in the fields of film, gender, and cultural studies.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overall description of the works of French New Wave film director Agnès Varda. It first looks into her Salut les Cubains! (1964), a distinctive political documentary, mostly made of animated photographs that she took on trips to Cuba in December 1962 and January 1963, a period filled with political and social changes in Cuba. The photos feature many of the traits found in Varda's other artistic projects. It is informed by its political and historical context and shaped by the conditions in which it was made. The strategies that Varda deploys in her films testify to her lasting commitment to represent women within history. This concern not only with women on screen but with the act of ‘filmer en femme’, as she calls it, makes her an important figure in the fields of film, gender, and cultural studies.
David Greven
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190214166
- eISBN:
- 9780190214197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190214166.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
I establish the feminine-versus-the-queer conflict as the book’s thesis and locate its origins within debates in feminism and queer theory. The introduction offers a genealogy of critical views of ...
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I establish the feminine-versus-the-queer conflict as the book’s thesis and locate its origins within debates in feminism and queer theory. The introduction offers a genealogy of critical views of “queer Hitchcock” ranging from early auteurism to the work of Lee Edelman and D.A. Miller. The introduction then provides the psychoanalytic basis for reading Hitchcock reparatively (Melanie Klein, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) and in terms of paranoia (Freud). I discuss the uses and difficulties of the rubric “queer” and also several important films from Hitchcock’s English career, in particular The Lodger and Secret Agent.Less
I establish the feminine-versus-the-queer conflict as the book’s thesis and locate its origins within debates in feminism and queer theory. The introduction offers a genealogy of critical views of “queer Hitchcock” ranging from early auteurism to the work of Lee Edelman and D.A. Miller. The introduction then provides the psychoanalytic basis for reading Hitchcock reparatively (Melanie Klein, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) and in terms of paranoia (Freud). I discuss the uses and difficulties of the rubric “queer” and also several important films from Hitchcock’s English career, in particular The Lodger and Secret Agent.
