The Companion to French Cinema


Book Description

A handbook of French cinema




A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema


Book Description

A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema presents a comprehensive collection of original essays addressing all aspects of French cinema from 1990 to the present day. Features original contributions from top film scholars relating to all aspects of contemporary French cinema Includes new research on matters relating to the political economy of contemporary French cinema, developments in cinema policy, audience attendance, and the types, building, and renovation of theaters Utilizes groundbreaking research on cinema beyond the fiction film and the cinema-theater such as documentary, amateur, and digital filmmaking Contains an unusually large range of methodological approaches and perspectives, including those of genre, gender, auteur, industry, economic, star, postcolonial and psychoanalytic studies Includes essays by important French cinema scholars from France, the U.S., and New Zealand, many of whose work is here presented in English for the first time




The French Cinema Book


Book Description

This thoroughly revised and expanded edition of a key textbook offers an innovative and accessible account of the richness and diversity of French film history and culture from the 1890s to the present day. The contributors, who include leading historians and film scholars, provide an indispensable introduction to key topics and debates in French film history. Each chronological section addresses seven key themes – people, business, technology, forms, representations, spectators and debates, providing an essential overview of the cinema industry, the people who worked in it, including technicians and actors as well as directors, and the culture of cinema going in France from the beginnings of cinema to the contemporary period.




The Routledge Companion to European Cinema


Book Description

Presenting new and diverse scholarship, this wide-ranging collection of 43 original chapters asks what European cinema tells us about Europe. The book engages with European cinema that attends to questions of European colonial, racialized and gendered power; seeks to decentre Europe itself (not merely its putative centres); and interrogate Europe’s various conceptualizations from a variety of viewpoints. It explores the broad, complex and heterogeneous community/ies produced in and by European films, taking in Kurdish, Hollywood and Singapore cinema as comfortably as the cinema of Poland, Spanish colonial films or the European gangster genre. Chapters cover numerous topics, including individual films, film movements, filmmakers, stars, scholarship, representations and identities, audiences, production practices, genres and more, all analysed in their context(s) so as to construct an image of Europe as it emerges from Europe’s film corpus. The Companion opens the study of European cinema to a broad readership and is ideal for students and scholars in film, European studies, queer studies and cultural studies, as well as historians with an interest in audio-visual culture, nationalism and transnationalism, and those working in language-based area studies.




A Companion to Early Cinema


Book Description

An authoritative and much-needed overview of the main issues in the field of early cinema from over 30 leading international scholars in the field First collection of its kind to offer in one reference: original theory, new research, and reviews of existing studies in the field Features over 30 original essays from some of the leading scholars in early cinema and Film Studies, including Tom Gunning, Jane Gaines, Richard Abel, Thomas Elsaesser, and André Gaudreault Caters to renewed interest in film studies’ historical methods, with strict analysis of multiple and competing sources, providing a critical re-contextualization of films, printed material and technologies Covers a range of topics in early cinema, such as exhibition, promotion, industry, pre-cinema, and film criticism Broaches the latest research on the subject of archival practices, important particularly in the current digital context




Stars and Stardom in French Cinema


Book Description

When people think of film stars, they think of Hollywood. Yet, second only to America, French cinema has produced the most substantial galaxy of stars to achieve world fame in their national films. Top French stars are every bit as glamorous and charismatic as their American counterparts, but they are also different from their rivals and opposites, especially in the freedom they have to control their own images and in the ways they straddle mainstream and auteur cinema. This fascinating book, written by a leading authority on French cinema, analyses for the first time the French 'star system' and provides brilliant in-depth studies of the major popular stars of French cinema: Max Linder, Jean Gabin, Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau and the stars of the New Wave, Louis de Funes, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu and Juliette Binoche. Stars and Stardom in French Cinema analyses these stars' images and performance styles in the context of the French film industry and in relation to French culture and society.




A History of the French New Wave Cinema


Book Description

The French New Wave cinema is arguably the most fascinating of all film movements, famous for its exuberance, daring, and avant-garde techniques. A History of the French New Wave Cinema offers a fresh look at the social, economic, and aesthetic mechanisms that shaped French film in the 1950s, as well as detailed studies of the most important New Wave movies of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Richard Neupert first tracks the precursors to New Wave cinema, showing how they provided blueprints for those who would follow. He then demonstrates that it was a core group of critics-turned-directors from the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma—especially François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc Godard—who really revealed that filmmaking was changing forever. Later, their cohorts Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Pierre Kast continued in their own unique ways to expand the range and depth of the New Wave. In an exciting new chapter, Neupert explores the subgroup of French film practice known as the Left Bank Group, which included directors such as Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda. With the addition of this new material and an updated conclusion, Neupert presents a comprehensive review of the stunning variety of movies to come out of this important era in filmmaking.




Contemporary French Cinema


Book Description

Like its French-language companion volume Le Cinéma français contemporain: Manuel de classe, Alan Singerman and Michèle Bissière's Contemporary French Cinema: A Student's Book offers a detailed look at recent French cinema through its analyses of twenty notable and representative French films that have appeared since 1980. Sure to delight Anglophone fans of French film, it can be used with equal success in English-language courses and, when paired with its companion volume, dual-language ones. Acclaim for Le Cinéma français contemporain: Manuel de classe "From Le Dernier Métro to Intouchables, Bissière and Singerman cover the latest trends of French cinema, emphasizing context and analytical method as Singerman did in Apprentissage du cinéma français (Focus 2004). The authors offer a selection of films most French cinephiles will applaud, and they incorporate insights from some of the best critical work on French cinema. Students of French film will also find all the bibliographical pointers they need to dig deeper, and instructors will appreciate the pedagogical components included in the chapters." --Jonathan Walsh, Department of French Studies, Wheaton College, Massachusetts "This remarkable book comes to us from two seasoned teachers and critics and beautifully complements an earlier work, Alan Singerman's Apprentissage du cinéma français. The time period covered, more targeted here than in the preceding text, is admirably well chosen, and the breakdown by broad category, each offering multiple options, guides the teacher while offering a choice among an abundance of interesting films. The preliminary chapters, both succinct and informative, give students an excellent overview of French cinema as a whole and of the technical knowledge needed for film analysis. Each of the subsequent chapters offers an indispensable introduction discussing the plot, director, production, actors, reception, and context of the film in question and also provides a very useful filmography and bibliography... an exemplary work." --Brigitte E. Humbert, Department of French and Francophone Studies, Middlebury College




French Cinema


Book Description

To a large extent, the story of French filmmaking is the story of moviemaking. From the earliest flickering images of the late nineteenth century through the silent era, Surrealist influences, the Nazi Occupation, the glories of the New Wave, the rebirth of the industry in the 1990s with the exception culturelle, and the present, Rémi Lanzoni examines a considerable number of the world's most beloved films. Building upon his 2004 best-selling edition, the second edition of French Cinema maintains the chronological analysis, factual reliability, ease of use, and accessible prose, while at once concentrating more on the current generation of female directors, mainstream productions such as The Artist and The Intouchables, and the emergence of minority filmmakers (Beur cinema).




A Companion to François Truffaut


Book Description

A Companion to François Truffaut “An unprecedented critical tribute to the director who, in France, wound up becoming the most controversial figure of the New Wave he helped found.” Raymond Bellour, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique “This exciting collection breaks through the widely held critical view that Truffaut abandoned the iconoclasm of his early work for an academicism he had consistently railed against in his own film criticism. Indeed, if ‘fever’ and ‘fire’ were Truffaut’s most consistent motifs, the essays in this collection live up to his lifelong, burning passion for the cinema. Written by world-famous scholars, the essays exhaustively explore the themes and styles of the films, as well as Truffaut’s relationships to André Bazin, Alfred Hitchcock, and the directors of the New Wave, his ground-breaking and controversial film criticism, and his position in the complex politics of French cultural life from the Popular Front to 1968 and after.” Angelo Restivo, Georgia State University Although the New Wave, one of the most influential aesthetic revolutions in the history of cinema, might not have existed without him, François Truffaut has largely been ignored by film scholars since his death almost thirty years ago. As an innovative theoretician, an influential critic, and a celebrated filmmaker, Truffaut formulated, disseminated, and illustrated the ideals of the New Wave with exceptional energy and distinction. Yet no book in recent years has focused on Truffaut’s value, and his overall contribution to cinema deserves to be redefined not only to reinstate him in his proper place but to let us rethink how cinema developed during his lifetime. In this new Companion, thirty-four original essays by leading film scholars offer new readings of individual films and original perspectives on the filmmaker’s background, influences, and consequence. Hugely influential around the globe, Truffaut is assessed by international contributors who delve into the unique quality of his narratives and establish the depth of his distinctively styled work. An extended interview with French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin tracks Truffaut’s controversial stature within French cinema and vividly identifies how he thinks and works as a director, adding an irreplaceable perspective to this essential volume.