Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible is uncompromising and visceral, an essential piece of modern cinema. P... more Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible is uncompromising and visceral, an essential piece of modern cinema. Punctuated by dazzling avant-garde techniques, the film depicts, in reverse-chronological order, a woman’s rape and her boyfriend and friend’s subsequent hunt for vengeance through the underworld of Paris. Confrontational yet influential, Irreversible has polarized audiences since its release in 2002, making it until now almost impossible to study dispassionately.
This first book-length study of Irreversible situates Noé’s work in the ecosystem of contemporary French media, exploring how Irreversible and a larger-scale cinéma du corps actually inspired France’s film resurgence in the early twenty-first century. From there, Palmer shows Irreversible to be one of the most subversive star vehicles in recent world cinema, in the form of its iconic lead performers, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, and Albert Dupontel. Investigating the spectrum of reactions created by Noé’s film — through its pugnacious stylistic design, its on-screen deconstruction of Paris, its international critical reception, its unexpectedly utopian counterpoints to violence and despair — the book generates a new rational dialogue about Irreversible that challenges any instinct simply to reject or condemn it.
"This is a comprehensive, multi-modal study of an important, if difficult film. Anyone interested in contemporary French cinema should read this intelligent, well-written book--even if they don't like Irreversible." --- Alan Williams, Professor of Cinema Studies, Rutgers University, USA
"Irreversible is as scandalous and indispensable as any movie of our time. Palmer's outstanding study reveals it as both a consummation of contemporary French film and a profoundly original achievement in cinematic shock and awe." --- David Sterritt, Adjunct Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, USA
327 pages | 50 color plates | 7 x 10
IB - Directory of World Cinema
Artistic, intellectual, a... more 327 pages | 50 color plates | 7 x 10
IB - Directory of World Cinema
Artistic, intellectual, and appreciably avant-garde, the French film industry has, perhaps more than any other national cinema, been perennially at the center of international filmmaking. With its vigorous business and wide-ranging film culture, France has also been home historically to some of the most influential filmmakers and movements – and, indeed, the very first motion picture was screened in Paris in 1895.
This volume addresses the great directors and key artistic movements, but also ventures beyond these well-established films and figures, broadening the canon through an examination of many neglected but intriguing French films. Framing essays explore the salient stylistic elements, cultural contexts, and the various conceptions of cinema in France, from avant-gardes to filmmaking by women, from documentary and realism to the Tradition of Quality, as well as genres like comedy, crime film, and horror. Illustrated by screen shots, film reviews by leading international experts offer original approaches to both overlooked titles and acknowledged classics. Readers wishing to explore particular topics in greater depth will be grateful for the book’s reading recommendations and comprehensive filmography.
A visually engaging journey through one of the most dynamic, variegated, and idiosyncratic film industries, Directory of World Cinema: France is a must-have for Francophiles and cinema savants.
Brutal Intimacy is the first book to explore the fascinating films of contemporary France, rangin... more Brutal Intimacy is the first book to explore the fascinating films of contemporary France, ranging from mainstream genre spectaculars to arthouse experiments, and from wildly popular hits to films that deliberately alienate the viewer. Twenty-first-century France is a major source of international cinema—diverse and dynamic, embattled yet prosperous—a national cinema offering something for everyone. Tim Palmer investigates France’s growing population of women filmmakers, its buoyant vanguard of first-time filmmakers, the rise of the controversial cinema du corps, and France’s cinema icons: auteurs like Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar Noé, and stars such as Vincent Cassel and Jean Dujardin. Analyzing dozens of breakthrough films, Brutal Intimacy situates infamous titles alongside many yet to be studied in the English language. Drawing on interviews and the testimony of leading film artists, Brutal Intimacy promises to be an influential treatment of French cinema today, its evolving rivalry with Hollywood, and its ambitious pursuits of audiences in Europe, North America, and around the world.
Contents
• Acknowledgments • Introduction: The Contemporary French Film Ecosystem • 5x1: Young Cinema and First-Timers • The Cinéma du Corps • Popular Cinema, Pop-Art Cinema • Feminine Cinema • Conclusion: Instructive Cinephilia: Film Literacy and La Fémis • Appendix: “The 156 Films That You Must Have Seen”: The List • Notes • Select Filmography • Select Bibliography • Index
Until the twenty-first century, the horror genre was a relatively
marginal factor in French filmm... more Until the twenty-first century, the horror genre was a relatively marginal factor in French filmmaking. But in recent years the format has permeated the French media ecosystem. This article studies this phenomenon by way of a vital modern French cultural conversation ― that of frontier horror poetry, espoused by Claire Denis, influentially advocating for ephemeral beauty to be studied alongside savagery, for musicality and artistic expression to flourish onscreen in even the direst of horror genre situations. Exploring this paradoxical frontier horror poetry idiom, this article finds its manifestations in many leading French horror case studies, such as Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), Robin Campillo’s Les Revenants (2004), Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018), and Dominique Rocher’s La Nuit a dévoré le monde (2018).
For decades after its release, Nicole Vedrès’s Paris 1900 only
received fitful critical attention... more For decades after its release, Nicole Vedrès’s Paris 1900 only received fitful critical attention. This article argues that Paris 1900 warrants systematic reappraisal as a pivotal and influential protoessay film – galvanising for essay filmmakers that followed, in the post-war period and after, including Agnès Varda and Chris Marker, and many others. To make this case, the article uses archival materials to explore Paris 1900’s mode of production as a commissioned project, a compendium of media texts about Belle Époque Paris, a brief that Vedrès soon exceeded. From there, the article analyses Paris 1900 by way of the emergent critical consensus about how essay films behave, their particular design parameters. In this context, across Paris 1900’s suite of specific textual attributes – its fusion of fiction and non-fiction, its embrace of multi-media, its open and multifarious socio-political engagements, its alignment with minority figures and women, its configuration of thought processes onscreen, its advocacy for media literacy – the film re-emerges as a catalytic French post-war test case, and Vedrès as a figure of historical significance today.
“The Joy of Burglary: Wealth Relocation Strategies for the Upwardly Mobile in the Postwar French Policier,” in James Leach and Jeanette Stonioski, (eds.), Best Laid Plans: Interrogating the Heist Film (Wayne State University Press, 2017)., 2017
A study of the postwar French crime film policier, approaching the loadbearing heist set piece as... more A study of the postwar French crime film policier, approaching the loadbearing heist set piece as a fascinating example of French entertainment low art, an ingenious and broadly representative model of how postwar French cinema seeks to divert, to beguile, to create fleeting and often paradoxically lyrical crimes akin to the classical Hollywood musical.
“Fine Arts and Ugly Arts: Blue is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Corporeal State of the Nation,” in Lindsay Coleman and Carol Siegel, (eds.), Sex and Excess on Film: Intercourse in Television, Documentary, Queer Cinema, Arthouse (Lexington Press, 2018)., 2018
A study of Abdellatif Kechiche's polarizing and quintessential French film, Blue is the Warmest ... more A study of Abdellatif Kechiche's polarizing and quintessential French film, Blue is the Warmest Color (2013). The paper approaches Kechiche's production from multiple perspectives: as a syptomatic corporeal-focused production, part of a vanguard cinema du corps; as a controversial yet highly representative work of the contemporary French film ecosystem; as an adapation of a groundbreaking graphic novel; and as a penetrating examination of same-sex desire through bravura film style.
This article analyses Valérie Donzelli’s film Declaration of War (La Guerre
est declarée, 2011), ... more This article analyses Valérie Donzelli’s film Declaration of War (La Guerre est declarée, 2011), in the context of the contemporary French film ecosystem. The article argues that Donzelli’s film exemplifies the French miniaturist mode of production; demonstrates the modern conceptual notion of applied cinephilia; highlights the idiosyncratic uses possible for French popular genres, particularly the comedy and the musical; and embodies the French film industry’s export mission by representing on-screen the French national healthcare system.
This essay studies the long-overlooked and long-forgotten French New Wave filmmaker, Paule Delsol... more This essay studies the long-overlooked and long-forgotten French New Wave filmmaker, Paule Delsol, focusing on her debut feature, La Dérive (Drift, 1962–1964). Using archival primary documents, the essay first examines Delsol's artistic emergence, her independent mode of production, her interactions with François Truffaut and her outlier status within the New Wave. Second, the essay examines the feminist design of
La Dérive, its stylistic and temporal agitations, its considerations of
female-centred domestic binds in 1960s France, versus better-known
New Wave texts. Third, the essay contrasts La Dérive’s polarised
reception, especially its censorship and distribution problems, with
Delsol’s enfranchised status at Cahiers du cinéma, emphasising her
many published contributions to the New Wave’s agenda. In sum, we discover the full embattled range of Delsol's long-repressed career, and finally correct the often reproduced line that Agnès Varda was the only woman associated with the French New Wave.
Surveying the iconoclastic career of independent French filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville, the essa... more Surveying the iconoclastic career of independent French filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville, the essay studies his cult film, La Samourai, as a piece of minimalist cinema, a refined and idiosyncratic version of the policier genre, and a highly stylized test case for Melville's popular auteurism,
Abstract: Margaret Mead Film Festival: 1416 November 2008 Celebrating the pioneers of modern anth... more Abstract: Margaret Mead Film Festival: 1416 November 2008 Celebrating the pioneers of modern anthropology: examining the severe consequences of global warming, and tales of human perseverance A report by Liz Stephens
A survey of women filmmakers in France, from the earliest accomplishments of Alice Guy to the div... more A survey of women filmmakers in France, from the earliest accomplishments of Alice Guy to the diversification of female-made films in the twenty-first century.
This article explores the work of the French filmmaker Marina de Van, focusing on her debut featu... more This article explores the work of the French filmmaker Marina de Van, focusing on her debut feature Dans ma peau/In My Skin (2002), which deals with the issue of self-mutilation. The essay situates the film within the recent phenomenon of the cinéma du corps, whose agenda is an on-screen interrogation of physicality in stark yet intimate terms. Using personal interviews and trade discourses, it then charts the cultural, professional and institutional contexts to de Van’s career, emphasizing her foundational experiences in film school. Finally, it analyses Dans ma peau’s use of avant-garde style, de Van’s experimental techniques as a performer, and the film’s array of social critiques.
This paper is a star study of James Stewart, focusing on his mid-career overhaul in Hollywood, as... more This paper is a star study of James Stewart, focusing on his mid-career overhaul in Hollywood, as his career evolved from earlier idealistic roles, to much more cynical and violent roles in the hands of filmmakers such as Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock. In addition, more broadly, the paper offers a methodology for analyzing stardom in cinema, exploring stars as a composite of the pretextual (a body comprising a physical repertoire of expressive traits), textual (a component part of a stylistic system on-screen) and extratextual (a source of a star persona, the sum total of their off-screen promotion and celebrity).
Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible is uncompromising and visceral, an essential piece of modern cinema. P... more Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible is uncompromising and visceral, an essential piece of modern cinema. Punctuated by dazzling avant-garde techniques, the film depicts, in reverse-chronological order, a woman’s rape and her boyfriend and friend’s subsequent hunt for vengeance through the underworld of Paris. Confrontational yet influential, Irreversible has polarized audiences since its release in 2002, making it until now almost impossible to study dispassionately.
This first book-length study of Irreversible situates Noé’s work in the ecosystem of contemporary French media, exploring how Irreversible and a larger-scale cinéma du corps actually inspired France’s film resurgence in the early twenty-first century. From there, Palmer shows Irreversible to be one of the most subversive star vehicles in recent world cinema, in the form of its iconic lead performers, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, and Albert Dupontel. Investigating the spectrum of reactions created by Noé’s film — through its pugnacious stylistic design, its on-screen deconstruction of Paris, its international critical reception, its unexpectedly utopian counterpoints to violence and despair — the book generates a new rational dialogue about Irreversible that challenges any instinct simply to reject or condemn it.
"This is a comprehensive, multi-modal study of an important, if difficult film. Anyone interested in contemporary French cinema should read this intelligent, well-written book--even if they don't like Irreversible." --- Alan Williams, Professor of Cinema Studies, Rutgers University, USA
"Irreversible is as scandalous and indispensable as any movie of our time. Palmer's outstanding study reveals it as both a consummation of contemporary French film and a profoundly original achievement in cinematic shock and awe." --- David Sterritt, Adjunct Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, USA
327 pages | 50 color plates | 7 x 10
IB - Directory of World Cinema
Artistic, intellectual, a... more 327 pages | 50 color plates | 7 x 10
IB - Directory of World Cinema
Artistic, intellectual, and appreciably avant-garde, the French film industry has, perhaps more than any other national cinema, been perennially at the center of international filmmaking. With its vigorous business and wide-ranging film culture, France has also been home historically to some of the most influential filmmakers and movements – and, indeed, the very first motion picture was screened in Paris in 1895.
This volume addresses the great directors and key artistic movements, but also ventures beyond these well-established films and figures, broadening the canon through an examination of many neglected but intriguing French films. Framing essays explore the salient stylistic elements, cultural contexts, and the various conceptions of cinema in France, from avant-gardes to filmmaking by women, from documentary and realism to the Tradition of Quality, as well as genres like comedy, crime film, and horror. Illustrated by screen shots, film reviews by leading international experts offer original approaches to both overlooked titles and acknowledged classics. Readers wishing to explore particular topics in greater depth will be grateful for the book’s reading recommendations and comprehensive filmography.
A visually engaging journey through one of the most dynamic, variegated, and idiosyncratic film industries, Directory of World Cinema: France is a must-have for Francophiles and cinema savants.
Brutal Intimacy is the first book to explore the fascinating films of contemporary France, rangin... more Brutal Intimacy is the first book to explore the fascinating films of contemporary France, ranging from mainstream genre spectaculars to arthouse experiments, and from wildly popular hits to films that deliberately alienate the viewer. Twenty-first-century France is a major source of international cinema—diverse and dynamic, embattled yet prosperous—a national cinema offering something for everyone. Tim Palmer investigates France’s growing population of women filmmakers, its buoyant vanguard of first-time filmmakers, the rise of the controversial cinema du corps, and France’s cinema icons: auteurs like Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar Noé, and stars such as Vincent Cassel and Jean Dujardin. Analyzing dozens of breakthrough films, Brutal Intimacy situates infamous titles alongside many yet to be studied in the English language. Drawing on interviews and the testimony of leading film artists, Brutal Intimacy promises to be an influential treatment of French cinema today, its evolving rivalry with Hollywood, and its ambitious pursuits of audiences in Europe, North America, and around the world.
Contents
• Acknowledgments • Introduction: The Contemporary French Film Ecosystem • 5x1: Young Cinema and First-Timers • The Cinéma du Corps • Popular Cinema, Pop-Art Cinema • Feminine Cinema • Conclusion: Instructive Cinephilia: Film Literacy and La Fémis • Appendix: “The 156 Films That You Must Have Seen”: The List • Notes • Select Filmography • Select Bibliography • Index
Until the twenty-first century, the horror genre was a relatively
marginal factor in French filmm... more Until the twenty-first century, the horror genre was a relatively marginal factor in French filmmaking. But in recent years the format has permeated the French media ecosystem. This article studies this phenomenon by way of a vital modern French cultural conversation ― that of frontier horror poetry, espoused by Claire Denis, influentially advocating for ephemeral beauty to be studied alongside savagery, for musicality and artistic expression to flourish onscreen in even the direst of horror genre situations. Exploring this paradoxical frontier horror poetry idiom, this article finds its manifestations in many leading French horror case studies, such as Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), Robin Campillo’s Les Revenants (2004), Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018), and Dominique Rocher’s La Nuit a dévoré le monde (2018).
For decades after its release, Nicole Vedrès’s Paris 1900 only
received fitful critical attention... more For decades after its release, Nicole Vedrès’s Paris 1900 only received fitful critical attention. This article argues that Paris 1900 warrants systematic reappraisal as a pivotal and influential protoessay film – galvanising for essay filmmakers that followed, in the post-war period and after, including Agnès Varda and Chris Marker, and many others. To make this case, the article uses archival materials to explore Paris 1900’s mode of production as a commissioned project, a compendium of media texts about Belle Époque Paris, a brief that Vedrès soon exceeded. From there, the article analyses Paris 1900 by way of the emergent critical consensus about how essay films behave, their particular design parameters. In this context, across Paris 1900’s suite of specific textual attributes – its fusion of fiction and non-fiction, its embrace of multi-media, its open and multifarious socio-political engagements, its alignment with minority figures and women, its configuration of thought processes onscreen, its advocacy for media literacy – the film re-emerges as a catalytic French post-war test case, and Vedrès as a figure of historical significance today.
“The Joy of Burglary: Wealth Relocation Strategies for the Upwardly Mobile in the Postwar French Policier,” in James Leach and Jeanette Stonioski, (eds.), Best Laid Plans: Interrogating the Heist Film (Wayne State University Press, 2017)., 2017
A study of the postwar French crime film policier, approaching the loadbearing heist set piece as... more A study of the postwar French crime film policier, approaching the loadbearing heist set piece as a fascinating example of French entertainment low art, an ingenious and broadly representative model of how postwar French cinema seeks to divert, to beguile, to create fleeting and often paradoxically lyrical crimes akin to the classical Hollywood musical.
“Fine Arts and Ugly Arts: Blue is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Corporeal State of the Nation,” in Lindsay Coleman and Carol Siegel, (eds.), Sex and Excess on Film: Intercourse in Television, Documentary, Queer Cinema, Arthouse (Lexington Press, 2018)., 2018
A study of Abdellatif Kechiche's polarizing and quintessential French film, Blue is the Warmest ... more A study of Abdellatif Kechiche's polarizing and quintessential French film, Blue is the Warmest Color (2013). The paper approaches Kechiche's production from multiple perspectives: as a syptomatic corporeal-focused production, part of a vanguard cinema du corps; as a controversial yet highly representative work of the contemporary French film ecosystem; as an adapation of a groundbreaking graphic novel; and as a penetrating examination of same-sex desire through bravura film style.
This article analyses Valérie Donzelli’s film Declaration of War (La Guerre
est declarée, 2011), ... more This article analyses Valérie Donzelli’s film Declaration of War (La Guerre est declarée, 2011), in the context of the contemporary French film ecosystem. The article argues that Donzelli’s film exemplifies the French miniaturist mode of production; demonstrates the modern conceptual notion of applied cinephilia; highlights the idiosyncratic uses possible for French popular genres, particularly the comedy and the musical; and embodies the French film industry’s export mission by representing on-screen the French national healthcare system.
This essay studies the long-overlooked and long-forgotten French New Wave filmmaker, Paule Delsol... more This essay studies the long-overlooked and long-forgotten French New Wave filmmaker, Paule Delsol, focusing on her debut feature, La Dérive (Drift, 1962–1964). Using archival primary documents, the essay first examines Delsol's artistic emergence, her independent mode of production, her interactions with François Truffaut and her outlier status within the New Wave. Second, the essay examines the feminist design of
La Dérive, its stylistic and temporal agitations, its considerations of
female-centred domestic binds in 1960s France, versus better-known
New Wave texts. Third, the essay contrasts La Dérive’s polarised
reception, especially its censorship and distribution problems, with
Delsol’s enfranchised status at Cahiers du cinéma, emphasising her
many published contributions to the New Wave’s agenda. In sum, we discover the full embattled range of Delsol's long-repressed career, and finally correct the often reproduced line that Agnès Varda was the only woman associated with the French New Wave.
Surveying the iconoclastic career of independent French filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville, the essa... more Surveying the iconoclastic career of independent French filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville, the essay studies his cult film, La Samourai, as a piece of minimalist cinema, a refined and idiosyncratic version of the policier genre, and a highly stylized test case for Melville's popular auteurism,
Abstract: Margaret Mead Film Festival: 1416 November 2008 Celebrating the pioneers of modern anth... more Abstract: Margaret Mead Film Festival: 1416 November 2008 Celebrating the pioneers of modern anthropology: examining the severe consequences of global warming, and tales of human perseverance A report by Liz Stephens
A survey of women filmmakers in France, from the earliest accomplishments of Alice Guy to the div... more A survey of women filmmakers in France, from the earliest accomplishments of Alice Guy to the diversification of female-made films in the twenty-first century.
This article explores the work of the French filmmaker Marina de Van, focusing on her debut featu... more This article explores the work of the French filmmaker Marina de Van, focusing on her debut feature Dans ma peau/In My Skin (2002), which deals with the issue of self-mutilation. The essay situates the film within the recent phenomenon of the cinéma du corps, whose agenda is an on-screen interrogation of physicality in stark yet intimate terms. Using personal interviews and trade discourses, it then charts the cultural, professional and institutional contexts to de Van’s career, emphasizing her foundational experiences in film school. Finally, it analyses Dans ma peau’s use of avant-garde style, de Van’s experimental techniques as a performer, and the film’s array of social critiques.
This paper is a star study of James Stewart, focusing on his mid-career overhaul in Hollywood, as... more This paper is a star study of James Stewart, focusing on his mid-career overhaul in Hollywood, as his career evolved from earlier idealistic roles, to much more cynical and violent roles in the hands of filmmakers such as Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock. In addition, more broadly, the paper offers a methodology for analyzing stardom in cinema, exploring stars as a composite of the pretextual (a body comprising a physical repertoire of expressive traits), textual (a component part of a stylistic system on-screen) and extratextual (a source of a star persona, the sum total of their off-screen promotion and celebrity).
Straddling popular generic cinema and the Japanese New Wave, Seijun Suzuki's work can be classifi... more Straddling popular generic cinema and the Japanese New Wave, Seijun Suzuki's work can be classified as a "pop-Brechtian" mixture of materials high and low. This short essay reappraises Suzuki in the light of his FIGHTING ELEGY (1966) and YOUTH OF THE BEAST (1963), connecting his formally disjunctive work to the template of the Japanese New Wave.
This article, a seminal English-language appraisal of the then-neglected figure Jean-Pierre Melvi... more This article, a seminal English-language appraisal of the then-neglected figure Jean-Pierre Melville, uses Un Flic (1972), the filmmaker's last completed production, to explore his minimalist, ascetic approach to film style, and the problems his career has posed for overarching histories of postwar French cinema.
This essay recontextualizes Dalton Trumbo, HUAC, and the postwar American blacklist by analyzing ... more This essay recontextualizes Dalton Trumbo, HUAC, and the postwar American blacklist by analyzing Tumbo's personal archives, his writings in the Hollywood trade press, his work in the Screen Writers' Guild as editor of its official journal, The Screen Writer, and his pivotal role in the anti-HUAC debates before he was imprisoned.
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This first book-length study of Irreversible situates Noé’s work in the ecosystem of contemporary French media, exploring how Irreversible and a larger-scale cinéma du corps actually inspired France’s film resurgence in the early twenty-first century. From there, Palmer shows Irreversible to be one of the most subversive star vehicles in recent world cinema, in the form of its iconic lead performers, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, and Albert Dupontel. Investigating the spectrum of reactions created by Noé’s film — through its pugnacious stylistic design, its on-screen deconstruction of Paris, its international critical reception, its unexpectedly utopian counterpoints to violence and despair — the book generates a new rational dialogue about Irreversible that challenges any instinct simply to reject or condemn it.
"This is a comprehensive, multi-modal study of an important, if difficult film. Anyone interested in contemporary French cinema should read this intelligent, well-written book--even if they don't like Irreversible." --- Alan Williams, Professor of Cinema Studies, Rutgers University, USA
"Irreversible is as scandalous and indispensable as any movie of our time. Palmer's outstanding study reveals it as both a consummation of contemporary French film and a profoundly original achievement in cinematic shock and awe." --- David Sterritt, Adjunct Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, USA
IB - Directory of World Cinema
Artistic, intellectual, and appreciably avant-garde, the French film industry has, perhaps more than any other national cinema, been perennially at the center of international filmmaking. With its vigorous business and wide-ranging film culture, France has also been home historically to some of the most influential filmmakers and movements – and, indeed, the very first motion picture was screened in Paris in 1895.
This volume addresses the great directors and key artistic movements, but also ventures beyond these well-established films and figures, broadening the canon through an examination of many neglected but intriguing French films. Framing essays explore the salient stylistic elements, cultural contexts, and the various conceptions of cinema in France, from avant-gardes to filmmaking by women, from documentary and realism to the Tradition of Quality, as well as genres like comedy, crime film, and horror. Illustrated by screen shots, film reviews by leading international experts offer original approaches to both overlooked titles and acknowledged classics. Readers wishing to explore particular topics in greater depth will be grateful for the book’s reading recommendations and comprehensive filmography.
A visually engaging journey through one of the most dynamic, variegated, and idiosyncratic film industries, Directory of World Cinema: France is a must-have for Francophiles and cinema savants.
Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Contemporary French Film Ecosystem
• 5x1: Young Cinema and First-Timers
• The Cinéma du Corps
• Popular Cinema, Pop-Art Cinema
• Feminine Cinema
• Conclusion: Instructive Cinephilia: Film Literacy and La Fémis
• Appendix: “The 156 Films That You Must Have Seen”: The List
• Notes
• Select Filmography
• Select Bibliography
• Index
marginal factor in French filmmaking. But in recent years the format
has permeated the French media ecosystem. This article studies this
phenomenon by way of a vital modern French cultural conversation
― that of frontier horror poetry, espoused by Claire Denis, influentially
advocating for ephemeral beauty to be studied alongside
savagery, for musicality and artistic expression to flourish onscreen
in even the direst of horror genre situations. Exploring this
paradoxical frontier horror poetry idiom, this article finds its manifestations in many leading French horror case studies, such as
Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), Robin Campillo’s Les Revenants
(2004), Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018), and Dominique Rocher’s La Nuit
a dévoré le monde (2018).
received fitful critical attention. This article argues that Paris 1900
warrants systematic reappraisal as a pivotal and influential protoessay
film – galvanising for essay filmmakers that followed, in the
post-war period and after, including Agnès Varda and Chris Marker,
and many others. To make this case, the article uses archival materials
to explore Paris 1900’s mode of production as a commissioned
project, a compendium of media texts about Belle Époque Paris, a
brief that Vedrès soon exceeded. From there, the article analyses
Paris 1900 by way of the emergent critical consensus about how
essay films behave, their particular design parameters. In this context,
across Paris 1900’s suite of specific textual attributes – its fusion
of fiction and non-fiction, its embrace of multi-media, its open and
multifarious socio-political engagements, its alignment with minority
figures and women, its configuration of thought processes onscreen,
its advocacy for media literacy – the film re-emerges as a
catalytic French post-war test case, and Vedrès as a figure of historical
significance today.
est declarée, 2011), in the context of the contemporary French film
ecosystem. The article argues that Donzelli’s film exemplifies the
French miniaturist mode of production; demonstrates the modern
conceptual notion of applied cinephilia; highlights the idiosyncratic
uses possible for French popular genres, particularly the comedy and
the musical; and embodies the French film industry’s export mission
by representing on-screen the French national healthcare system.
La Dérive, its stylistic and temporal agitations, its considerations of
female-centred domestic binds in 1960s France, versus better-known
New Wave texts. Third, the essay contrasts La Dérive’s polarised
reception, especially its censorship and distribution problems, with
Delsol’s enfranchised status at Cahiers du cinéma, emphasising her
many published contributions to the New Wave’s agenda. In sum, we discover the full embattled range of Delsol's long-repressed career, and finally correct the often reproduced line that Agnès Varda was the only woman associated with the French New Wave.
in stark yet intimate terms. Using personal interviews and trade discourses, it then charts the cultural, professional and institutional contexts to de Van’s career, emphasizing her foundational experiences in film school. Finally, it analyses
Dans ma peau’s use of avant-garde style, de Van’s experimental techniques as a performer, and the film’s array of social critiques.
This first book-length study of Irreversible situates Noé’s work in the ecosystem of contemporary French media, exploring how Irreversible and a larger-scale cinéma du corps actually inspired France’s film resurgence in the early twenty-first century. From there, Palmer shows Irreversible to be one of the most subversive star vehicles in recent world cinema, in the form of its iconic lead performers, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, and Albert Dupontel. Investigating the spectrum of reactions created by Noé’s film — through its pugnacious stylistic design, its on-screen deconstruction of Paris, its international critical reception, its unexpectedly utopian counterpoints to violence and despair — the book generates a new rational dialogue about Irreversible that challenges any instinct simply to reject or condemn it.
"This is a comprehensive, multi-modal study of an important, if difficult film. Anyone interested in contemporary French cinema should read this intelligent, well-written book--even if they don't like Irreversible." --- Alan Williams, Professor of Cinema Studies, Rutgers University, USA
"Irreversible is as scandalous and indispensable as any movie of our time. Palmer's outstanding study reveals it as both a consummation of contemporary French film and a profoundly original achievement in cinematic shock and awe." --- David Sterritt, Adjunct Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, USA
IB - Directory of World Cinema
Artistic, intellectual, and appreciably avant-garde, the French film industry has, perhaps more than any other national cinema, been perennially at the center of international filmmaking. With its vigorous business and wide-ranging film culture, France has also been home historically to some of the most influential filmmakers and movements – and, indeed, the very first motion picture was screened in Paris in 1895.
This volume addresses the great directors and key artistic movements, but also ventures beyond these well-established films and figures, broadening the canon through an examination of many neglected but intriguing French films. Framing essays explore the salient stylistic elements, cultural contexts, and the various conceptions of cinema in France, from avant-gardes to filmmaking by women, from documentary and realism to the Tradition of Quality, as well as genres like comedy, crime film, and horror. Illustrated by screen shots, film reviews by leading international experts offer original approaches to both overlooked titles and acknowledged classics. Readers wishing to explore particular topics in greater depth will be grateful for the book’s reading recommendations and comprehensive filmography.
A visually engaging journey through one of the most dynamic, variegated, and idiosyncratic film industries, Directory of World Cinema: France is a must-have for Francophiles and cinema savants.
Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Contemporary French Film Ecosystem
• 5x1: Young Cinema and First-Timers
• The Cinéma du Corps
• Popular Cinema, Pop-Art Cinema
• Feminine Cinema
• Conclusion: Instructive Cinephilia: Film Literacy and La Fémis
• Appendix: “The 156 Films That You Must Have Seen”: The List
• Notes
• Select Filmography
• Select Bibliography
• Index
marginal factor in French filmmaking. But in recent years the format
has permeated the French media ecosystem. This article studies this
phenomenon by way of a vital modern French cultural conversation
― that of frontier horror poetry, espoused by Claire Denis, influentially
advocating for ephemeral beauty to be studied alongside
savagery, for musicality and artistic expression to flourish onscreen
in even the direst of horror genre situations. Exploring this
paradoxical frontier horror poetry idiom, this article finds its manifestations in many leading French horror case studies, such as
Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), Robin Campillo’s Les Revenants
(2004), Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018), and Dominique Rocher’s La Nuit
a dévoré le monde (2018).
received fitful critical attention. This article argues that Paris 1900
warrants systematic reappraisal as a pivotal and influential protoessay
film – galvanising for essay filmmakers that followed, in the
post-war period and after, including Agnès Varda and Chris Marker,
and many others. To make this case, the article uses archival materials
to explore Paris 1900’s mode of production as a commissioned
project, a compendium of media texts about Belle Époque Paris, a
brief that Vedrès soon exceeded. From there, the article analyses
Paris 1900 by way of the emergent critical consensus about how
essay films behave, their particular design parameters. In this context,
across Paris 1900’s suite of specific textual attributes – its fusion
of fiction and non-fiction, its embrace of multi-media, its open and
multifarious socio-political engagements, its alignment with minority
figures and women, its configuration of thought processes onscreen,
its advocacy for media literacy – the film re-emerges as a
catalytic French post-war test case, and Vedrès as a figure of historical
significance today.
est declarée, 2011), in the context of the contemporary French film
ecosystem. The article argues that Donzelli’s film exemplifies the
French miniaturist mode of production; demonstrates the modern
conceptual notion of applied cinephilia; highlights the idiosyncratic
uses possible for French popular genres, particularly the comedy and
the musical; and embodies the French film industry’s export mission
by representing on-screen the French national healthcare system.
La Dérive, its stylistic and temporal agitations, its considerations of
female-centred domestic binds in 1960s France, versus better-known
New Wave texts. Third, the essay contrasts La Dérive’s polarised
reception, especially its censorship and distribution problems, with
Delsol’s enfranchised status at Cahiers du cinéma, emphasising her
many published contributions to the New Wave’s agenda. In sum, we discover the full embattled range of Delsol's long-repressed career, and finally correct the often reproduced line that Agnès Varda was the only woman associated with the French New Wave.
in stark yet intimate terms. Using personal interviews and trade discourses, it then charts the cultural, professional and institutional contexts to de Van’s career, emphasizing her foundational experiences in film school. Finally, it analyses
Dans ma peau’s use of avant-garde style, de Van’s experimental techniques as a performer, and the film’s array of social critiques.