A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema

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

Auteur

Alistair Fox is Professor Emeritus at the University of Otago. His books include Jane Campion: Authorship and Personal Cinema (2011), New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting the Past (2011), and an English edition and translation of Anne Gillain's François Truffaut: The Lost Secret (2013). Michel Marie is Professor Emeritus at l'Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3. His publications include The French New Wave: An Artistic School (1998, translated into English in 2002), Aesthetics of Film (with Jacques Aumont and Alain Bergala, 1983, translated into English in 2002), and Les Grands Pervers au cinéma (2009). Raphaëlle Moine is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at l'Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3. Her publications include Cinema Genre (2002; translated into English in 2008), Remakes: les films Français à Hollywood (2007), and Les Femmes d'action au cinéma (2010). Hilary Radner is Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of History and Art History at the University of Otago. Her publications include Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture (2011) and Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Culture (2011).

Texte du rabat
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. Featuring contributions from an international cast of established and emerging scholars of French cinema, these innovative essays highlight the diversity of French films and filmmaking techniques that have emerged since the New Wave era. Themes and topics covered include the social, political, and cultural contexts of recent French cinema; contemporary filmmakers and performers; genres, cycles, and cinematic forms; gender and sexuality; and emerging trends and innovative new filmmaking forms. Among the French films examined in depth are hit comedies including Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and Intouchables, blockbusters such as The Crimson Rivers, police films like 36th Precinct, historical films such as Farewell My Queen and Days of Glory, celebrated animated features such as Kirikou and the Sorceress, films representative of the new French extreme, such as Romance, Baisemoi, and Trouble Every Day, and numerous auteur films ranging from Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan and François Ozon's shorts to Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley and Alain Guiraudie's L'Inconnu du lac. Combining cutting-edge scholarship with wide-ranging methodological approaches and perspectives, A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of French film, as well as all those interested in the evolution of this celebrated cinematic tradition.

Résumé
A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema 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. Featuring contributions from an international cast of established and emerging scholars of French cinema, these innovative essays highlight the diversity of French films and filmmaking techniques that have emerged since the New Wave era. Themes and topics covered include the social, political, and cultural contexts of recent French cinema; contemporary filmmakers and performers; genres, cycles, and cinematic forms; gender and sexuality; and emerging trends and innovative new filmmaking forms. Among the French films examined in depth are hit comedies including Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and Intouchables, blockbusters such as The Crimson Rivers, police films like 36th Precinct, historical films such as Farewell My Queen and Days of Glory, celebrated animated features such as Kirikou and the Sorceress, films representative of the new French extreme, such as Romance, Baisemoi, and Trouble Every Day, and numerous auteur films ranging from Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan and François Ozon's shorts to Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley and Alain Guiraudie's L'Inconnu du lac. Combining cutting-edge scholarship with wide-ranging methodological approaches and perspectives, A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of French film, as well as all those interested in the evolution of this celebrated cinematic tradition.

Contenu
List of Contributors xii Acknowledgments xviii

Editorial Practice xx

Introduction: Contemporary French Cinema Continuity and Change in a Global Context 1
Alistair Fox, with Michel Marie, Raphaëlle Moine, and Hilary Radner

Contexts: Institutional, Political, Cultural, and Economic 4

Characteristics of Contemporary French Cinema 4

Thematic Preoccupations 7

Trends, Developments, and the Future of French Cinema 10

Part I Economic, Institutional, and Political Contexts 15

1 The Political Economy of French Cinema: Attendance and Movie Theaters 17
Laurent Creton

Changing Patterns of Cinema Attendance 20

Cinematic Production and Its Outcomes 23

The Competitiveness of French Cinema and Market Share 25

Concentration and Diversity 30

The Transformation of the Pool of Theaters 32

The Future of Cinematic Theaters 35

2 Do We Have the Right to Exist? French Cinema, Culture, and World Trade 45
Jonathan Buchsbaum

France 49

Europe: Television Without Frontiers 51

Cultural Exception: GATT 56

Cultural Diversity: MAI/UNESCO 62

3 Historicizing Contemporary French Blockbusters 74
Charlie Michael

A Tentative Typology 75

Cultural Diversity or Cultural Crisis? 77

The Second Lang Plan (19891993) 79

The Maturation of a Forced Marriage 82

StudioCanal in the Crosshairs 84

A New Oligopoly? 87

4 Moving Between Screens: Television and Cinema in France, 19902010 96
Guillaume Soulez

The Role of Television in the Financing of Cinema 97

Arte as a Stimulus and Sponsor of the New Cinema 98

A Cinema of Collections 98

Realism and Television 100

The Revival of Documentary 101

Films/Telefilms: A Play of Mirrors 103

Television Films and Cinema Formatting 104

From Comic Television to Comedy in Cinemas 106

Cinema and Televised Series 109

5 Contemporary Political Cinema 117
Martin O'Shaughnessy

Taking Stock: Working-Class Histories and the Exit from Fordism 118

Outsiders and Victims, Ethics and Politics 125

Political Effectiveness 131

New Departures? 133

6 Diasporic and Postcolonial Cinema in France from the 1990s to the Present 136
Will Higbee

Auteur-led Productions and the Return of the Political in Diasporic and Postcolonial Cinema Since the 1990s 139

From Margins to the Mainstream: Postcolonial Comedy and the Mainstreaming of Maghrebi-French Filmmakers in the 2000s 144

Memorializing Colonial History: From Neo-Colonial to Counter-Her…