French Film: Texts and Contexts

French films have always been popular with English-speaking audiences, but surprisingly few critical studies are available in English in single-volume form. This new look at classic French films, from the 1920s to the 1980s, provides detailed analyses of central texts within the canon of French cinema. Whether unavoidable 'monuments' like Gance's Napoleon , critical cult films like Resanis's Hiroshima, mon amour and Godard's Le Mepris , popular classics such as Carne's Les Enfants du paradis , or Tati's es Vacances de M. Hulot, or recent works of the calibre of Rohmer's Les Nuits de la pleine lune or Varda's Sans toit ni loi , they have all become part of an essential French repertory. The essays in this collection investigate the different ways in which these and other films textually inscribe and rework a variety of other cultural and historical texts. The diversity of disciplines - history, literary studies, semiotics, psychoanalytic - that form the background of the contributors' work guarantees such a variety of approach, making this an informative and challenging study for students of French cinema and cultural studies, as well as for lovers of French film.