Nicholas Hewitt - Böcker

France has always been considered the home of traditional high culture, but increasingly we are now learning to look at other more popular aspects of modern French cultural life. In this volume, specialists from Britain and France adopt a fresh approach to the study of French culture since 1945 by focussing on the mass media and on a whole range of popular cultural forms. As well as introducing English-speaking readers to such new fields as French radio, television, science fiction and popular song, this volume also highlights how the French themselves responded to the growing importance of the mass media in postwar France.

France entered the twentieth century as a powerful European and colonial nation. In the course of the century, her role changed dramatically: in the first fifty years two World Wars and economic decline removed its status as a world power, whilst the immediate post-war era was marked by wars of independence in its colonies. Yet at the same time, in the second half of the century, France entered a period of unprecedented growth and social transformation. Throughout the century and into the new millennium France retained its former international reputation as a centre for cultural excellence and innovation and its culture, together with that of the Francophone world, reflected the increased richness and diversity of the period. This 2003 Companion explores this vibrant culture, and includes chapters on history, language, literature, thought, theatre, architecture, visual culture, film and music, and discuss the contributions of popular culture, Francophone culture, minorities and women.

This invaluable book not only assesses the life and work of one of Europe's most important and innovative writers, it also casts revealing light on crucial areas of French cultural, social, and political history.

This book examines Celine's entire oeuvre of the interwar years and the Occupation, and places it in the literary and intellectual context of contemporary France.

Marseille is a thoroughly ambiguous place. France's second city and its major sea-port, its impact on the national imagination is unparalleled. Yet it is also a frontier city, arguably capital of the Mediterranean, and with a traditionally suspect allegiance to the French nation. This apartness, and the city's long and rich history as home to migrants, workers and organised criminals, has cemented its association in the popular imagination with exoticism and illicit activity. In this history, Nicholas Hewitt explores Marseille's extraordinary cultural wealth from the Revolution to the present century, charting the development of its bad reputation, its 'rogue status' within France, and its international importance. The narratives devoted to this great port city range from the legend of its football team to The Count of Monte Cristo. Hewitt discovers Marseille through the eyes of writers, painters and sculptors, film-makers, music hall stars, architects and rappers; from the viewpoints of French, German, British and American visitors; and as a celebration of its humane cosmopolitanism, often in contrast with national French sentiment. Wicked City is a vivid and complex portrait of one of the Mediterranean's great cities, going beyond the popular stereotypes to uncover the true Marseille in its full richness.

‘What is Montmartre? Nothing. What must it be? Everything’, proclaimed Rodolphe Salis in 1881, when his cabaret Le Chat Noir launched an entertainment boom in the 9th and 18th Arrondissements of Paris which would dominate the worlds of popular and high culture until the First World War. Montmartre’s music-halls, circuses, cinemas, accompanied by extra frisson of crime and prostitution, coexisted with burgeoning art movements sprung from the cabarets, which spearheaded the avant-garde in painting, theatre and literature. The story, however, did not end in 1914 and Montmartre retained its role as a magnet for tourists, lured by the Moulin-Rouge and the Sacré-Coeur, and, despite the competition from Montparnasse, as a major centre for artistic creativity in the inter-war years. Crucial to this continuity was, not merely the survival of many of the most important players from the pre-War period, but especially the role of the humorous press and the Montmartre caricaturists and illustrators who congregated in the Restaurant Manière. In this new study, Nicholas Hewitt charts the continuity of Montmartre culture from the Belle Epoque to the Occupation through its many overlapping frontiers and explores its vital ingredients of sexuality, kitsch, bohemia, mass culture and the political and social ambiguities of such a mixture.

Marseille is a thoroughly ambiguous place. France's second city and its major sea-port, its impact on the national imagination is unparalleled. Yet it is also a frontier city, arguably capital of the Mediterranean, and with a traditionally suspect allegiance to the French nation. This apartness, and the city's long and rich history as home to migrants, workers and organised criminals, has cemented its association in the popular imagination with exoticism and illicit activity.In this history, Nicholas Hewitt explores Marseille's extraordinary cultural wealth from the Revolution to the present century, charting the development of its bad reputation, its 'rogue status' within France, and its international importance. The narratives devoted to this great port city range from the legend of its football team to The Count of Monte Cristo. Hewitt discovers Marseille through the eyes of writers, painters and sculptors, film-makers, music hall stars, architects and rappers; from the viewpoints of French, German, British and American visitors; and as a celebration of its humane cosmopolitanism, often in contrast with national French sentiment.Wicked City is a vivid and complex portrait of one of the Mediterranean's great cities, going beyond the popular stereotypes to uncover the true Marseille in its full richness.

It has long been assumed that France was dominated by the political left wing and by Existentialism throughout the 1940s and 1950s. This is the first book to re-evaluate the impact of the vigorous and unrepentant right-wing cultural and literary movement during the postwar period.In this revealing study, the author concentrates on three neglected but significant writers who constitute the group known as the 'Hussards': Roger Nimier, Antoine Blondin and Jacques Laurent. He offers a detailed analysis of the work of the 'Hussards' and others on the fringe of this iconoclastic group who aggressively (and sometimes violently) opposed Existentialism while adopting a tradition from the 1920s full of nostalgia for lost values. Students and scholars will find that this book fills an important gap in French literary and cultural history of the postwar period.