Ciné-File French Film Guides – Serie

One of the most charismatic feature films of the New Wave, A Bout de Souffle (1960) has retained much of its appeal not only as the emphatic statement of a generational break with tradition, but also as Godard's earliest rendition of a set of thematic and stylistic motifs that would become his trademark. Sustained critical attention over almost fifty years has made this a cult film, propelled in part by the memorable coupling of its lead actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, whose story on screen seemed to portray the troubled love affair between French cinema and Hollywood. In this original guide to the film, Ramona Fotiade provides an in-depth analysis of its production and reception contexts, as well as of salient aspects mise-en-scene and editing. She situates A Bout de Souffle in relation to Godard's filmography and critical writings up to 1960, focusing on the elaboration of a narrative and visual discourse that has come to be identified with a distinctive strand in postmodern French cinema.She also explores the impact of Godard's early counter-narrative and visual strategies on the independent American filmmakers and the French Cinema du Look during the 1980s and 1990s.

One of the most charismatic feature films of the New Wave, A Bout de souffle (1960) has retained its appeal not only as the emphatic statement of a generational break with tradition, but also as Godard's earliest rendition of a set of thematic and stylistic motifs that would become his trademark. A Bout de souffle is now a cult film, propelled in part by the memorable coupling of its leading actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, whose story on screen seemed to portray the troubled love affair between French cinema and Hollywood. In this original guide to the film, Ramona Fotiade analyses in depth its production and reception, as well as its mise-en-scene and editing. She situates A Bout de souffle in relation to Godard's filmography and critical writings up to 1960, focusing on a narrative and visual discourse that is now identified with a distinctive strand in postmodern French cinema. She also explores the impact of Godard's early counter-narrative and visual strategies on the independent American filmmakers and the French Cinema du Look during the 1980s and 1990s.

Le Jour se leve (1939) directed by Marcel Carne, is widely recognised as the classic French Poetic Realist film. Told in flashback, it recounts the story of a man who has committed a murder, and who awaits his fate as the police close in. Carne shuttles between different registers, tones and textures throughout, marshalling the studio's resources to create striking pictorial compositions. The film also contains the great French star Jean Gabin's most iconic performance as Francois, marooned at the top of his apartment building. Ben McCann's perceptive and lively book traces the evolution of Le Jour se leve and situates it in a very specific historical moment. He also underlines the importance of actors Jules Berry and Arletty, production designer Alexandre Trauner, writer Jacques Prevert and cinematographer Curt Courant in establishing the film's tone, mood and visual style. He charts the national and international reception of the film, uncovering a work that deeply divided critics at a time of national crisis. He also reveals Le Jour se leve to be a key transitional work between European and American noir and compares it with the 1947 Hollywood remake.Highlighting its combination of the 'poetic' and the 'realist' this book finally stresses how Le Jour se leve represents the very best of pre-war French studio filmmaking.

Released in 1995, "La Haine" is the black and white chronicle of 24 hours in the life of a mixed-race young male trio from a run-down Parisian suburb. The author provides an understanding of the context of the film's making, of the film's narrative tension, stylistic sophistication and ideological ambiguity, and of its success.

Hugely enjoyable and exciting, long awaited book by top world authority on French cinema. This is the first book to focus on this very contemporary film. "Les Diaboliques" is often shown and is easily available on DVD and video "Les Diaboliques" was a top grossing film in 1955. Clouzot shrouded his film in mystery and also radically changed the original story of the novel, heterosexualising the original lesbian plot. "Les Diaboliques" still intrigues perhaps due to its excessive ambiguities and numerous plot twists that make it a 'film noir' to end all 'films noir', and not least the great performance of Simone Signoret. In this enjoyable and challenging "Cine-File", Hayward sets "Les Diaboliques" against the political culture of its time and demonstrates the importance of Clouzot as a master of the thriller genre. She gives an illuminating in-depth textual analysis of the film and presents a comparison with its US remake.

Released in 1995, "La Haine" is the black and white chronicle of 24 hours in the life of a mixed-race young male trio from a run-down Parisian suburb. The work of a then unknown young team (director and actors were all under 30), it became hugely and unexpectedly successful, launching director Mathieu Kassovitz and lead player Vincent Cassel to stardom.The film's combination of hard-hitting social expose, stylish black and white cinematography and hip-hop culture also turned it into an enduring cult movie with younger viewers. With great style and insight, Ginette Vincendeau provides a thorough understanding of the context of the film's making, its narrative tension, stylistic sophistication and ideological ambiguity and of its extraordinary success nationally and internationally. She thus explains why, out of so many films about disaffected youth, "La Haine" is the one that caught the imagination, becoming an instant classic.

"Cleo de 5 a 7" (1962) chronicles, in 'real time', ninety minutes in the life of rising pop singer Cleo Victoire, played by Corinne Marchand. Awaiting the results of a biopsy and fearing the worst, the charismatic protagonist seeks solace from a variety of characters on a June afternoon in Paris. Valerie Orpen follows Cleo's journey, providing a fascinating exploration of the film's unusual time structure and of the evocative mise-en-scene, which captures so vividly the Paris of the early 1960s. The only product of the French New Wave by a woman filmmaker, "Cleo de 5 a 7" is typical of the era stylistically and in many of its themes - Orpen here reveals the subtlety with which director Agnes Varda addresses topical issues such as the Algerian war, fear of cancer and the emptiness of fame. Yet, the film also retains a feminine, even feminist, slant unusual for the period, and Varda drew on a wider range of influences, including art and literature, than her cinephile male peers.Orpen tells the story of Varda's unorthodox beginnings as a filmmaker, and looks closely at the similarities and crucial differences between her work and that of her friend Godard and the other directors of the New Wave. Looking finally at critical responses to the film on its release, this lively guide makes clear the reasons why "Cleo de 5 a 7" continues to generate discussion and to draw in new audiences.

"Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain" was the surprise boxoffice success of 2001, with nine million spectators in France, and more than 30 million worldwide. The film turned Audrey Tautou into an international star, in her iconic role as Amelie, a naive French Parisian who devotes herself to mending the lives of the people around her. Shot on location in Paris, the film combines poetic and magical realism with stylish cinematography, original use of colour, state-of-the-art special effects, and an evocative soundtrack; together these have produced a popular film of universal appeal. Isabelle Vanderschelden examines the film's production within the French film industry. She analyzes the issues of genre and narrative that it presents so well. She looks in depth at the film's key scenes, as well as at Jeunet's distinctive visual style and cinematography and his use of digital technology. The national and international receptions of Amelie are explored to establish why the film has caught the public imagination and whether it marks a renewal in the cultural diversity and distinctive identity of the French film industry.This book will be essential reading for cinema lovers and students alike.

Of Jean Renoir's "La Regle du jeu" (1939), Richard Roud noted: 'if France were destroyed tomorrow and nothing remained but this film, the whole country and its civilization could be reconstructed from it'. This is an extravagant claim, but one that in the view of Keith Reader is justified. In this original, up-to-date, scrupulously documented book on one of the great films of world cinema, Reader focuses on "La Regle du jeu" in the context of both the time in which it was made and the currents of intertextuality by which it is traversed. He examines sequences from the film itself, its themes, reception and critical approaches and readings. He also explores its extraordinary subversive charge and its dynamic effect on subsequent generations of filmmakers, including Alain Resnais and Robert Altman. This is the essential companion to "La Regle du jeu", demonstrating as it does why this film remains so central to French cinema and to the history of French and indeed European culture.

"Du rififi chez les hommes" (1955), directed by the exiled American film director Jules Dassin, recounts the nail-biting tale of a Parisian gangster heist gone wrong. Famed for its extended dialog free robbery sequence, it is both a classic French film noir and one of the greatest, most influential crime films. In this lively companion to the film, Alastair Phillips reveals Dassin's role as a director of socially conscious Hollywood film noir and argues that his seminal contribution to the regeneration of the thriller in post war France therefore uniquely complicated relations between French genre cinema and American mass culture. Phillips also examines the film's innovative narrative construction and use of sound, its performance style and mise-en-scene, and discusses the film's legacy, showing how even today, the term 'Rififi' remains a byword for both criminal glamor and the enduring virtues of French popular classical film making.

In 1929 Dali and Bunuel produced a seventeen-minute film "Un chien andalou". On its first screening, Federico Garcia Lorca called it 'a tiny little shit of a film'. Produced from a script said to be based on two dream images - a woman's eye slit by a razor, ants emerging from a hole in a man's hand - the film shocked audiences. It continues to fascinate, provoke, attract and alienate its viewers. Its eye-slitting sequence and use of dream-like images have influenced filmmakers from Alfred Hitchcock to David Lynch. Elza Adamowicz's fascinating book on "Un chien andalou" takes new approaches to the film, exploring how it can be seen both within and beyond the confines of Surrealism and reviewing its openness to so many readings and interpretations. She reassesses Dali and Bunuel's account of the film as a model surrealist work and its reception by the surrealist group, examines the unresolved tensions within the film itself and includes us as viewers - are we detectives or dreamers? She sets the film into the wider contexts of other texts and of its authors' own experiences, providing a wide and deep guide to this most enigmatic of works.