French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity

Phil Powrie's exciting new study of French Cinema in the 1980s focuses on the crisis of masculinity in contemporary French culture, and its interrelationship with nostalgia. Films studied in detail include Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, Coup de foudre, Vivement dimanche!, La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille, and Tenue de soirée, while the volume covers actors from Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, and Yves Montand to Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, and Emmanuelle Béart. The book is divided into sections on the retro-nostalgic film, the polar, or police thriller, and the comic film. Each section begins with a brief preface which highlights the major issues for the genre during the 1980s.

Humor & Entertainment

Powrie, Phil

Movies

Clarendon Press

French film in the 1980s might have lacked the invention of the New Wave but gritty police thrillers and nostalgic costume-dramas such as Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources brought French cinema to a wider audience than ever before. This landmark study is not merely a history of French film in the 1980s, but offers a set of critical essays on the crisis of masculinity in contemporary French culture, and its interrelationship with nostalgia. After a brief overview both of the crisis in the French film industry during the 1980s, and of the socio-political crisis of masculinity in the wake of 1970s feminism, the book is divided into three sections: the retro-nostalgic film, the Polar, or police thriller, and the comic film. Films studied in detail include Diva, Subway, Coup de foudre, Vivement dimanche!, La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille, and Tenue de soirï¿½e, while the volume covers actors from Gï¿½rard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, and Yves Montand to Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, and Emmanuelle Bï¿½art.

The story of Carmen, the Spanish Gypsy femme fatale, is one of the most adapted stories in the history of cinema. The films are often a combination of Mérimée’s 1845 novella and the opera Bizet fashioned from the novella thirty years later. Carmen on Film: A Cultural History focuses on 16 of the most important Carmen films, ranging across three main cinemas (Hollywood, France, and Spain), stretching from the earliest films to the most recent (by director): Calmettes (1910), DeMille (1915), Walsh (1915), Chaplin (1916), Lubitsch (1918), Walsh (1927), Feyder (1926), Rey (1938), Vidor (1948), Preminger (1954), Demicheli (1959), Saura (1983), Godard (1984), Rosi (1984), Ramaka (2001), and Aranda (2003).
The story of Carmen has captured the imagination of audiences and readers for more than 150 years. Powrie, Babington, Davies, and Perriam ask why—and in their examination of the numerous cinematic retellings of this popular tale, they offer insight into the cultural significance of the fictional lives and deaths of Carmen.

Carmen on Film: A Cultural History

Davies, Ann

Perriam, Chris

Babington, Bruce

Biddle, Ian

Indiana University Press

What are the Cahiers du cinéma ? Which are the most popular French films ? How do you write an essay on a French film ? What is a high-angle shot in French ? When did more French spectators go to see American films than French films ? How do you talk about a short sequence of film ? You can find the answers to these and many more questions in this essential resource for students of French cinema.

French Cinema

Bloomsbury Academic

This volume is the first to examine the films of Jean-Jacques Beineix, a contraversial film maker often viewed as the best example of the 1980's Cinéma du Look. After an introduction which places Beineix in the context of the 1980's and the arguments centering on postmodern cinema, Phil Powrie devotes a chapter to each of Beineix's feature films. This first edition includes a forward by Jean-Jacques Beineix.

Jean-Jacques Beineix

Manchester University Press

This book is the first major study of a French silent cinema star. It focuses on Pierre Batcheff, a prominent popular cinema star in the 1920s, the French Valentino, best-known to modern audiences for his role as the protagonist of the avant-garde film classic Un chien andalou. Unlike other stars, he was linked to intellectual circles, especially the Surrealists. The book places Batcheff in the context of 1920s popular cinema, with specific reference to male stars of the period. It analyses the tensions he exemplifies between the 'popular' and the 'intellectual' during the 1920s, as cinema - the subject of intense intellectual interest across Europe - was racked between commercialism and 'art'. A number of the major films are studied in detail: Le Double amour (Epstein, 1925), Feu Mathias Pascal (L'Herbier, 1925), Éducation de prince (Diamant-Berger, 1927), Le Joueur d'échecs (Bernard, 1927), La Sirène des tropiques (Etiévant and Nalpas, 1927), Les Deux timides (Clair, 1928), Un chien andalou (Buñu

Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French Cinema

Biographies & Memoirs

Rebillard, Éric

Arts & Literature

Edinburgh University Press

Like many national cinemas, the French cinema has a rich tradition of film musicals beginning with the advent of sound to the present. This is the first book to chart the development of the French film musical. The French film musical is remarkable for its breadth and variety since the 1930s; although it flirts with the Hollywood musical in the 1930s and again in the 1950s, it has very distinctive forms rooted in the traditions of French chanson. Defining it broadly as films attracting audiences principally because of musical performances, often by well-known singers, Phil Powrie and Marie Cadalanu show how the genre absorbs two very different traditions with the advent of sound: European operetta and French chanson inflected by American jazz (1930-1950). As the genre matures, operetta develops into big-budget spectaculars with popular tenors, and revue films also showcase major singers in this period (1940-1960). Both sub-genres collapse with the advent of rock n roll, leading to a period of experimentation during the New Wave (1960-1990). The contemporary period since 1995 renews the genre, returning nostalgically both to the genre's origins in the 1930s, and to the musicals of Jacques Demy, but also hybridising with other genres, such as the biopic and the documentary.

The French Film Musical

Cadalanu, Marie

French Film Musical, The

This book explores composed scores and pre-existing music in French cinema from 1985 to 2015 so as to identify critical musical moments. It shows how heritage films construct space through music, generating what Powrie calls “third space music,” while also working to contain the strong women characters found in French heritage films through the use of leitmotifs and musical cues. He analyses fiction films in which the protagonists perform at the piano, showing how musical performance supports the performance of gender. Building on aspects of musical performance, and in particular the use of songs performed in films, Powrie uses a database of 300 films since 2010 to theorize the intervention of music at critical moments as a “crystal-song”. Applying Roland Barthes’s concept of the “punctum” and Gille Deleuze’s concept of the “crystal-image,” Powrie establishes the importance of the crystal-song, which reconfigures time as a crystallization of past, present and future.

Music in Contemporary French Cinema: The Crystal-Song

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Powrie, Phil. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Powrie, Phil

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Powrie, Phil. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity

French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity

Carmen on Film: A Cultural History

Carmen on Film: A Cultural History

French Cinema

Jean-Jacques Beineix

Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French Cinema

The French Film Musical

French Film Musical, The

Music in Contemporary French Cinema: The Crystal-Song