Masterworks of the French Cinema (Icon Editions)

This book includes four screenplays by four of France's leading film directors, illustrating the development of French film-making from the silent era to the birth of the new wave movement in the late 1950s. Two comedies and two tragedies; Rene Clair's "The Italian Straw Hat" (1928) and Max Ophuls' "La Ronde" (1950) are domestic, and explore the dynamics of sex, while Jean Renoir's "La Grande Illusion" (1937) and Henri-Georges Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear" (1953) are studies of human courage and endeavour. This book also includes additional commentary by Jean Renoir, Erich von Stroheim and Karel Reisz.