A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema

InhaltsangabeList of Contributors xii Acknowledgments xviii Editorial Practice xx Introduction: Contemporary French Cinema - Continuity and Change in a Global Context 1 Alistair Fox, with Michel Marie, Raphaëlle Moine, and Hilary Radner Contexts: Institutional, Political, Cultural, and Economic 4 Characteristics of Contemporary French Cinema 4 Thematic Preoccupations 7 Trends, Developments, and the Future of French Cinema 10 Part I Economic, Institutional, and Political Contexts 15 1 The Political Economy of French Cinema: Attendance and Movie Theaters 17 Laurent Creton Changing Patterns of Cinema Attendance 20 Cinematic Production and Its Outcomes 23 The Competitiveness of French Cinema and Market Share 25 Concentration and Diversity 30 The Transformation of the Pool of Theaters 32 The Future of Cinematic Theaters 35 2 "Do We Have the Right to Exist?" French Cinema, Culture, and World Trade 45 Jonathan Buchsbaum France 49 Europe: Television Without Frontiers 51 Cultural Exception: GATT 56 Cultural Diversity: MAI/UNESCO 62 3 Historicizing Contemporary French Blockbusters 74 Charlie Michael A Tentative Typology 75 "Cultural Diversity" or Cultural Crisis? 77 The Second Lang Plan (1989-1993) 79 The Maturation of a "Forced Marriage" 82 StudioCanal in the Crosshairs 84 A New Oligopoly? 87 4 Moving Between Screens: Television and Cinema in France, 1990-2010 96 Guillaume Soulez The Role of Television in the Financing of Cinema 97 Arte as a Stimulus and Sponsor of the New Cinema 98 A Cinema of Collections 98 Realism and Television 100 The Revival of Documentary 101 Films/Telefilms: A Play of Mirrors 103 "Television Films" and Cinema Formatting 104 From Comic Television to Comedy in Cinemas 106 Cinema and Televised Series 109 5 Contemporary Political Cinema 117 Martin O'Shaughnessy Taking Stock: Working-Class Histories and the Exit from Fordism 118 Outsiders and Victims, Ethics and Politics 125 Political Effectiveness 131 New Departures? 133 6 Diasporic and Postcolonial Cinema in France from the 1990s to the Present 136 Will Higbee Auteurled Productions and the "Return" of the Political in Diasporic and Postcolonial Cinema Since the 1990s 139 From Margins to the Mainstream: Postcolonial Comedy and the Mainstreaming of Maghrebi-French Filmmakers in the 2000s 144 Memorializing Colonial History: From Neo-Colonial to "Counter-Heritage" Cinema 148 Return Narratives in Diasporic Cinema of the 2000s 153 Beyond Ethnicity? Reconfiguring Difference in Diasporic Cinema 154 Part II Auteurs and Auteurism 161 7 The Veterans of the New Wave, Their Heirs, and Contemporary French Cinema 163 Michel Marie The Extraordinary Fecundity of the Veterans of the New Wave 163 The Quartet of Founding Members: Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, Godard 166 The "Left Bank" of the New Wave 173 A Problematical Legacy 177 Epilogue: The Enduring Influence of Bresson and Pialat 181 8 Was There a Young French Cinema? 184 Jacqueline Nacache To What Does the Term "Young French Cinema" Refer? 185 The Arrival of the New Cinema 187 The CounterAttack of Positif 190 Maturity and Defining Parameters 192 New Appraisals, New Perspectives 195 Consensus and Uncertainties 197 What Remains of the Young French Cinema? 198 9 Auteurism, Personal Cinema, and the Fémis Generation: The Case of François Ozon 205 Alistair Fox Characteristics of Auteur Cinema 206 Categories of Auteur Directors 207 Auteurist Styles 208 Cinephilia and Its Influence 209 The Personal Dimension 210 The Functions of Personal Cinema 213 François Ozon: A Case Study 216 Symbolic Figuration and Ozon's Personal Myth 217 The Common Denominator of the Cinéma d'Auteur 225 Part III Genres, Cycles, and Cinematic Forms 231 10 Contemporary French Comedy as Social Laboratory 233 Raphaëlle Moine Popular, Local, and