French Cinema - Softcover

Drazin, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571211739 ISBN 13: 9780571211739

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2011

Synopsis

The Hollywood model of cinema as mass-market spectacle—as entertainment rather than an art—is more dominant than ever, its box-office power amounting to an effective monopoly. France has been one of the most active countries to challenge this hegemony. A key motivation has been its sense of a distinct film tradition that has always provided the most sustained alternative model to Hollywood.

The respected film critic Charles Drazin has written what will become the definitive history of French cinema. Drazin examines France’s role as the inventor of cinema and its pivotal influence over the language of cinema across the past century. Along the way, he highlights the influence of Hollywood directors such as Hitchcock, Ford, and Hawks on Truffaut’s generation, as well as the impact of British directors such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh on current filmmakers.

French Cinema seeks to capture some essence of French cinema through the key personalities and episodes in its history, but it is also the story of a conflict between two traditions that continues to this day.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Drazin is the author of numerous books on film, including In Search of The Third Man, and is a lecturer in film studies at the Queen Mary University of London.

Review:

“Arguing that tensions over art for unprofitable art’s sake vs. commercial success have been part of France’s film industry since the beginning, Drazin provides a convincing overview of a cultural force that briefly dominated the world’s theaters, then ceded the commercial sphere to America, which repeatedly co-opted and homogenized French film’s cultural and technical innovations . . . Concise, meaty profiles of pioneers . . . A thorough interview of French cinema’s art, business, and uneasy relationship with Hollywood, as authoritative as it is affectionate.” --Vadim Rizov, The Onion A.V. Club

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0571211739
• ISBN 13: 9780571211739
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464