Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
72 - French cinema, 1895–2010
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
France is a country that thinks. There is hardly an ideology that we haven't turned into a theory. We have in our libraries enough to talk about for centuries to come. This is why I would like to tell you: Enough thinking, already! Roll up your sleeves! (Christine Lagarde, French minister of finance)
Christine Lagarde's words should come as no surprise to any non-Frenchman who has struggled with that country's cinema. It is, after all, more than geography, language, or even cuisine, that makes the French French (and their cinema so indelibly ‘foreign’ to Anglo-Saxon audiences). Indeed, what finally separates and defines French cinema from Hollywood and other national cinemas can best be discerned not so much by the totality of films produced and shot on French soil, nor by the various movements and genres that have occupied French filmmakers (such as le Film d'Art, Impressionism, or Poetic Realism), but rather this very Gallic tendency to ‘think … to turn ideology into theory’ and to write (inject) theory into every cultural artefact they produce. I would like to demonstrate in the following pages, then, the ways in which the ‘shadow of theory’ guides, problematises and ultimately defines the very charged and intricate existence of the seventh art in France.
Auguste Lumière's report near the end of 1894, that his brother Louis had ‘in one night, invented the Cinematographe’, founds France's claim to be the cradle of the cinema.
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- The Cambridge History of French Literature , pp. 649 - 661Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011