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From the radical 1960s through the neo-conservative 1980s and into the early 1990s, the provocative cinematic careers of French director Jean-Luc Godard and Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci have captured the imagination of filmgoers and critics alike. Although their films differ greatly - Godard produces highly cerebral and theoretical works while Bertolucci creates films with more spectacle and emotionalism - their careers have sparked lively discussion and debate, mostly centred around the notion of an Oedipal struggle between them.
This book argues that the political and security threats posed by the domestic radical right in Western countries have been consistently exaggerated since 1945. This has allowed governments to justify censoring and repressing their political opponents, including many who cannot be fairly described as being affiliated with the radical right.
This volume offers a new interpretation of one of the most innovative directors in the history of cinema. It is the first book to cover the whole of Godard's career, from the French New Wave to the recent triumphs of Histoire(s) du cinéma and Eloge de l'amour. Drawing on a wide range of literary, filmic and philiosophical texts, the book places Godard's work within its intellectual context, examining how developments in French culture and thought since 1950 have been mirrored in - and sometimes anticipated by - Godard's films. Numerous sequences from Godard's films are singled out for close analysis, demonstrating how the director's radical approaches to narrative, editing, sound and shot composition have made the cinema into an analytical tool in its own right. The book will be essential to all students of Godard's films, and of interest to scholars of modern and contemporary French cinema, culture and thought.
Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (1965), made at the height of the French New Wave, remains a milestone in French cinema. More accessible than his later films, it represents the diverse facets of Godard's concerns and themes: a bittersweet analysis of male-female relations; an interrogation of the image; personal and international politics; the existential dilemmas of consumer society. This volume brings together essays by five prominent scholars of French film. They approach Pierrot le fou from the perspectives of image-and-word-play, aesthetics and politics, history, and high- and popular culture. A full filmography and a selection of reviews are included.
The Films of Jean-Luc Godard examines the work of one of the most versatile and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. With a career ranging from France's New Wave movement in the early 1960s to a period of political experimentation in the late 1960s and 70s, and, currently, a contemplative period in which Godard has explored issues of spirituality, sexuality, and the aesthetics of sound, image, and montage, the filmmaker's work defies easy categorization. In this study, David Sterritt offers an introductory overview of Godard's work as a filmmaker, critic, and video artist. In subsequent chapters, he traces Godard's visionary ideas through six of his key films, including Breathless, My Life to Live, Weekend, Numéro deux, Hail Mary, and Nouvelle Vague formats. Linking Godard's works to key social and cultural developments, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard explains their importance in modernist and postmodernist art of the last half century.
Collected interviews with the French director of Breathless and Hail Mary
This book analyses contemporary French films by focussing closely on cinematic representations of immigrants and residents of suburban housing estates known as banlieues. It begins by examining how these groups are conceived of within France's Republican political model before analysing films that focus on four key issues. Firstly, it will assess representations of undocumented migrants known as sans-papiers before then analysing depictions of deportations made possible by the controversial double peine law. Next, it will examine films about relations between young people and the police in suburban France before exploring films that challenge cliches about these areas. The conclusion assesse...
À la rencontre du cinéma français: analyse, genre, histoire is intended to serve as the core textbook in a wide variety of upper-level undergraduate and graduate French cinema courses. In contrast to content-, theme-, or issue-based approaches to film, Professor Berg stresses “the cinematically specific, the warp and fabric of the film itself, the stuff of which it is made.' Sufficient proficiency in French is the sole prerequisite: “No previous background in film studies is assumed, nor is any prior acquaintance with French cinema. It will help, of course, to like movies, and to have seen quite a few…' (from the preface).
The 1969 film Ma Nuit chez Maud catapulted its shy academic film director Eric Rohmer (1920-2010) into the limelight, selling over a million tickets in France and earning a nomination for an Academy Award. Ma Nuit chez Maud remains his most famous film, the highlight of an impressive range of films examining the sexual, romantic, and artistic mores of contemporary France, the temptations of desire, the small joys of everyday life, and sometimes, the vicissitudes of history and politics. Yet Rohmer was already forty years old when Maud was released and had already had a career as the editor of Cahiers du Cinéma, a position he lost in a political takeover in 1963. The interviews in this book ...