Week 4: 1930s, Realism and the Popular Front
Film: L'Atalante. Directed by Jean Vigo. Black and White, 89 min. 1934.
Readings:
Conoley, Tom. "Getting Lost on the Waterways of L'Atalante." In Cinema and Modernity. Edited by M. Pomerance. Rutgers University Press, 2006, pp. 253–72. ISBN: 9780813538167. [Preview with Google Books]
Ungar, Steven. "Jean Vigo, L'Atalante, and the Promise of Social Cinema." Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 35, no. 2 (2009): 63–83.
Williams, Alan. Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 184–212. ISBN: 9780674762688.
Week 5: Occupation & Liberation
Film: Les Enfants du Paradis. Directed by Marcel Carné. Black and White, 190 min. 1945.
Readings:
Jeancolas, Jean-Pierre. "Beneath the Despair, the Show Goes On: Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis (1943–45)." In French Film: Texts and Contexts. Routledge, 2000, pp. 78–88. ISBN: 9780415161183. [Preview with Google Books]
Burch, and Sellier. "The Destabilizing Effects of the Liberation." In The Battle of the Sexes in French Cinema, 1930–1956. Duke University Press Books. 2013. ISBN: 9780822355618.
Williams, Alan. "Liberation." In Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 272–98. ISBN: 9780674762688.
Week 6: Is France Where the Movies go to Become Classic?
Film: Le fantôme d'Henri Langlois. Directed by Jacques Richard. Black and White & Color, 128 min. 2004.
Readings:
Myrent, Glenn, and Georges P. Langlois. Henri Langlois: First Citizen of Cinema. Twayne Publishers, 1995. ISBN: 9780805745214.
Roud, Richard. A Passion for Films: Henri Langlois and the Cinémathèque Française. Viking Adult, 1983. ISBN: 9780670366873.
Week 8: Classic French Stars: Brigitte Bardot
Catherine Deneuve
Film: Les parapluies de Cherboug. Directed by Jacques Demy. Color, 91 min. 1964.
Readings:
Vincendeau, Ginette. "From Ice Maiden to Living Divinity." Chapter 8 in Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. Bloomsbury Academic, 2000. ISBN: 9780826447319. [Preview with Google Books]
Hill, Rodney. "The New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality: Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." Cinema Journal 48, no. 1 (2008): 27–50.
Week 9: The New Wave
The Left Bank
Films: Cléo de 5 à 7. Directed by Agnès Varda. Black and White & Color, 90 min. 1962.
La Jetée. Directed by Chris Marke. Black and White, 28 min. 1962.
Readings:
Forbes, Jill. "Women Filmmakers in France." In The Cinema in France: After the New Wave. Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 76–104. ISBN: 9780253323682.
Sellier, Geneviève. "The Independent Filmmakers of the Left Bank: A 'Feminist' Alternative?" In Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema. Duke University Press Books, 2008, pp. 210–20. ISBN: 9780822341925. [Preview with Google Books]
Neupert, Richard. "On the New Wave's Left Bank: Alain Resnais and Agnes Varda." In A History of the French New Wave Cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780299217044. [Preview with Google Books]
Week 10: 1970s Sex and Sectarianism
Film: Les Valseuses. Directed by Bertrand Blier. Color, 117 min. 1974.
Readings:
Forbes, Jill. "Sex, Politics and Popular Culture: Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses (1973)." In French Film: Texts and Contexts. Routledge, 2000, pp. 213–26. ISBN: 9780415161183. [Preview with Google Books]
Vincendeau, Ginette. "Gérard Depardieu: The Axiom of Contemporary French Cinema." Screen 34, no. 4 (1993): 343–61.
Week 11: The "Cult" Classic I: the Cinéma du Look
Film: Diva. Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. Color, 117 min. 1981.
Readings:
Powrie, Phil. "Diva's Deluxe Disasters." In French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity. Clarendon Press, 1997, pp. 109–20. ISBN: 9780198711186. [Preview with Google Books]
Lang, Robert. "Carnal Stereophony: A Reading of Diva." Screen 25, no. 3 (1984): 70–77.
Yervasi, Carina. "Capturing the Elusive Representation in Beineix's Diva." Literature/Film Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1993): 38–46.
Week 12: The "Cult" Classic II: La Haine
Film: Le Thé au harem d'Archimide. Directed by Mehdi Charef. Color, 110 min. 1985.
La Graine et le mulet. Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. Color, 151 min. 2007.
Readings:
Tarr, Carrie. "Maghrebi-french (Beur) Filmmaking in Context." Cineaste 33, no. 1 (2007): 32–37.
Higbee, Will. "Re-presenting the Urban Periphery: Maghrebi-french Filmmaking and the Banlieue Film." Cineaste 33, no. 1 (2007): 38–43.
Tarr, Carrie. "Beurz N the Hood: The Articulation of Beur and French Identities in Le Thé au harem d'Archimide and Hexagone." Modern & Contemporary France 3, no. 4 (1995): 415–25.
Week 13: What is "classic" Today?: The Popular
Film: Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Black and White & Color, 122 min. 2001.
Readings:
Andrew, Dudley. "Amélie, or Le Fabuleux Destin du Cinéma Français." Film Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2004): 34–46.
Vincendeau, Ginette. "Café Society." Sight and Sound 11, no. 8 (2001): 22–25.
Stigsdotter, Ingrid. "'Very Funny If You Can Keep up with the Subtitles'" The British Reception of Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain." In France at the Flicks: Trends in Contemporary French Popular Cinema. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, pp. 198–211. ISBN: 9781847183019.