{"title":"Michèle Morgan: stardom and popular cinephilia","authors":"Thomas Pillard, G. Sellier","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2073985","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2073985","url":null,"abstract":"Star studies, the approach that arose from the foundational work of Richard Dyer (1998 [1979], translated into French in 2004) has long been relegated to second-class status in the discipline of film studies in France. French academics have taken an interest in actors and actresses, especially those who have contributed to the work of ‘canonical’ filmmakers, and they have also written about acting from the perspective developed by James Naremore (1988, translated in 2014). However, the study of stars as an ideological, sociological and media phenomenon, associated with popular cinema and the reception practices of a broad, diverse audience, has encountered significant resistance to its recognition as an area of legitimate academic investigation – especially when it comes to French cinema. The first, pioneering studies of this kind were written by English-speaking academics, particularly the works of Ginette Vincendeau on Jean Gabin (1993), the French star system (2000, translated in 2008) and Brigitte Bardot (2013, 2014), as well as Susan Hayward’s work on Simone Signoret (2000, translated in 2013). A new generation of French researchers has endeavoured to pursue this path further: these include Gwénaëlle Le Gras, who published a book on Catherine Deneuve (2010), and Delphine Chedaleux, who wrote about the young leading men and women of French cinema of the German occupation (2016); working together, Le Gras and Chedaleux co-edited a volume on the genres, actors and actresses of French cinema from the 1930s to the 1960s (2012). There have been important contributions from long-term research projects, such as the ANR Cinépop50 programme, which ran from 2012 to 2015 (‘Popular Film and Film-Going in Post-War France, 1945–1958’, Le Gras and Sellier 2015), as well as innovative doctoral dissertations covering the cultural history of stardom (Juan 2014) and stars such as Gérard Philipe (Beaujeault 2018) and Delphine Seyrig (Moussa 2021). The first international conference on Danielle Darrieux, which took place on what would have been her 100th birthday, from 3– 5 May 2017 at Bordeaux Montaigne University, led to the publication of a book edited by Gwénaëlle Le Gras and Geneviève Sellier (2020). This special issue of French Screen Studies, devoted entirely to Michèle Morgan, is the result of a one-day conference organised on 29 February 2020, for the 100th anniversary of her birth. It follows the growing impetus of star studies in France,","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"105 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45420528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The odd couple: Michèle Morgan and Bourvil in Le Miroir à deux faces (1958) and Fortunat (1960)","authors":"R. Moine","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2073993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2073993","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Michèle Morgan starred twice alongside Bourvil, in 1958 in Le Miroir à deux faces (André Cayatte) and in 1960 in Fortunat (Alex Joffé). These films present the pairing of Morgan and Bourvil as an anomaly, casting them as a mismatched couple who could only have come together under exceptional circumstances. The contrast between the two characters, and between the two stars, provides the main narrative thrust and selling point of each film. This article analyses the contrast, especially in terms of class, at the centre of the pairing of Morgan and Bourvil. It also explores the roles assigned to male and female characters in each film as well as the sperformances of their main actors. The main argument is that this contrast acted in favour of Bourvil, a rising star whose encounter with Morgan allowed him to enrich his portrayal of an ‘imperfect masculinity’. On the other hand, Morgan was stuck in yet another performance as ‘Morgan the star’ in Le Miroir à deux faces, and, as she approached 40, as a grande dame and mother in Fortunat. Finally, a comparison between Le Miroir à deux faces and its remake The Mirror Has Two Faces (Barbra Streisand, 1996) highlights the limited latitude available to Morgan in Cayatte’s film, in terms of both her acting and the role she played.","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"190 - 207"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41736999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The system of the genius: the French New Wave’s politique des producteurs","authors":"Eli Boonin-Vail","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2057665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2057665","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay constructs a post-auteurist historiography of the French New Wave centred on the role of the producer. Examining the scattered recollections and contradictory accounts of producers Pierre Braunberger, Anatole Dauman, Georges de Beauregard, Mag Bodard and Christine Gouze-Rénal, the author builds a case for considering the New Wave’s director-oriented legacy, its aura of genius creators, as in part the product of producers’ own tactics and attitudes of self-effacement. By conceiving of the New Wave producer figure as curatorial – curating a movement and a sensibility in the role of patron and promoter of both films and directors – this investigation finds a production culture shaped by particular economic, cultural and intellectual contexts that enabled the New Wave to exist and thrive. This production culture positioned itself outside the established production industries of France. It was also masculinist and characterised by gender imbalance. Finding that women productrices faced unique challenges and setbacks, sometimes at the hands of their fellow producers, the essay analyses the hidden role of the New Wave producer while recognising that this role’s agency varied based on gender.","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47883632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In the name of the Gothic father: François Truffaut’s L’Histoire d’Adèle H. (1975)","authors":"M. Mallia","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2056348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2056348","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The reception of François Truffaut’s 1975 film L’Histoire d’Adèle H., dealing with the obsession and descent into madness of the daughter of Victor Hugo, has recurrently focused on its critical engagement with Romantic melodrama, as well as its literary and ‘romanesque’ dimensions. This article argues that the term ‘romanesque’ has camouflaged the film’s active engagement with both cinematic and literary Gothic heritage. This engagement is shown to be inextricably linked to dynamic tensions of paternal influence. Both Truffaut as director and Adèle Hugo as film character actively renegotiate the Father’s artistic heritage of violent passions and dark metaphysical forces, with differing results. The article proposes a double analysis: (a) a close reading of the film’s Gothic tropes, shedding light on Truffaut’s intertextual dialogue with Hitchcock, his favourite ‘Gothic’ father and (b) an examination of the character Adèle H.’s intertextual performance, in which she contends with the powerful Gothico-Romantic myth embodied by the literary patriarch Victor Hugo. This will lead to extended insight into Truffaut’s brand of filmic Gothic as a vehicle of haunted intensity and on his distinctive exploration of the torments of female subjectivity, haunting and neurosis.","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43032927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A marriage of life and art: the celebrity coupledom of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Yvan Attal","authors":"F. Chaplin","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2057666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2057666","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In addition to playing characters, stars can represent a story and this is true both of individual stars and star couples. The story of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Yvan Attal – one of France’s most famous couples – unfolds both onscreen and offscreen and is articulated in a play of signification across various representations. Gainsbourg and Attal have made several films together, including three directed by Attal in which they play a couple. With reference to these films as a trilogy and to extra-cinematic material, this article considers how the Attal/Gainsbourg celebrity couple is narrativised through the interplay of their onscreen and offscreen presences. It examines how the ‘reality’ of the offscreen couple is both reinforced and undermined by the ‘fiction’ of the onscreen couple, particularly through the use of the romantic comedy genre, which engages with established cultural norms around coupling in France. The article interweaves a reading of these films into an analysis of the couple’s cultural life to examine how the onscreen couple nuance ideas of legitimate coupling norms, including through an appeal to their everyday authenticity.","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"67 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41947841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The latest fashion in French star studies","authors":"M. Hallet","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2051344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2051344","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42214234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bibliography for French and francophone cinema and television 2021","authors":"M. Hallet","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2049512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2049512","url":null,"abstract":"Albera, François. Léger et le cinéma. Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Place. Allio, René. Les carnets, tome III. Montpellier: Éditions Deuxième époque. Aumont, Jacques. Doublures du visible. Voir et ne pas voir en cinéma. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Baxter, John. Charles Boyer: The French Lover. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Bellan, Katharina, Renard Caroline, and Vappereau, Marguerite, eds. Le Centre Méditerranéen de Création Cinématographique: Une expérience de la décentralisation. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence. Best, Victoria, and Crowley, Martin. The New Pornographies: Explicit Sex in Recent French Fiction and Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Blanchon, Philippe, Lemoine, Bruno, Noël, René, and Sicard, Jacques. Politique de l’auteur 2. Toulon: La Nerthe. Brett Oliver. Performing Place in French and Italian Queer Documentary Film: Space and Proust’s Lieu Factice. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Billaut, Manon. André Antoine au cinéma: Une méthode expérimentale. Sesto San Giovanni: Mimésis. Binh, N.T., ed. Actrices et acteurs au travail. Bruxelles: Les Impressions Nouvelles. Blackhurst, Alice. Luxury, Sensation and the Moving Image. Abingdon-on-Thames: Legenda. Bouanani, Ahmed. La Septième Porte. Une histoire du cinéma au Maroc de 1907 à 1986. Rabat: Kulte. Bourdeau, Loïc, ed. ReFocus: The Films of François Ozon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Broomer, Stephen, and Enns, Clint, eds. Imprints: The Films of Louise Bourque. Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute. Brossat, Alain, and Dupuis, Joachim Daniel. Bruno Dumont ou le cinéma des Z’humains. Paris: L’Harmattan. Burch Noël. Mémoires d’un transfuge cinéphile. Une vie de bâton de chaise. Paris: L’Harmattan. Campos, Rémy, Carou, Alain, and Poidevin, Aurélien, eds. De la scène à la pellicule:","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"352 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41703732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Undressed to kill: knowing, reading and connecting in Alain Guiraudie’s homme fatal thriller L’Inconnu du lac","authors":"J. Hardwick","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2035506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2035506","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT One of the unknowns associated with Alain Guiraudie’s thriller L’Inconnu du lac/Stranger by the Lake (2013) is what the film is really about. Set at a lake where men have sex with men, the film follows the protagonist Franck, who pursues a relationship with a man despite witnessing that man drown his lover. Whereas some reviews have read the film as a fable about the dangers of casual sex or HIV, this article argues that a key theme is the question of ‘knowability’: how do we come to know, to read, to make connections? How the film itself connects to a wider viewing audience is a further question this article addresses. To do so, three aspects pertinent to its readability are considered. The first relates to genre: how the film breaks with the generic conventions of the homme fatal thriller. The second pertains to space, with Guiraudie’s lakeside being compared to Jean-Didier Urbain’s writing on the beach. The third concerns narrative, specifically the self-reflexive element of three ‘reader’ characters in the film. This article will contend that ultimately Guiraudie’s film goes beyond communitarian questions to offer a post-queer vision of connectedness in a world of increasing isolation.","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"84 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41648977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What makes a major? Recent books on French studios","authors":"Reece Goodall","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2022.2033476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2022.2033476","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"36 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47971366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Performing vulnerability: hand in hand with Les Enfants d’Isadora","authors":"Sarah Cooper","doi":"10.1080/26438941.2021.2022359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2021.2022359","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Damien Manivel’s Les Enfants d’Isadora (2019) is inspired by Isadora Duncan’s solo dance ‘Mother’, which she choreographed after the tragic loss of her two young children. Manivel’s film shows a series of women who engage with the dance in contemporary times, juxtaposing their interpretations of the solo with scenes from everyday life. These women’s performances point to a shared vulnerability, stemming from, but not limited to, Isadora Duncan’s grief. In contrast to studies of vulnerability in film that concentrate on vulnerable individuals, this reading of Manivel’s film explores how vulnerability subtends the formation of relational identity. Drawing first upon Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics of vulnerability, before centring on the ethico-political work of Judith Butler on vulnerability, performativity and gesture, the article shows how Manivel scrutinises actions and gestures both in and beyond dance, frequently singling out people’s hands. The film’s performance of vulnerability through its attention to hands is bound less to the proximity of tactility and contact or identification and empathy than it is to distance. By valorising distance and difference between the disparate women who are otherwise united by the same dance, the film enables us to re-view the ties that bind both them and us to each other.","PeriodicalId":40074,"journal":{"name":"French Screen Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"1 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48584777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}