Series: French Film Directors Series

This study is an analysis of Claude Chabrol and brings into focus a prolific French director. Chabrol has made more than 50 films in a career spanning 40 years. This account traces the development of his film style from the experimental period of the "Nouvelle Vague" to the mature thriller of the 1970s and the critically acclaimed work of the...

After making a strong impact with his first film, Les 400 Coups, a semi-autobiographical narrative shot in the neo-realist style of the emerging Nouvelle Vague, the French film director Francois Truffaut went on to make 23 films in 26 years. This appraisal of his work provides a socio-political contextualisation and gives an overview of his films and film-making methods. It...

The first book in English to deal exclusively with Duras' cinema, including such films as India Song, Le Camion, and Nathalie Granger. Provides a lucid and stimulating introduction to her films, which is accessible to a wide readership, both specialist and non-specialist. Locates the films in their autobiographical as well as social and historical context, making the book broadly interesting...

Saccharine for some, poignant for others, Jacques Demy's enchanted world is familiar to generations of French audiences accustomed to watching Christmas repeats of his fairytale Peau d'âne (1970) or seeing Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac prance and pirouette in Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1966). Demy achieved international recognition with Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1963), which was awarded the Palme d'Or...

If cinema can be approached as poetry and philosophy, it is because of Jean Epstein. Cocteau, Buñuel (who was his assistant), Hitchcock, Pasolini, and Godard, along with theoreticians Kracauer, Deleuze, and Rancière, are directly influenced by Epstein's pioneering film work, writings, and concepts. This book is the first in English to examine his oeuvre comprehensively. An avant-garde artist and an...