Bücher der Reihe French Film Directors Series

A study of Georges Melies, who directed, edited, produced, designed and starred in over 500 films between 1896 and 1912. Elizabeth Ezra explodes several myths about Melies's role in film history and locates the roots of modern narrative cinema in Melies's work.

Jacques Audiard is the first book on one of the most important French directors working today. Focusing on the representation of the physical body, French society and broader transnational contexts, it reveals how Audiard's cinema occupies a space both within and beyond the imaginary of French cinema. -- .

An analysis of all Jean Renoir's sound films, including those he made in Hollywood. Giving an account of critical debates concerning Renoir, and focusing on areas such as gender, nation and ethnicity, the book asks us to rethink our understanding of Renoir's political commitment.

This complete study of Bertrand Blier's work to date, traces his career from the early 1960s until the present, outlining the forms, themes and style which dominate in his work, and challenging the many labels that have been used to describe both the corpus of films and the man himself.

Agnes Varda, one of the major French film-makers of the last 40 years, is here celebrated by Alison Smith, by examining both the early films and the later successes, such as "Sans toit ni loi" (1985), "Jane B. par Agnes V." (1987) and "Jacquot de Nantes" (1991).

This volume offers a new interpretation of the whole of Godard's career in cinema. Drawing examples from all periods of Godard's filmmaking, it examines the parallels between the director's innovative approach to film form and wider developments in French culture and thought since 1950. -- .

Lisa Downing's comprehensive study of the films of PatriceLeconte traces lines of continuity and revision through a body of apparentlydisparate films whose "messages" often appear both contradictory andcontroversial. -- .

This is the first book on the celebrated films of director Claire Denis ('Chocolat', 'Beau Travail', 'Trouble Every Day'), one of the most remarkable filmmakers to come to prominence in the last 20 years. An essential read for students and specialists in contemporary French cinema. -- .

This study of Duras cinema, examines such films as "India Song", "Le Camion", and "Nathalie Granger". It provides an introduction to her films, and locates them in their autobiographical as well as social and historical context, with an empahasis on gender issues.

This volume examines the films of Jean-Jacques Beineix. His work is placed within the context of the 1980's and each film is discussed in detail, including the controversies surrounding them, while attempting to analyze the films for their intrinsic interest.

Luc Besson is considered one of the hottest international properties to emerge from the new wave of French film directors in the 1980s. This is a study of Besson's film-making career to date, placing the films within their socio-historical and political context.

A study of the "enfant terrible" of French cinema. The ingredients and influences of Carax's films (including "Les Amants du Pont Neuf" and "Pola X") are examined: Paris, pop music, flanerie, amour fou, mannerist and neo-baroque aesthetics, "Nouvelle Vague" and contemporary naturalist cinema.

Coline Serreau's third film, Trois hommes et un couffin(Three Men and a Baby) was the most successful French film of the 1980s. Shewas already known in France for her major contribution to feministdocumentaries with the acclaimed Mais qu'est-ce qu'elles veulent?, and is now akey figure in French cinema and drama. -- .

After making an initial impact with his first film "Les 400 Coups", the French film director Francois Truffaut went on to make 23 films in 26 years. This appraisal of his work provides a socio-political contextualization, and gives an overview of his films and film-making methods.

Claude 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 work of the 1990s.

This analysis of the cinema of Diane Kurys describes her unsentimental reconstructions of the lives of girls and women in post-war France which established her as a real presence in contemporary French film-making. It traces her career from actress to author-director-producer of her own films.

Described by Deleuze as 'one of the greatest modern auteurs', Philippe Garrel is perhaps the most significant filmmaker to emerge in France after the New Wave. This study offers an overview of his work, exploring its intersections with avant-gardes including the Situationists, Surrealism, Arte Povera and the American Underground. -- .

This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world's great filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his films that identify his key themes and techniques, trace patterns of continuity and change, and explore critical assessments of his work over time. His career began in the silent era and ended as the French New Wave was winding down. In between, Duvivier made over sixty films in a long and at times difficult career. He was adept at literary adaptation, biblical epic, and film noir, and this groundbreaking volume illustrates in great detail Duvivier's eclecticism, technical efficiency and visual fluency in works such as Panique (1946) and Voici le temps des assassins (1956). It will particularly appeal to scholars and students of French cinema looking for examples of a director who could straddle the realms of the popular and the auteur.

This is the first comprehensive study of Jean Epstein's fiction and documentary films, film theory, and writings on poetry and homosexuality. The book unfolds the intellectual trajectory of Epstein and restores him to the limelight of interwar world cinema, on a par with Renoir, Lang, Capra and Eisenstein. -- .

The first full-length book devoted to Jacques Demy in the English language. -- .

An introduction to the work of Robert Bresson, a respected and acclaimed director in the history of cinema. His films are considered in chronological order, using a perspective that draws variously on spectator theory, Catholic mysticism, gender theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

An illuminating new introduction to Alain Resnais's work, extending from his earliest documentaries to the musical films of the last decade Traces the evolving patterns of Resnais's filmmaking, and its changing reflections on mortality, guilt, chance and human doubt Sets Resnais's films in the context of important current debates in film.

The first full-length monograph in English devoted to one of the most acclaimed and controversial directors in contemporary cinema -- .

This comprehensive study of Eric Rohmer generously surveys the director's five-decade career, exploring questions of production, cinematic realism, style and technique, serial filmmaking, and historical adaptation. -- .

A comprehensive, original and accessible account of all aspects of Jean Cocteau's work in the cinema. The first major study in English for over forty years. Casts new light on Cocteau's most celebrated films as well as the lesser known ones. -- .

This volume in the French Film Directors series has been long-awaited by students and academics of French and European cinema in particular and by Film Studies students in general. -- .

Chris Marker's importance has been recognized by critics from his earliest films onwards. Marker explores the relation between fact and fiction in memory as in documentary, in words and in images that work both with and against one another. This title presents an overview of the filmmaker.

Placing Robbe-Grillet's filmic oeuvre in the related contexts of both his novelistic work and the different historical and cultural periods in which his films were made, the book traces lines of influence and continuity throughout this oeuvre which is shown to exhibit a preoccupation with an identifiable body of themes, motifs and structures.

First and only comprehensive overview of Pagnol's career in English, and the only book in any language to link Pagnol's early career as a playwright with his controversial theories of cinema and his work as a film director. -- .