Reinterpreting twelve of Renoir's best-known works, Professor Faulkner attributes their qualities not to the director's unified sensibility but to varying social and historical circumstances. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Since 1995 there has been a widespread return of commitment to French cinema taking it to a level unmatched since the heady days following 1968. But this new wave of political film is very different and urgently calls out for an analysis that will account for its development, its formal characteristics and its originality. This is what this book provides. It engages with leading directors such as Cantet, Tavernier, Dumont, Kassovitz, Zonca and Guédiguian, takes in a range of less well known but important figures and strays across the Belgian border to engage with the seminal work of the Dardenne brothers. It shows how the works discussed are helping to reinvent political cinema by finding stylistic and narrative strategies adequate to the contemporary context.

Accessible and original analysis of all Jean Renoir's sound films, including those he made in Hollywood - this is the first major study to appear for a number of years and brings new light on some of the director's most celebrated films.. Illuminating account of critical debates concerning Renoir, and focusing on hitherto neglected areas such as gender, nation and ethnicity the book asks us to rethink our understanding of Renoir's political commitment.. Traces his output from the silent period to the age of television, tying his work into a fast-shifting, socio-historical context.. Detailed analyses of his sound films map his evolving style while individual chapters cover Renoir's career and writings, critical debates, the silent and early sound films, the Popular Front period, Renoir amèricain and the later films.

This is a 1990 collection of interviews and essays by the legendary filmmaker Jean Renoir.

In this first major study of French colonial and postcolonial cinema, Dina Sherzer compiles essays by some of the foremost scholars on the subject who interrogate and analyze the realities behind the images of the nation's past and present. Through an examination of France and its colonies, multiethnic contemporary France, and cinematic discourses which have been and are being produced about France's colonial past, these authors explore how the images relay underlying assumptions and their relation to historical and political facts. A variety of subjects and viewpoints inform these studies, which cover the entire range of films on that topic. The authors expound upon the role French and Francophone films are currently playing in reconstructing and imagining France's colonial past. Not only do the essays examine how French cinema has represented the encounter of French citizens with individuals from former colonies during the colonial era; they examine how French cinema has portrayed and has come to terms with the immigration of former colonial subjects to France. In addition, the book features another postcolonial facet by analyzing films of directors from the former colonies who give their own representation of colonialism and presentation of their culture. This study is a major contribution to postcolonial research. Race, gender, and geography are central themes throughout this book that presents innovative material that contributes to the history of French cinema and emphasizes how cinema participates in and is a part of national culture.

A Companion to Jean Renoir “An extraordinary collection of essays that more than fulfills the aims of its editors, Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau. The essays offer exciting, original work from younger scholars as well as long-established authorities, all of which offer invaluable insights into the films, writings, and life of Jean Renoir. Receiving particular attention are questions about the singularity or multiplicity of what the editors call the many ‘Renoirs’ (French, American, Indian; even transnational), especially from the early 1930s through the early 1960s. Whether mining relatively unexplored archive materials, deploying newly current methodological approaches, interrogating one of a wide range of topics and issues, or engaging in close textual analysis, the contributors construct a tantalizing series of innovative ‘road maps’ for future researchers to pursue.” Richard Abel, University of Michigan “Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau have brought together essays that bring new perspectives to both the best-known and the lesser-known of Renoir’s films. Both French cinema specialists and viewers new to Renoir’s work will find much of interest in this outstanding collection.” Judith Mayne, Ohio State University Dubbed simply “the best director”’ by François Truffaut, Jean Renoir is a towering figure in world film history. This exhaustive survey of his work and life features a comprehensive analysis of his films from the multiple critical perspectives of the world’s leading Renoir scholars. Renoir’s career spanned four decades and four countries and included an extraordinary body of films, some of which – La Grande illusion (1937) and La Règle du jeu (1939) – are universally recognized masterpieces. Fathered by the celebrated painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the filmmaker lived through much of the twentieth century, beginning his career in the silent era and ending it in full Technicolor. His films are notable for their paradoxical combination of strong internal coherence and thematic breadth and diversity, and they provide a rich source for today’s scholars of film history and French culture. This handbook, the largest volume on Renoir ever produced in the English language, ranges in scope from extreme close-up analysis of individual films to long-shot explorations of his aesthetics and the social and cultural contexts in which he worked. The most ambitious critical study of Renoir to date, this book will appeal to film enthusiasts as much as scholars and specialists.

An in-depth look at some of the best and most influential French films of all time, The Cinema of France contains 24 essays, each on an individual film. The book features works from the silent period and poetic realism, through the stylistic developments of the New Wave, and up to more contemporary challenging films, from directors such as Abel Gance, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda and Luc Besson. Set in chronological order, The Cinema of France provides an illuminating history of this essential national cinema and includes in-depth studies of films such as Un Chien Andalou (1929), Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Le Samouraï (1967), Shoah (1985), Jean de Florette (1986), Les Visiteurs (1993) and La Haine (1995).

Just before World War II, French cinema reached a high point that has been dubbed the style of "poetic realism." Working with unforgettable actors like Jean Gabin and Arletty, directors such as Renoir, Carné, Gremillon, Duvivier, and Chenal routinely captured the prizes for best film at every festival and in every country, and their accomplishments led to general agreement that the French were the first to give maturity to the sound cinema. Here the distinguished film scholar Dudley Andrew examines the motivations and consequences of these remarkable films by looking at the cultural web in which they were made. Beyond giving a rich view of the life and worth of cinema in France, Andrew contributes substantially to our knowledge of how films are dealt with in history. Where earlier studies have treated the masterpieces of this era either in themselves or as part of the vision of their creators, and where certain recent scholars have reacted to this by dissolving the masterpieces back into the system of entertainment that made them possible, Andrew stresses the dialogue of culture and cinema. In his view, the films open questions that take us into the culture, while our understanding of the culture gives energy, direction, and consequence to our reading of the films. The book demonstrates the value of this hermeneutic approach for one set of texts and one period, but it should very much interest film theorists and film historians of all sorts.

The second edition of this innovative textbook brings together leading scholars to provide detailed analyses of twenty-two key films within the canon of French cinema, from the 1920s to the 1990s. Films discussed include: * masterpieces such as Renoir's La Bete Humaine and Carne's Les Enfants du Paradis * popular classics such as Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Ma Nuit chez Maud * landmarks of the New Wave such as Les 400 Coups and A bout de souffle * important films of the 1990s such as Nikita and La Haine The films are considered in relation to such issues as the history of French cinema, the social and cultural contexts of their production and reception, the relationship with Hollywood cinema, gender politics, authorship and genre. Each article is accompanied with a guide to further reading and a filmography of the director, and the new edition also includes a fully revised introduction and a bibliography on French cinema.

Collected interviews with one of France's most loved and respected filmmakers