French Blockbusters

Cultural Politics of a Transnational Cinema

Häftad, Engelska, 2021

669 kr

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The digitised spectacles conjured by a word like ‘blockbuster’ may create a certain cognitive dissonance with received ideas about French cinema – long celebrated as a model for philosophical, economic and aesthetic resistance to globalised popular culture. While the Gallic ‘cultural exception’ remains a forceful current to this day, this book shows how the onslaught of Hollywood mega-franchises and new media platforms since the 1980s has also provoked an overtly commercialised response from French producers eager to redefine the stakes and scope of their own traditions. From English-language action vehicles like Valérian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Besson, 2017) to revisionist historical films like Of Gods and Men (Beauvois, 2011) and crowd-pleasing comedies like Intouchables (Tolédano & Nakache, 2011), the variously filiated ‘local blockbusters’ from contemporary France brim with the seeds of cultural contradiction, but also with the energy of a forceful counter-history. Cutting across a swath of recent French-produced cinema, French Blockbusters offers the first book-length consideration of the theoretical implications, historical impact and cultural consequences of a recent grouping of popular films that are rapidly changing what it means to make – or to see – a ‘French’ film today.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-05-26
Mått156 x 234 x 18 mm
Vikt400 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieTraditions in World Cinema
Antal sidor256
FörlagEdinburgh University Press
ISBN9781474484275

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AcknowledgementsList of FiguresForeword by Frédéric Gimello-Mesplomb Introduction: French Blockbusters?Chapter 1: The Lang Plan and its AftermathChapter 2: Popular French Cinema and ‘Cultural Diversity’Chapter 3: The Debatable Destiny of Amélie PoulainChapter 4: Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand CriticsChapter 5: Countercurrents in French Action CinemaChapter 6: Serial (Bad?) French ComediesConclusion: A Disputed Heritage

This is an exciting, well-researched, and urgent retelling of the tropes and trajectories of contemporary French transnational, blockbuster cinema. Michael’s rich case studies, confident grasp of political and cultural theory, and engaging, fluid writing style make for a compelling account of France’s dalliance with big-budget cinema. His engagement with current sources and methodologies is excellent (each end-of-chapter bibliography is impressively extensive), while the use of box-office statistics, specific production histories, and the reception of the chosen films add much-needed contextual data. French Blockbusters is ultimately all about a series of tense, strategic compromises that the industry has made since the 1980s, and how the emergence of new types of genre films (comedies, action, martial arts, parkour) has encouraged it to “go global.”