Julien Duvivier

Ben McCann is Associate Professor of French Studies at the University of Adelaide

• Introduction: we need to talk about Julien1 The 'impure' auteur2 Duvivier's silent films3 Sound, image, Gabin: Duvivier and the 1930s4 'Piloting with concentration': Julien goes to Hollywood5 1946-56: darkness and light6 Late style7 ConclusionIndex

‘McCann’s study of Duvivier argues coherently for the director’s status as an auteur, particularly with its emphasis on recurring themes and its descriptive, but informative, discussions of a range of key films. This book fits well within the French filmmakers series, but can also stand individually as a case study on a long neglected director.’Gillian Kelly, University of Glasgow, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 37, No. 3'McCann provides a wealth of information on the director’s life, times and work as well as an accessible yet rigorous critical study of Duvivier’s cinema which brings Duvivier into line with his other more revered contemporaries.... If, as McCann argues, Duvivier’s work is ripe for re-evaluation, then this book is surely the guide to such an endeavour. Indeed, it might serve well as a companion to the revisiting of Duvivier’s cinema or, for those familiar only with his best-known films, an exhaustive introduction to those films which, for one reason or another, found their way into the ashcan of cinema history.Felicity Chaplin, Monash University, senses of cinema, No. 87 (June 2018)