Modern European Cinema and Love

Richard Rushton is Professor in Film Studies at Lancaster University

• Introduction: acknowledgment and connectedness1 Remarriage in Hollywood and Europe2 The falsity of social worlds: The Rules of the Game3 Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night: acknowledgment and deception4 Ingmar Bergman: comedies and tragedies5 Alain Resnais and the communication of love6 Michelangelo Antonioni: learning how to love7 Agnès Varda: the construction and destruction of the couple8 François Truffaut and the impossible couple9 Federico Fellini: love and forgiveness10 Jean-Luc Godard: in praise of two11 Éric Rohmer: the ordinary miracle of loveIndex

'Richard Rushton’s Modern European Cinema and Love is a tonic – a bracing, invigorating read that delivers clear answers to the investigations set out in its two introductory chapters.'New Review of Film and Television Studies'Modern European Cinema and Love takes Cavell’s notions about love, along with modern marriage, as the impetus for a study on love, desire, alienation and narcissism in 20th- century European film.'Screen'After beautifully illustrating an enriching interrogation on remarriage and modern heterosexual relations of European cinema, Rushton leads readers towards further reflections on feminism and queer love.'French Studies‘In this thoughtful and persuasive book, Richard Rushton focuses on how European cinema from the 1960s onwards has grappled with the problem of other minds by representing the thoroughly modern marriage. Rushton draws on Stanley Cavell’s work on comedies of remarriage to show how the heterosexual couple in crisis is a dominant feature of European cinema too. He thus offers a new perspective on debates about the relationship between European and Hollywood cinema, in a framework that emphasises how both filmmaking cultures work through the impact of changing gender relations and the new subjectivities they forge.’Fiona Handyside, Associate Professor in Film Studies, University of Exeter‘In a refreshingly clear-sighted reconsideration of some cornerstone films of European art cinema, Richard Rushton demonstrates arresting connections with the classical Hollywood romantic comedy. Reading the cycles side by side, by way of philosophical theories of love, marriage and subjectivity, he opens up new perspectives on both as well as on that most enduringly ubiquitous axis of social organisation and human meaning, the romantic relationship itself. Remaining admirably accessible throughout, this is a book for lovers of cinema and lovers tout court alike.’Mary Harrod , Associate Professor of Film Studies, University of Warwick'Rushton’s brilliant move is to take such difficult matters as love, romance and coupling as seriously as European New Wave cinema did. In doing so, he not only provides rich new readings of well-loved films but also shakes loose the supposed ideological coherence of those New Waves.'Kyle Stevens, Associate Professor of English, Appalachian State University