French Cinema and the Great War
Remembrance and Representation
Marcelline Block editor Barry Nevin editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield
Published:4th Feb '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Even a century after its conclusion, the devastation of the Great War still echoes in the work of artists who try to make sense of the political, moral, ideological, and economic changes and challenges it spawned. France, the military major power of the Western Front, carries the legacy of battles on its own soil, and countless French lives lost defending the nation from the Central Powers. It is no surprise that the impact of the First World War can still be seen in French films into the present day. French Cinema and the Great War: Remembrance and Representation provides the first book-length study of World War I as it is featured in French cinema, from the silent era to contemporary films. Presented in three thematic sections—Recording and Remembering the Great War, Women at the Front, and Interrogating Commemoration—the essays in this volume explore the ways in which French film contributes to the restoration and modification of memories of the war. Films such as La Grande Illusion, King of Hearts, A Very Long Engagement, and Joyeux Noel are among those discussed in the volume’s examination of the various ways in which film mediates personal and collective memories of this critical historical event. This volume will be an invaluable resource, not only to those interested in French Cinema or the cinema of the Great War, but also to those interested in the impacts of war, more generally, on the cultural output of nations torn by the violence, death, and destruction of military conflict.
The close readings here are strong, and on the whole the writing is lively and concise, with chapters divided into three sections: Recording and Remembering the Great War; Women at the Front; and a third section devoted expressly to Jean Renoir's La Grande illusion (1937). * Journal of Popular Film and Television *
Block and Nevin have put together an excellent, ably edited collection of essays on French cinema and WW I. Though all the usual films that one might expect in such a collection are here, there are also some interesting outliers. One example is experimental filmmaker Germaine Dulac’s Le cinéma au service de l'histoire (1935), a rediscovered six-reel montage film using newsreels of the period to create a sort of collage of the events of the war. Among the more outré films are Une page de gloire (1915) and The Little American (1917), to say nothing of Philippe de Broca’s King of Hearts (1966), originally Le roi de coeur, a romantic comedy (set in the last days of the Great War) in which the inmates of an insane asylum escape and take over a small French village. Of course, no such book would be complete without Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion (1937), perhaps the greatest antiwar film ever made, which is the subject of several essays. Including detailed footnotes, this admirable, compelling volume could also serve as a course text. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. * CHOICE *
[A] fantastic new book. * Culturethèque *
ISBN: 9781442260979
Dimensions: 238mm x 158mm x 20mm
Weight: 422g
204 pages