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Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema

Nicoleta Bazgan author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Liverpool University Press

Published:3rd May '24

£115.00

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Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema cover

Ebook available to libraries exclusively as part of the JSTOR Path to Open initiative.

Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema examines French films that screen women as main characters in the city of Paris from 1957 to the present day. The book investigates how women perceive, use, and inhabit the city of Paris on-screen, showing that the strong connection between the city and its women offers a strategic site to examine gender in urban space in cinema. Close readings of key popular movies, art-house films, and films directed by women reveal that the on-screen interactions between female protagonists and city spaces are crucial to understanding women’s place(s) in Paris in different social and historical contexts. Moving beyond the mythical Parisienne and the celebrated flâneuse, the book analyzes the Parisiennes as city women to capture the interactive exchange between female protagonists and urban spaces, focusing on spatial perception, everyday urban practices, and lived experience. Most importantly, these on-screen Parisiennes show women’s lives and struggles in the city and imagine women asserting the right to be residents of Paris, as city women. The Parisiennes as city women screen women who aim to walk freely the city streets and imagine Paris on their own terms, providing a more egalitarian model to the off-screen city.

'Parisiennes looks at a fascinating range of material, drawing in lesser known and more familiar works. Focus on Akerman’s little seen Nuit et jour is particularly attractive, but so many films are brought beautifully to light here.'

Emma Wilson


'Based on strong scholarship in French cinema, studies of the city in film and the concept of the Parisienne, this book makes an original and nuanced intervention in French cinema studies, with its focus on a range of Parisian women in different types of films – from popular blockbusters such as Amélie to classic auteur films like Cléo de 5 à 7.'

Ginette Vincendeau

ISBN: 9781802074529

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

312 pages