Olivier Assayas

Over the past few decades, French filmmaker Olivier Assayas has become a powerful force in contemporary cinema. Between his first feature Désordre (1986) and such major works as L'Eau froide, Irma Vep, Les Destinées Sentimentales, demonlover and, most recently, L'Heure d'été and Carlos, he has charted an exciting path, strongly embracing narrative and character and simultaneously dealing with the 'fragmentary reality' of life in a global economy. He also brought a fresh perspective to the problem of politics after '68, a subject that he revisits in his memoir A Post-May Adolescence (published as a companion book to this volume) and in his most recent film Après-Mai. This first English-language book about Olivier Assayas includes a major essay by Kent Jones, based on his two decades of correspondence and exchanges of ideas with the filmmaker, as well as contributions from Assayas and his most important artistic collaborators. The central part consists of individual essays on each of his works, written by Chris Chang, Larry Gross, Howard Hampton, Kristin M. Jones, B. Kite, Glenn Kenny, Michael Koresky, Alice Lovejoy, Greil Marcus, Geoffrey O'Brien, Jeff Reichert, Richard Suchenski, and Gina Telaroli.