A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema Edited by Alistair Fox, Michel Marie, Raphaëlle Moine, and Hilary Radner This edition first published 2015 © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc Registered Office John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Alistair Fox, Michel Marie, Raphaëlle Moine, and Hilary Radner to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. 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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A companion to contemporary French cinema / edited by Alistair Fox, Michel Marie, Raphaelle Moine, & Hilary Radner.   p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-1-4443-3899-7 (cloth) 1.  Motion pictures‒France‒History‒20th century.  2.  Motion pictures‒France‒History‒21st century.  I.  Fox, Alistair, editor.  II.  Marie, Michel, editor.  III.  Moine, Raphaëlle, editor.  IV.  Radner, Hilary, 1945‒ editor.   PN1993.5.F7C69 2014  791.430944‒dc23 2014018381 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover image: Marion Cotillard in La Môme / La Vie en Rose, 2007 (dir. Olivier Dahan). Photo Legende / TFI International / The Kobal Collection. Set in 11/13pt Dante by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India 1 2015 Contents List of Contributors xii Acknowledgments xviii Editorial Practice xx Introduction: Contemporary French Cinema – Continuity and Change in a Global Context 1 Alistair Fox, with Michel Marie, Raphaëlle Moine, and Hilary Radner Contexts: Institutional, Political, Cultural, and Economic 4 Characteristics of Contemporary French Cinema 4 Thematic Preoccupations 7 Trends, Developments, and the Future of French Cinema 10 Part I  Economic, Institutional, and Political Contexts 15 1 The Political Economy of French Cinema: Attendance and Movie Theaters 17 Laurent Creton Changing Patterns of Cinema Attendance 20 Cinematic Production and Its Outcomes 23 The Competitiveness of French Cinema and Market Share 25 Concentration and Diversity 30 The Transformation of the Pool of Theaters 32 The Future of Cinematic Theaters 35 2 “Do We Have the Right to Exist?” French Cinema, Culture, and World Trade 45 Jonathan Buchsbaum France 49 Europe: Television Without Frontiers 51 vi Contents Cultural Exception: GATT 56 Cultural Diversity: MAI/UNESCO 62 3 Historicizing Contemporary French Blockbusters 74 Charlie Michael A Tentative Typology 75 “Cultural Diversity” or Cultural Crisis? 77 The Second Lang Plan (1989–1993) 79 The Maturation of a “Forced Marriage” 82 StudioCanal in the Crosshairs 84 A New Oligopoly? 87 4 Moving Between Screens: Television and Cinema in France, 1990–2010 96 Guillaume Soulez The Role of Television in the Financing of Cinema 97 Arte as a Stimulus and Sponsor of the New Cinema 98 A Cinema of Collections 98 Realism and Television 100 The Revival of Documentary 101 Films/Telefilms: A Play of Mirrors 103 “Television Films” and Cinema Formatting 104 From Comic Television to Comedy in Cinemas 106 Cinema and Televised Series 109 5 Contemporary Political Cinema 117 Martin O’Shaughnessy Taking Stock: Working-Class Histories and the Exit from Fordism 118 Outsiders and Victims, Ethics and Politics 125 Political Effectiveness 131 New Departures? 133 6 Diasporic and Postcolonial Cinema in France from the 1990s to the Present 136 Will Higbee Auteur-led Productions and the “Return” of the Political in Diasporic and Postcolonial Cinema Since the 1990s 139 From Margins to the Mainstream: Postcolonial Comedy and the Mainstreaming of Maghrebi-French Filmmakers in the 2000s 144 Memorializing Colonial History: From Neo-Colonial to “Counter-Heritage” Cinema 148 Return Narratives in Diasporic Cinema of the 2000s 153 Beyond Ethnicity? Reconfiguring Difference in Diasporic Cinema 154 Contents vii Part II  Auteurs and Auteurism 161   7 The Veterans of the New Wave, Their Heirs, and Contemporary French Cinema 163 Michel Marie The Extraordinary Fecundity of the Veterans of the New Wave 163 The Quartet of Founding Members: Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, Godard 166 The “Left Bank” of the New Wave 173 A Problematical Legacy 177 Epilogue: The Enduring Influence of Bresson and Pialat 181   8 Was There a Young French Cinema? 184 Jacqueline Nacache To What Does the Term “Young French Cinema” Refer? 185 The Arrival of the New Cinema 187 The Counter-Attack of Positif 190 Maturity and Defining Parameters 192 New Appraisals, New Perspectives 195 Consensus and Uncertainties 197 What Remains of the Young French Cinema? 198   9 Auteurism, Personal Cinema, and the Fémis Generation: The Case of François Ozon 205 Alistair Fox Characteristics of Auteur Cinema 206 Categories of Auteur Directors 207 Auteurist Styles 208 Cinephilia and Its Influence 209 The Personal Dimension 210 The Functions of Personal Cinema 213 François Ozon: A Case Study 216 Symbolic Figuration and Ozon’s Personal Myth 217 The Common Denominator of the Cinéma d’Auteur 225 Part III  Genres, Cycles, and Cinematic Forms 231 10 Contemporary French Comedy as Social Laboratory 233 Raphaëlle Moine Popular, Local, and Starved of Affection 236 Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis, a Popular French Comedy 239 Comic Misadventures of Masculinity 243 The Emergence of Auteur Comedy 245 The Ambivalence of Auteur Comedy: Variations on Personal Relationships and Middle-Class Navel-Gazing 247 viii Contents 11 Between Tradition and Innovation: French Crime Films During the 2000s 256 Thomas Pillard The Paradoxes of the American-style Thriller: Desire for a Globalized Cinema and Rejection of the “New Europe” 257 The Invention of a New Type of Transnational Crime Film 258 The “Last Combatant”: Defending French Identity in the Context of Globalization 260 The Ideological Conservatism and Pessimism of the “Old-style” Film Noir: Cinematic Nostalgia and Suffering Men 262 The Perils of Modern Capitalism and Supermodernity in the Social Crime Film: Between Documentary and (Masculine) Tragedy 266 12 Contemporary French Horror Cinema: From Absence to Embodied Presence 275 Guy Austin The Place of Genre in French Cinema 276 French Horror since 2000 277 Horror and the Body 279 Historicizing Horror 280 The Cutting Edge of Horror Spectatorship 284 13 The Historical Film and Contemporary French Cinema: Representing the Past in the Present 289 Hilary Radner Genre, the Historical Film, and Historical Thinking 290 The New History Film 292 From Heritage Film to Biopic 293 The Historical Film: Moving into the Twenty-First Century 295 Sensationalism: The Spectacle of History 297 The Age of Individual Moral Choice 301 Collective Memory and Twentieth-Century History 302 The Biopic and the Cult of the Individual 305 14 Major Stars, the Heritage Film, and Patrimonial Values in Contemporary French Cinema 314 Gwénaëlle Le Gras French Heritage Stars: Trends and Parameters 315 Responding to the Contemporary Sense of Crisis 319 Bridging the Gap between Auteur Cinema and Commercial Cinema 322 A Reaction to the Disappearance of the Classical Star System 324 Countering the Supremacy of Hollywood 325 The Younger Generation and the Uncertain Future of the Heritage Solution 328 Contents ix 15 French Animated Cinema, 1990 to Present 333 Richard Neupert Michel Ocelot’s Model for Feature Film Production 334 Toward a “New Wave” of French Animation 340 French Animation: 2011–2012 346 16 Contemporary French Documentary: A Renaissance, 1992–2012 356 Alison J. Murray Levine What is a Documentary? 357 The Market for French Documentary: A Deceptive Renaissance? 359 Recent French Documentaries: People, Subjects, Forms 361 Webdocs and the Future of Documentary 370 Part IV  Gender and Sexuality 377 17 Pitiful Men, Instrumental Women: The Reconfiguration of Masculine Domination in Contemporary Popular French Cinema 379 Geneviève Sellier At the Top of the Box Office, a Gendered Asymmetry 380 1994: Women Become Visible, But at What Price? 382 2010: The Diversity of the Masculine, the Archaism of the Feminine 386 18 French Women Directors Since the 1990s: Trends, New Developments, and Challenges 399 Brigitte Rollet Women’s Access to Filmmaking in France: Old and New Trends 400 Agnès Varda and The New Wave 402 The Generation of 1968 403 The Fémis Generation 406 Generation 2000 408 An(other) French Exception? Auteur Cinema / Popular Cinema 408 “New” Genres: Rom-Com 410 Queens of Comedy: The “Millionnaires” of the 2000 s 411 First Films: And After? 412 19 Modes of Masculinity in Contemporary French Cinema 419 Tim Palmer Creating/ive Masculinity: The Artistic Agency of Emmanuel  Mouret and Romain Duris 421 In the Wilderness: Atavistic Masculinity and the Cinéma du corps 424 The Refracted Man: Representations of Masculinity in Films by Women 429 x Contents 20 Hors milieu: Queer and Beyond 439 Nick Rees-Roberts Visible 442 Invisible 445 Relational 448 Cruising and Disorientation 450 Male Space 453 21 Sexually Explicit French Cinema: Genre, Gender, and Sex 461 Kelley Conway Romance (Catherine Breillat, 1999) 465 Baise-moi (Virginie Despentes and Carolie Trinh Thi, 2000) 470 Choses secrètes (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 2002) 474 Part V  Continuities and Emerging Trends 481 22 Booking Passages: Adventures in Adaptation in Recent French Cinema 483 T. Jefferson Kline Adaptations of Historical Novels 484 Adaptations of Foreign Novels 491 Adaptations of Recent Best-Selling French Novels 497 23 The Return of Theatricality in French Cinema of the 1990s: A New Imbrication of Comedy and Melodrama 507 Marguerite Chabrol The Theatrical “Revival” 507 Context, Successes, Strategies: The Spectacular 508 Value Judgments: The Mingling of Categories 510 A Typology of Theatrical Films: Continuities and Innovations 512 The Place of the Spectator: Identification and Detachment 516 On “Pop” Cinema 517 Stereotypes and Performance 520 An American Approach? 524 24 Soundscapes of Loss: Songs in Contemporary French Cinema 527 Phil Powrie The Contemporary Musical 528 Songs in Contemporary Non-Musical Films: Theoretical and Methodological Issues 530 French-Language Songs 532 English-Language Songs 535 The Final Song in French 539 Contents xi 25 From the Margins to the Center: French Stardom and Ethnicity 547 Ginette Vincendeau Globalization and Diversity in Twenty-First Century French Stardom 547 Ethnic Casting: From the Margins to the Center 551 The “Trojan Horse” of Comedy 556 Trans-Ethnic to Color-Blind Casting: Erasure or Integration? 560 The Power of Global Celebrity Culture 565 26 An Invention with a Future: French Cinema After the End of Cinema 570 Martine Beugnet Vintage Cinema 571 Only the Cinema 573 Animation Retro-Style 577 Twilight Visions 580 27 The Amateur in Cinema, in France, Since 1990: Definitions, Issues, and Trends 590 Roger Odin Familial Space: The End of the Family Film 591 The Space of “Amateur Cinema” 594 The Space of “Different” Cinema 597 Amateur Cinema Recognized at Last: The Space of the Document 601 The Space of Everyday Communication: Beyond “Cinema,” the Language of Images and Sounds 606 List of Contemporary French Films Since 1990 Cited in this volume612 Bibliography 631 Index 655