French National Cinema

by Susan Hayward

This examination of France's national cinema takes its primary artefact, the feature film and discusses both popular cinema and the `avant garde' cinema that contests it.
Susan Hayward argues that writing on French national cinema has tended to focus on either `great' film-makers or on specific movements, addressing moments of exception rather than the global picture. Her work offers a thorough and much-needed historical textualisation of those moments and relocates them them in their wider political and cultural context. Beginning with an `ecohistory' of the French film industry, she then traces the various movements in French cinema and the directors associated with them, including the avant-garde, Poetic-Realist, New Wave and today's postmodern cinema. Her analysis includes, amongst other considerations, the social and political concerns these cinemas reflect.

Paperback

First published July 22, 1993

About the author

Susan Hayward is a scholar who specializes in French film studies and French cultural studies. She is the editor of the journal Studies in French Cinema.

Hayward is Chair of Cinema Studies and Director of Film Studies at the University of Exeter. Previously, she was a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Birmingham.