Widely taught on Film Studies courses and in French Cultural Studies programmesLuc Besson is a popular and respected filmmaker who has achieved international fameA welcome addition to the French Film Directors series.
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.
This essay collection might be for you if Luc Besson’s first seven films are still fresh in your mind. I particularly enjoyed the one explaining how even his vibey, slow-burn films were seen as wildly excessive and Americanized by the French establishment of the 80’s, a comically bad take about how a silent, B&W movie was bankrupting French film culture.