About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherEdinburgh Tea & Coffee Company University Press

ISBN-101474484271

ISBN-139781474484275

eBay Product ID (ePID)7050402130

Product Key Features

Number of Pages256 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameFrench Blockbusters : Cultural Politics of a Transnational Cinema

SubjectFilm / Reference, Film / Direction & Production, Film / History & Criticism

Publication Year2021

TypeTextbook

AuthorCharlie Michael

Subject AreaPerforming Arts

SeriesTraditions in World Cinema Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

ReviewsThis is an exciting, well-researched, and urgent retelling of the tropes and trajectories of contemporary French transnational, blockbuster cinema. Michael's rich case studies, confident grasp of political and cultural theory, and engaging, fluid writing style make for a compelling account of France's dalliance with big-budget cinema. His engagement with current sources and methodologies is excellent (each end-of-chapter bibliography is impressively extensive), while the use of box-office statistics, specific production histories, and the reception of the chosen films add much-needed contextual data. French Blockbusters is ultimately all about a series of tense, strategic compromises that the industry has made since the 1980s, and how the emergence of new types of genre films (comedies, action, martial arts, parkour) has encouraged it to "go global.", Balancing an array of historical influences, Michael gives us a new language for navigating the internal conflicts that have marked a period of dynamic change, and when the intermittent success stories of 'big' films became fodder for debate about what forms of recognition (both economic and symbolic) are most appropriate for a national industry with transnational ambitions. Written briskly like a behind-the-scenes saga, this original book will challenge the preconceptions of anyone who thinks that notions of 'French cinema' and 'blockbusters' should remain diametrically opposed., For a number of years now, Charlie Michael has been exploring the cultural paradoxes of French blockbusters, questioning their place within the French film industry, their international reception and the policies underlying their production. [...] French Blockbusters convincingly reaffirms the vitality of the commercial strand French cinema and its presence worldwide., This book is perfect for 200- and 300-level global media classes that seek to interrogate and enlarge the category of "popular" cinema. It adroitly weaves together cinema history, media industry studies, and cultural policy. This book is a novel and groundbreaking way to illustrate the effects and implications of the cultural exemption in international trade policy. The work is valuable because attention to French popular cinema is sadly all too rare, despite its impact, viewership, and effects on labor, policy, and global Francophone media flows. I highly recommend that people teaching undergraduate global media courses useMichael's book to help our students revise their understandings of European media systems, content forms, policy debates, and industrial strategy., [An] original book in English that offers fresh readings of the local/global and popular/art cinema tensions found in the French industry, often adopting a comparative approach (combining for example French perspectives and those of Anglo-American audiences and film scholars).

Dewey Edition23

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal791.430944

Table Of ContentAcknowledgements List of Figures Foreword by Frédéric Gimello-Mesplomb Introduction: French Blockbusters? Chapter 1: The Lang Plan and its Aftermath Chapter 2: Popular French Cinema and 'Cultural Diversity' Chapter 3: The Debatable Destiny of Amélie Poulain Chapter 4: Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand Critics Chapter 5: Countercurrents in French Action Cinema Chapter 6: Serial (Bad?) French Comedies Conclusion: A Disputed Heritage

SynopsisThe digitised spectacles conjured by a word like 'blockbuster' may create a certain cognitive dissonance with received ideas about French cinema - long celebrated as a model for philosophical, economic and aesthetic resistance to globalised popular culture. While the Gallic 'cultural exception' remains a forceful current to this day, this book shows how the onslaught of Hollywood mega-franchises and new media platforms since the 1980s has also provoked an overtly commercialised response from French producers eager to redefine the stakes and scope of their own traditions. From English-language action vehicles like Valérian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Besson, 2017) to revisionist historical films like Of Gods and Men (Beauvois, 2011) and crowd-pleasing comedies like Intouchables (Tolédano & Nakache, 2011), the variously filiated 'local blockbusters' from contemporary France brim with the seeds of cultural contradiction, but also with the energy of a forceful counter-history. Cutting across a swath of recent French-produced cinema, French Blockbusters offers the first book-length consideration of the theoretical implications, historical impact and cultural consequences of a recent grouping of popular films that are rapidly changing what it means to make - or to see - a 'French' film today., Cutting across a swath of recent French-produced cinema, French Blockbusters offers the first book-length consideration of the theoretical implications, historical impact and cultural consequences of a recent grouping of popular films that are rapidly changing what it means to make - or to see - a 'French' film today.

LC Classification NumberPN1993.5.F8M5 2021