21G.052 | Spring 2015 | Undergraduate

French Film Classics

Assignments

Weekly Responses: Each week students will write a 300 word response to the texts / film(s) for the week. These responses must articulate an argument about the week’s materials. Students may submit responses in French. Students can skip one response (typically the week they give a presentation, but this is flexible). Students must print these themselves, and they are due at the beginning of each discussion session. You can respond to the given questions, or you can formulate your own Response Questions.

Presentation / Film Pitch: Working in groups of 2 or 3, students will give one 10–15 minute oral and visual presentation about a film and readings. Presentations will be chosen from a list of possible films / topics. These topics propose alternate films / texts that we might have studied as a group each week. And I expect you to make the “pitch” for why the group should have studied this group of materials instead. Thus the presentation must:

  • Articulate an argument
  • Explain why this film is important
  • Address its status as a “classic” of French film
  • Engage with the texts listed as presentation sources
  • End with two questions to engage the class in discussion about the film

Presentations must present an argument about the material and will be graded on content, clarity, engagement with the topic, and oral communication skills.

Presentation Topics and Resources

Outside Film-going Experience Review: Students will attend one French film screened outside of our class and write a 1500 word paper about this experience. The paper will review the film and the film-going experience. It might address the following elements of the experience:

  • The theater (looks – ambiance, etc.)
  • The public (number of attendees, profiles, etc.)
  • The audience’s reaction (Did they laugh, cry, make noise at all? Did they express reverent silence?)

You might want to interview people afterwards to hear what they thought of the film and reflect on the differences between watching a film in the theater and alone on your computer screen. Papers must also address the question of whether this film is a “classic” of French cinema.

Citations: All written assignments must employ a standardized citation system (i.e., MLA, Chicago). Students must submit a list of resources consulted for their oral presentations.

Film: L’Atalante. Directed by Jean Vigo. Black and White, 89 min. 1934.

Readings:

Conoley, Tom. “Getting Lost on the Waterways of L’Atalante.” In Cinema and Modernity. Edited by M. Pomerance. Rutgers University Press, 2006, pp. 253–72. ISBN: 9780813538167. [Preview with Google Books]

Ungar, Steven. “Jean Vigo, L’Atalante, and the Promise of Social Cinema.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 35, no. 2 (2009): 63–83.

Williams, Alan. Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 184–212. ISBN: 9780674762688.

Week 5: Occupation & Liberation

Film: Les Enfants du Paradis. Directed by Marcel Carné. Black and White, 190 min. 1945.

Readings:

Jeancolas, Jean-Pierre. “Beneath the Despair, the Show Goes On: Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (1943–45).” In French Film: Texts and Contexts. Routledge, 2000, pp. 78–88. ISBN: 9780415161183. [Preview with Google Books]

Burch, and Sellier. “The Destabilizing Effects of the Liberation.” In The Battle of the Sexes in French Cinema, 1930–1956. Duke University Press Books. 2013. ISBN: 9780822355618.

Williams, Alan. “Liberation.” In Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 272–98. ISBN: 9780674762688.

Week 6: Is France Where the Movies go to Become Classic?

Film: Le fantôme d’Henri Langlois. Directed by Jacques Richard. Black and White & Color, 128 min. 2004.

Readings:

Myrent, Glenn, and Georges P. Langlois. Henri Langlois: First Citizen of Cinema. Twayne Publishers, 1995. ISBN: 9780805745214.

Roud, Richard. A Passion for Films: Henri Langlois and the Cinémathèque Française. Viking Adult, 1983. ISBN: 9780670366873.

Week 8: Classic French Stars: Brigitte Bardot

Catherine Deneuve

Film: Les parapluies de Cherboug. Directed by Jacques Demy. Color, 91 min. 1964.

Readings:

Vincendeau, Ginette. “From Ice Maiden to Living Divinity.” Chapter 8 in Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. Bloomsbury Academic, 2000. ISBN: 9780826447319. [Preview with Google Books]

Hill, Rodney. “The New Wave Meets the Tradition of Quality: Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” Cinema Journal 48, no. 1 (2008): 27–50.

Week 9: The New Wave

The Left Bank

Films: Cléo de 5 à 7. Directed by Agnès Varda. Black and White & Color, 90 min. 1962.
La Jetée. Directed by Chris Marke. Black and White, 28 min. 1962.

Readings:

Forbes, Jill. “Women Filmmakers in France.” In The Cinema in France: After the New Wave. Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 76–104. ISBN: 9780253323682.

Sellier, Geneviève. “The Independent Filmmakers of the Left Bank: A ‘Feminist’ Alternative?” In Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema. Duke University Press Books, 2008, pp. 210–20. ISBN: 9780822341925. [Preview with Google Books]

Neupert, Richard. “On the New Wave’s Left Bank: Alain Resnais and Agnes Varda.” In A History of the French New Wave Cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780299217044. [Preview with Google Books]

Week 10: 1970s Sex and Sectarianism

Film: Les Valseuses. Directed by Bertrand Blier. Color, 117 min. 1974.

Readings:

Forbes, Jill. “Sex, Politics and Popular Culture: Bertrand Blier’s Les Valseuses (1973).” In French Film: Texts and Contexts. Routledge, 2000, pp. 213–26. ISBN: 9780415161183. [Preview with Google Books]

Vincendeau, Ginette. “Gérard Depardieu: The Axiom of Contemporary French Cinema.” Screen 34, no. 4 (1993): 343–61.

Week 11: The “Cult” Classic I: the Cinéma du Look

Film: Diva. Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. Color, 117 min. 1981.

Readings:

Powrie, Phil. “Diva’s Deluxe Disasters.” In French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity. Clarendon Press, 1997, pp. 109–20. ISBN: 9780198711186. [Preview with Google Books]

Lang, Robert. “Carnal Stereophony: A Reading of Diva.” Screen 25, no. 3 (1984): 70–77.

Yervasi, Carina. “Capturing the Elusive Representation in Beineix’s Diva.” Literature/Film Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1993): 38–46.

Week 12: The “Cult” Classic II: La Haine

Film: Le Thé au harem d’Archimide. Directed by Mehdi Charef. Color, 110 min. 1985.
La Graine et le mulet. Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. Color, 151 min. 2007.

Readings:

Tarr, Carrie. “Maghrebi-french (Beur) Filmmaking in Context.” Cineaste 33, no. 1 (2007): 32–37.

Higbee, Will. “Re-presenting the Urban Periphery: Maghrebi-french Filmmaking and the Banlieue Film.” Cineaste 33, no. 1 (2007): 38–43.

Tarr, Carrie. “Beurz N the Hood: The Articulation of Beur and French Identities in Le Thé au harem d’Archimide and Hexagone.” Modern & Contemporary France 3_,_ no. 4 (1995): 415–25.

Film: Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Black and White & Color, 122 min. 2001.

Readings:

Andrew, Dudley. “Amélie, or Le Fabuleux Destin du Cinéma Français.” Film Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2004): 34–46.

Vincendeau, Ginette. “Café Society.” Sight and Sound 11, no. 8 (2001): 22–25.

Stigsdotter, Ingrid. “‘Very Funny If You Can Keep up with the Subtitles’” The British Reception of Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain." In France at the Flicks: Trends in Contemporary French Popular Cinema. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, pp. 198–211. ISBN: 9781847183019.

Response 1

Answer one of the following questions:

  • We’re watching both silent and sound films this week. Chose one of the two films screened and make an argument about how it explores the limits and possibilities of the medium itself.
  • Using Canudo’s essay and at least one of the week’s films, argue for or against film’s status as an art (try, as best you can to think about this question in the context of when the essay was written—thinking about the short films we watched and Abel’s discussion of exhibition spaces).

Response 2

Answer one of the following questions:

  • Using Epstein but also Canuda and Cendrar’s writings as inspiration, write your own argument about the power and possibility of cinema as a medium.
  • Analyze how Epstein’s films (le Tempestaire and Six et demi, onze) either support or contradict his written arguments about cinema (Hint: You may want to focus on just one element, i.e., photogénie, etc.).

Response 3

Answer one of the following questions:

  • Some films might be considered classic for the style, others for their message. Write a response that argues that La Grande Illusion is a classic film because of the message it conveys (Hint: You’ll want to define this message first).
  • Building on the readings (Vigo’s article about “Social Cinema” as well as the analyses of La Grande Illusion and its reception) write your own argument about what the political role of film should be.

Response 4

Answer one of the following questions:

  • Following up on our discussion of La Grande Illusion, what is the social message of Le Corbeau? You might make an argument about class, gender, social cohesion etc….
  • Use the historical context from Williams (and whatever else you know about Vichy) to make an argument about what Clouzot’s take on Vichy France.

Response 5

Answer one of the following questions:

  • Write a response paper that argues for the status of Funny Face as classic French film - you might think stylistically here or in terms of its content.
  • Think about our class - and the other contexts in which you have studied French film - and make an argument about how what we’re doing fits into the global networks of French film culture that Scott and Schwartz both describe in their articles.

Response 6

Answer the following question or make up your own that engages with the film / readings for the week:

  • Make an argument about how Le Monde du Silence might be enacting its own version of French universalism (you should definitely think about the film in relation to the texts for the week).

Response 7

Make an argument in response to one of the following questions:

  • Using evidence from the readings and this week’s film, explain why and how Brigitte Bardot captivated the French in the 1950s.
  • We might read Et Dieu créa la femme as a story of sexual liberation. But at times it also seems to uphold deeply conservative ideals of sex and gender. Pick one of these two interpretations and defend it in your response.

Response 8

Answer one of the following questions:

  • You’ve read this week about authorship - i.e. “la caméra-stylo.” In what ways does À bout de souffle demonstrate the ideas of authorship expressed by Astruc and the Cahiers du cinéma critics? Or, in other words, in what ways does the film reveal its author’s hand?
  • Write a response that uses À bout de souffle to challenge this idea of authorship. You might make an argument about the film being about France in the 1950s or its stars, etc….

Response 9

Answer one of the following questions (or write your own):

  • Analyze your own reaction to Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob. Did you find it funny? Did you laugh out loud? Mimic Mulvey’s argument to describe why or why not you - as a construction of your own time and place - might have found this film funny.
  • We’ve been talking about how French society has changed over the course of the twentieth century, as seen through film. Make an argument that reads this film and its characters as part of some of the greater societal changes (fashion, sexual liberation, gender relations…) that we’ve been discussing.

Response 10

Answer One of the following questions:

  • Guy Austin names four elements that characterize “le cinéma du look”–“an interest in fantasy rather than realism, a technical mastery of the medium, an intertextual tendency to cite from other films, and a spectacular visual style (le look)” (pp. 144–45). Write a response that analyzes how Nikita employs this last element, the spectacular visual style.
  • Does Nikita embody a new type of woman for French society? Construct an argument that analyzes this new type. You might want to compare her to Juliette in Et Dieu créa la femme or Patricia in À bout de souffle.

Response 11

Answer one of the following questions:

  • There are many reasons why we might consider La haine a classic, but one of them is surely its resonance with contemporary social issues in France but also in the U.S. Make an argument for the film’s relevance vis-à-vis police violence, racism, and prejudice in the U.S. today.
  • Analyze the aesthetic choices of this film (think about what we talked about with Breathless (À bout de souffle) here): Why is it in black and white? why are some scenes in slow motion? frozen? think about framing, focus, cutting and make an argument about how these elements enhance or detract from the film’s message.

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