FR423 Module Outline
Week 1 – Introduction: Gérard Depardieu
Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990)
Other films:
Danton (Andrzej Wajda, 1983)
Mammuth (Benoît Delépine & Gustave Kervern, 2010)
Recommended reading:
Ginette Vincendeau, ‘The French Star System’ and ‘Gérard Depardieu: The axiom of contemporary French cinema’, in Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (London/New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 1-41, 215-40.
Guy Austin, ‘Threat or reassurance? Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere’, in Stars in Modern French Film (London: Arnold, 2003), pp. 78-90.
Week 2 – Jean Gabin I
Quai des brumes (Marcel Carné, 1938)
Other films:
DM presentation : Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
Student presentation : Le Jour se lève (Marcel Carné, 1939)
Recommended reading:
Ginette Vincendeau, ‘Jean Gabin: From working-class hero to godfather’, in Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (London/New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 59-81.
Edward Baron Turk, ‘Poetic Realism’, in Child of Paradise: Marcel Carné and the Golden Age of French Cinema (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 96-128.
Robin Bates, ‘Audiences on the Verge of a Fascist Breakdown: Male Anxieties and Late 1930s French Film’, Cinema Journal, 36, 3 (1997), pp. 25-55.
Week 3 – Jean Gabin II
French Cancan (Jean Renoir, 1955)
Other films:
DM presentation : L’Air de Paris (Marcel Carné, 1954)
Student presentation : Mélodie en sous-sol (Henri Verneuil, 1963)
Recommended reading:
Ginette Vincendeau, 'French Cancan: A Song and Dance about Women', in Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau (eds), A Companion to Jean Renoir (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 255-69.
Janet Bergstrom, ‘Jean Renoir’s Return to France’, Poetics Today, 17.3 (1996), pp. 453-89.
Daniel Serceau, Jean Renoir: La sagesse du plaisir (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1985), pp. 311-32.
Raymond Durgnat, Jean Renoir (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 301-14.
Susan Hayward, 'Design at Work: Renoir's Costume Dramas of the 1950s', in Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau (eds), A Companion to Jean Renoir (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 88-105.
Claude Gauteur and Ginette Vincendeau, Jean Gabin: Anatomie d’un mythe (Paris: Nathan, 1993).
Week 4 – Catherine Deneuve I
Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
Other films:
Student presentation : Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
DM presentation : Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Recommended reading:
Ginette Vincendeau, ‘Catherine Deneuve: From ice maiden to living divinity’, in Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (London/New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 196-214.
Michael Wood, Belle de Jour (London: BFI, 2000).
Peter William Evans, ‘Buñuel Blonde’, in Lisa Downing and Sue Harris (eds.), From Perversion to Purity: The Stardom of Catherine Deneuve (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 29-44.
Guy Austin, ‘Red woman/white woman: Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve’, in Stars in Modern French Film (London: Arnold, 2003), pp. 34-46.
Jimmy Hay, 'Inside/Outside: Space and Sexual Behavior in Belle de jour and La Pianiste', in Rob Stone and Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Abilla (eds), A Companion to Luis Buñuel (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 554-71.
Peter William Evans, ‘Belle de Jour and Female Perversion’, in The Films of Luis Buñuel: Subjectivity and Desire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 151-72.
Andrea Sabbadini, ‘Of Boxes, Peepholes and Other Perverse Objects: A Psychoanalytic Look at Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour’, in Peter William Evans and Isabel Santaolalla (eds.), Luis Buñuel: New Readings (London: BFI, 2004), pp. 117-27.
Week 5 – Catherine Deneuve II
Indochine (Régis Wargnier, 1992)
Other films:
Student presentation : Potiche (François Ozon, 2010)
DM presentation: Elle s'en va (Emmanuelle Bercot, 2013)
Recommended reading:
Sue Harris, ‘“Madame La France”: Deneuve as heritage icon’, in Lisa Downing and Sue Harris (eds.), From Perversion to Purity: The Stardom of Catherine Deneuve (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 94-109.
Christina Johnston, ‘Deneuve in the 1990s’, in Lisa Downing and Sue Harris (eds.), From Perversion to Purity: The Stardom of Catherine Deneuve (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 129-43.
Brigitte Rollet, ‘Identity and Alterity in Indochine (Wargnier, 1992)’, in Phil Powrie (ed.) French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 37-46.
Brigitte E. Humbert, 'Filming France's Colonial Past: Women "Wearing the Pants" in Outremer and Indochine', Studies in French Cinema, 12: 1 (2012), pp. 59-74.
Sylvie Blum, ‘The Lover, Indochine: Returning to Indochina’, Jump Cut, 41 (1997), pp. 59-66.
Catherine Deneuve, ‘Indochine’, in À l’ombre de moi-même (Paris: Stock, 2004), pp. 53-117.
Gwenaëlle Le Gras, Le Mythe Deneuve: Une ‘star’ française entre classicisme et modernité (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2010).
Week 6 – Reading week: No teaching
Week 7 – Daniel Auteuil I
Jean de Florette (Claude Berri, 1986)
Other films:
Student presentation : Manon des sources (Claude Berri, 1986)
DM presentation : Un cœur en hiver (Claude Sautet, 1992)
Recommended reading:
Phil Powrie, ‘The Nostalgia Film’ and ‘Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources: Nostalgia and Hysteria’, in French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 13-27, 50-61.
Maria Esposito, ‘Jean de Florette: Patrimoine, the rural idyll and the 1980s’, in Lucy Mazdon (ed.), France on Film: Reflections on Popular French Cinema (London: Wallflower, 2001), pp. 11-26.
Russell Cousins, ‘Jean de Florette’, in Phil Powrie (ed.), The Cinema of France (London: Wallflower, 2006), pp. 185-94.
Week 8 – Daniel Auteuil II
Le Placard (Francis Veber, 2001)
Other films:
Student presentation : Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)
DM presentation : Mon meilleur ami (Patrice Leconte, 2006)
Recommended reading:
Lynn A. Higgins, ‘The Liberating Power of Laughter: Le Placard and Gazon maudit’, Esprit créateur, 51, 3 (2011), pp. 118-33.
Vinay Swamy, Interpeting the Republic: Marginalization and Belonging in Contemporary French Novels and Films (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), pp. 125-29.
Sheila Turek, ‘Gay Characters in the Margins: Gender-Based Stereotypes in Subtitled French Film’, Journal of Popular Culture, 45, 5 (2012), pp. 1020-40.
Week 9 – Isabelle Huppert I
Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980)
Other films:
Student presentation : Violette Nozière (Claude Chabrol, 1978)
DM presentation : Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1979)
Recommended reading:
Marja Warehime, ‘Family portraits II: Loulou, À nos amours and Police’, in Maurice Pialat (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 95-130.
Isabelle Huppert, conversation with Philippe Garrel and Maurice Pialat, Cahiers du cinéma, 477 (March 1994), special issue Isabelle Huppert: Autoportrait(s), pp. 22-31.
Week 10 – Isabelle Huppert II
La Pianiste (Michael Haneke, 2001)
Other films:
DM presentation: Madame Bovary (Claude Chabrol, 1991)
Student presentation: Villa Amalia (Benoît Jacquot, 2009)
Recommended reading:
Bridget Birchall, ‘From nude to metteuse-en-scène: Isabelle Huppert, image and desire in La Dentellière (Goretta, 1977) and La Pianiste (Haneke, 2001)’, Studies in French Cinema, 5, 1 (2005), pp. 5-15.
Ginette Vincendeau, ‘Isabelle Huppert: The Big Chill’, Sight & Sound, 16, 12 (December 2006), pp. 36-9.
Tony McKibbin, ‘The chaos of the organs: Isabelle Huppert’s reverse Pygmalionism’, Studies in French Cinema, 5, 1 (2005), 17-26.
Charles Warren, ‘The Unknown Piano Teacher’ and Jean Ma, ‘Discordant Desires, Violent Refrains: The Piano Teacher’, in Roy Grundmann (ed.), A Companion to Michael Haneke (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
Landon Palmer, ‘From Culture to Torture: Funny Games and The Piano Teacher’; Felix W. Tweraser, ‘Images of Confinement and Transcendence: Michael Haneke’s Reception of Romanticism in The Piano Teacher’; Iuliana Corina Vaida, ‘Two Meanings of Masochism in the Language of the Art Critic’, all in Ben McCann and David Sorfa (eds), The Cinema of Michael Haneke: Europe Utopia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
Fatima Naqvi and Christophe Koné, ‘The Key to Voyeurism: Haneke’s Adaptation of Jelinek’s The Piano Teacher’, in Brian Price and John David Rhodes (eds), On Michael Haneke (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), pp. 127-52.
Catherine Wheatley, ‘Unseen/Obscene: The (Non) Framing of the Sexual Act in Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste’, in Lucy Bolton, Gerri Kimber, Ann Lewis and Michael Seabrook (eds.), Framed! Essays in French Studies (Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), pp. 127-44.