21G.052
French Film Classics
History and aesthetics of French cinema from the advent of sound to present-day. Treats films in the context of technical processes, the art of narration, directorial style, role of the scriptwriter, the development of schools and movements, the impact of political events and ideologies, and the relation between French and other national cinemas. Films shown with English subtitles. Taught in English.
Spring 2015
Topics
- Introduction
- Cinema, the Seventh Art?
- 1930s, Realism and the Popular Front
- Occupation & Liberation
- Is France where the movies go to become classic?
- Classic French Stars: Brigitte Bardot
- 1970s Sex and Sectarianism
- The “Cult” Classic I: The Cinéma du Look
- The “Cult” Classic II: La Haine
- What is “Classic” Today?: The Popular
- What is “Classic” Today?: The Art House
Readings
- [Austin] = Austin, Guy_. Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction_. Manchester University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780719078293.
- [FFT&C] Canudo, Ricciotto. “Reflections on the Seventh Art.” (1923), pp. 291–302.
- [FFT&C] Cendrars, Blaise. “The Modern: A New Art, the Cinema.” (1919), pp. 18283.
- Abel, Richard. “Distribution: The Divided Country” and “Exhibition: We’re in the Money.” In French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915 _–1929_. Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 38–59. ISBN: 9780691008134.
- [FFT&C] Vigo, Jean. “Toward a Social Cinema (1930).”, pp. 60–63.
- Jackson, Julian. “Boundaries and Border Crossings.” In La Grande Illusion . British Film Institute, 2009, pp. 50–72. ISBN: 9781844572854.
- Burch, Noël, and Geneviève Sellier. “Le Corbeau.” In The Battle of the Sexes in French Cinema, 1930 _–1956_. Duke University Press Books, 2013, pp. 203–11. ISBN: 9780822355618.
- Schwartz, Vanessa. “The Belle Epoque that Never Ended” and “The Cannes Film Festival and the Making of Cosmopolitanism.” In It’s so French!: Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture . University of Chicago Press. 2007. ISBN: 9780226742434.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. “The World of Perception and the World of Science.” In The World of Perception . Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 9780415773812.
- Vincendeau, Ginette. “Brigitte Bardot: The Old and the New: What Bardot Meant to 1950s France.” In Stars and Stardom in French Cinema . Bloomsbury Academic, 2000, pp. 82–109. ISBN: 9780826447319.
- [Cahiers] Rohmer, Eric. “The Cardinal Virtues of CinemaScope (1954).” pp. 280–3.
- Andrew, Dudley. “Breathless: Old as New.” In Breathless: Jean-luc Godard Director . Rutgers University Press, 1988. pp. 3–20. ISBN: 9780813512532.
- [Texts] “Recycled Woman and the Postmodern Aesthetic: Luc Besson’s Nikita (1990).” pp. 297–309.
- Jäckel, Anne. “Production Financing and Co-production.” In European Film Industries . British Film Institute, 2004, pp. 42–66. ISBN: 9780851709475.
- [Texts] Vincendeau, Ginette. “Designs on the banlieue : Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995).” pp. 310–27.
- Konstantarakos, M. “Which Mapping of the City? La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995) and the cinéma de banlieue .” In French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference . Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 160–71. ISBN: 9780198159582.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None U (Fall) Not offered regularly; consult department 2-2-8 units. HASS-H
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2015
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.