French Blockbusters: Cultural Politics of a Transnational Cinema

Description

The 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. Cutting a swath through recent French-produced cinema, French Blockbusters offers the first book-length consideration of the theoretical implications, historical impact and cultural consequences of recent popular films that are rapidly changing what it means to make - or to see - a 'French' film today. From English-language action vehicles like Valerian 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 (Toledano & Nakache, 2011), the variously filiated 'local blockbusters' from contemporary France brim with the seeds of cultural contradiction, but also with the energy of a counter-history. Title page Copyright Contents Figures Acknowledgements Traditions in World Cinema Foreword Introduction: French Blockbusters? 1. The Lang Plan And Its Aftermath 2. Popular French Cinema And ‘Cultural Diversity’ 3. The Debatable Destiny Of Amélie Poulain 4. Valérian And The Planet Of A Thousand Critics 5. Countercurrents In French Action Cinema 6. Serial (Bad?) Comedies Conclusion: A Disputed Heritage Index