Product Description

To a large extent the story of French filmmaking is the story of moviemaking. From the earliest images through the silent era, Surrealist influence, the Nazi Occupation, New Wave and presently, Lanzonu examines a considerable number fo the world's most beloved films from each era, providing insight into our favourite films.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #311713 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

From Library Journal
Lanzoni (Romance languages, Elon Univ.) offers an academic and chronological survey of French filmmaking from 1895 to 2002. He is particularly interested in how 20th-century events have affected French cinema, notably the German occupation during World War II, which paradoxically represented a creative high point; the Algerian War; the "New Wave" explosion of the early 1960s; the student uprisings of May 1968; and recent tariff movements to reduce American domination of European film markets. Readers hoping for an in-depth portrait of the many distinctive French actors and directors will be disappointed. In his eagerness to explore the length and breadth of French film history, Lanzoni relegates even the most colorful and prominent personalities to mere mentions. The author fares better in his discussion of how the film criticism journal Cahiers du Cin ma served as a sounding board for the theories of New Wave directors like Fran ois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, manifestos that ultimately energized the world cinema scene. Unfortunately, Lanzoni fails to stir any similar excitement; this rather dry study won't lead many readers to check out France's rich and varied film heritage. The book does include valuable lists of Cannes Film Festival winners, recipients of the Cesar Awards, and France's biggest box office hits. Useful only as a supplement to earlier histories like Roy Armes's French Cinema and Melissa Biggs's French Films: 1945 Through 1993. (Index not seen.)-Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"elegantly organized, well researched, but always interesting history…French Cinema belongs in the library of anyone who loves the cinema." -- Peter Bondanella, Chairman and Distinguished Professor, Western European Studies, Indiana University, author of Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present

"insightful and thorough overview of more than a century of French films...very well-written." -- Mark Poindexter, January 10, 2003

"tells movie goers just about everything they might wish to know about the development of cinema in France." -- Edward Kakye, Hai Rai, April 2003

Customer Reviews

Great Resource for the Price
I had to buy this book for a French Film class, and it's actually one of the cheapest books I've had to buy for a film class. The author does a great job formatting the text in a way that makes the history read more like a novel and less like an academic text. I really enjoyed reading the book and found myself unable to stop after reading the assigned pages.

Good overview
I find most books about film quite tedious. However, there is definitely room for overviews of national cinema. This is an overview of French cinema and it does deliver a good overview. Next step is to watch the movies, not read another book.

The book is similar in coverage to Richie's "A 100 Years of Japanese Film". I know, another country but similar.

A great book of film studies
This book on French cinema is a very important book. It really offers the reader a unique and splendid overview of one hundred years of French cinema, which influenced American movies as well as many other national cinemas. Rémi Fournier Lanzoni organized its narrative structure chronologically and provided at the beginning of each chapter a concise but valuable historical retrospective. Most likely one of the best books on the history of French filmmaking.