The social architecture of French cinema, 1929-1939 / Margaret C. Flinn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Flinn, Margaret C., author.

Series:

Contemporary French and francophone cultures ; 34.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--France--History--20th century.

Motion pictures.

Architecture and society--France.

Architecture and society.

Motion pictures--Social aspects--France.

France--In motion pictures.

France.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 244 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From the fleetingly captured street scenes of the city symphony, to the meticulously reconstructed studio city of musical comedies; from the propagandistic Popular Front documentaries about construction workers, to poetic realism's bittersweet portraits of populist neighborhoods: Social Architecture explores the construction, representation and experience of spaces and places in documentary and realist films of the French 1930s. In this book, Margaret C. Flinn tracks the relation between the emergent techniques of French sound cinema and its thematic, social and political preoccupations through analysis of discourse in contemporary press, theoretical texts and through readings of films themselves. New light is shed on works of canonical directors such as Renoir, Clair, Vigo and Duvivier by their consideration in relationship to little known documentary films of the era. Flinn argues that film has a readable architecture-a configuration of narrative and representations that informs, explains, and creates social identities, while reflecting upon the position of individuals within their societies.

Contents:

Introduction: An architecture of social being

The spatial constitution of 1930s documentary

René Clair's city views: realism and Studio Paris

Intertext and political margins in Jean Renoir's Boudu Sauvé des Eaux

Traversing built history in architectural documentaries

Flâneuses and the unmaking of place

The crowd as new monumentality during the popular front

Epilogue: Poetic realism as spatial fable.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Aug 2017).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes filmography: pages 228-230.

ISBN:

1-78138-597-1

1-78138-157-7

OCLC:

900208001