French Blockbusters : : Cultural Politics of a Transnational Cinema / / Charlie Michael.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Michael, Charlie,
• MitwirkendeR: Gimello-Mesplomb, Frédéric,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Traditions in World Cinema : TWC
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.) :; 26 B/W illustrations
• Other title: Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; List of 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. Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand Critics --; 5. Countercurrents in French Action Cinema --; 6. Serial (Bad?) French Comedies --; Conclusion: A Disputed Heritage --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781474424240; 9783110780420
• DOI: 10.1515/9781474424240
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Charlie Michael.

Rethinks the transnational dimensions of the contemporary French film industryThe 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.