Stars And Stardom In French Cinema

ginette vincendeau

When people think of film stars, they think of Hollywood. Yet, second only to America, French cinema has produced the most substantial galaxy of stars to achieve world fame in their national films. Top French stars are every bit as glamorous and charismatic as their American counterparts, but they are also different from their rivals and opposites, especially in the freedom they have to control their own images and in the ways they straddle mainstream and auteur cinema. This fascinating book, written by a leading authority on French cinema, analyses for the first time the French 'star system' and provides brilliant in-depth studies of the major popular stars of French cinema: Max Linder, Jean Gabin, Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau and the stars of the New Wave, Louis de Funes, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu and Juliette Binoche.

Genres nonfictionart

275 pages, Paperback

First published September 1,2000

This edition

Format: 275 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 2005 by Continuum Intl Pub Group
ISBN: 9780826478962
ASIN: 0826478964
Language: English

About the author

ginette vincendeau

Ginette Vincendeau is a French-born British-based academic who is a Professor of Film Studies at King's College London.[1]

Vincendeau was educated at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III, gaining a degree in English and at the University of East Anglia, where she completed a doctorate in Film Studies. Before assuming her post at King's, Vincendeau was Professor of Film Studies at Warwick University.

A regular contributor to Sight & Sound magazine, she is the editor of The Encyclopedia of European Cinema (Cassell/BFI, 1995) and biographer of director Jean-Pierre Melville.[2]

Ginette Vincendeau's research interests are in French cinema, especially popular genres (thriller, film noir, heritage, comedy) and stars, as well as European cinema. She is also interested in issues of film history, national identity, trans-national cinema and women's cinema. She is currently completing a book on the cinematic representation of the South of France, writing a book on Brigitte Bardot and co-editing a book on Jean Renoir.