La Haine

ginette vincendeau

The story behind the surprise success of a young crew’s film of alienation and rebellion Released in 1995, La Haine is a raw, edgy drama about three mixed-race young men from a run-down Parisian suburb who decide to take on the police after a friend is brutally beaten. The work of a then unknown young team (director and actors were all under 30), it became hugely and unexpectedly successful both commercially and critically, launching director Mathieu Kassovitz and lead player Vincent Cassel to stardom. The film’s combination of hard-hitting social exposé, stylish black and white cinematography and hip-hop culture also turned it into an enduring cult movie with younger viewers. With style and insight, Ginette Vincendeau provides a thorough understanding of the context of the film’s making, both in terms of the film industry and of French society, of the film’s narrative tension, stylistic sophistication and ideological ambiguity, and of its extraordinary success nationally and internationally. She explains why, out of so many films about disaffected youth, La Haine is the one that caught the audience’s imagination, becoming an instant classic.

Genres film

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2005

This edition

Format: 128 pages, Paperback
Published: December 5, 2005 by University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252073328
ASIN: 0252073320
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.