Description
Book SynopsisDuvivier was a giant of classic French cinema with a career spanning key moments of French film history. This analysis goes beyond its historical range to engage with key debates in film studies: notably auteurism, stardom and questions of the national.
Trade Review‘McCann’s study of Duvivier argues coherently for the director’s status as an auteur, particularly with its emphasis on recurring themes and its descriptive, but informative, discussions of a range of key films. This book fits well within the French filmmakers series, but can also stand individually as a case study on a long neglected director.’
Gillian Kelly, University of Glasgow, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 37, No. 3
'McCann provides a wealth of information on the director’s life, times and work as well as an accessible yet rigorous critical study of Duvivier’s cinema which brings Duvivier into line with his other more revered contemporaries.... If, as McCann argues, Duvivier’s work is ripe for re-evaluation, then this book is surely the guide to such an endeavour. Indeed, it might serve well as a companion to the revisiting of Duvivier’s cinema or, for those familiar only with his best-known films, an exhaustive introduction to those films which, for one reason or another, found their way into the ashcan of cinema history.
Felicity Chaplin, Monash University, senses of cinema, No. 87 (June 2018)
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Table of ContentsIntroduction: we need to talk about Julien
1 The 'impure' auteur
2 Duvivier's silent films
3 Sound, image, Gabin: Duvivier and the 1930s
4 'Piloting with concentration': Julien goes to Hollywood
5 1946-56: darkness and light
6 Late style
7 Conclusion
Index
