Description
Book SynopsisComparative in its approach, this book studies the inter-relationship between American and French culture and cinemas, and in the process considers and challenges histories of the road movie. It combines film history with film theory methodologies, analyzing transformations in social, political and film-industrial contexts...
Trade Review “Much of the discussion…in this interesting book, has useful things to say at a micro level about the contingency of the image in the digital era and the soundness of an approach that tests the limits, pitfalls and benefits of speaking of ‘Frenchness’ in relation to the audiovisual projection of a space that never quite seems to stand still.” · Journal of Contemporary European Studies
"This is a well conceived and interesting book. The arguments combine cultural width and analytical detail, and are coherent and persuasive. There is a solid theoretical basis which is clearly explained but never intrusive." · Wendy Everett, University of Bath
"There is much of interest in this book and it provides some very interesting and at times innovative readings of an important body of films and of a French inflection of the road movie genre. For this it is to be commended and I certainly think a work on this topic is timely and much needed." · Lucy Mazdon, University of Southampton
Table of Contents Acknowledgements
Note on translations
Introduction: Locating the Road Movie
Chapter 1. Road to Autopia: Les Valseuses and Le Plein de super
Chapter 2. ‘Capturing Freedom’: Marginality and the Road Movie
Chapter 3. No Place Like Home: Camping it Up in Drôle de Félix
Chapter 4. Nowhere Men: Masculinity and the Road Movie
Chapter 5. From Flânerie to Glânerie : The Possibilities of a ‘Feminine Road Movie’
Chapter 6. Travel and the Transnational Road Movie in the Twenty-First Century
Afterword: ‘Welcome to France!’: The Road Movie and French National Cinema
Filmography
Bibliography
