French cinema since 1950 : personal histories /

This chatty introduction to contemporary French film leavens the tradition of auteurist criticism with the personal spins of spectatorship. Initially linking cinema and identity, Wilson (Univ. of Cambridge, UK) cuts from the obligatory classic--e.g., 400 Blows--to the current, less known Irma Vep. She continually focuses on films that provide personal responses to public events (e.g., Andre Techine' s Les Roseaux Savages, Diane Kurys's Coup de foudre). Unnecessary data mask the book's better insights: incidental parallels waste space and focus better used for fuller analysis. Wilson devotes a chapter to l'amour fou, uniting Eric Rohmer's Conte d'hiver, Jean-Jacques Beneix' s Betty Blue, Josiane Balasko's Gazon maudid, and Coline Serrau's Romuald et Juliette. On the thriller, Wilson moves from Godard's Breathless to Luc Besson's equally seminal Nikita. For the importance of personal witness in historical films she selects Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour, and Louis Malle's Au revoir les enfants. Other groupings include literary adaptation and the mystique of Paris. The conclusion provides a touching fusion of the scholarly and the personal. After describing Godard's epic documentary Histoire(s) du cinema, Wilson closes on her personal experience of Truffaut's Jules et Jim. The book's primary value is introducing less-known films to undergraduates and general readers. M. Yacowar; University of Calgary