TY - BOOK AU - Michael,Charlie AU - Gimello-Mesplomb,Frédéric TI - French Blockbusters: Cultural Politics of a Transnational Cinema T2 - Traditions in World Cinema : TWC SN - 9781474424233 AV - PN1993.5.F8 M53 2019 U1 - 791.430944 23 PY - 2022///] CY - Edinburgh : PB - Edinburgh University Press, KW - Blockbusters (Motion pictures) KW - France KW - History KW - 20th century KW - Motion pictures KW - Political aspects KW - Transnationalism in motion pictures KW - Film, Media & Cultural Studies KW - HISTORY / Europe / France KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; List of Figures --; Acknowledgements --; Traditions in World Cinema --; Foreword --; Introduction: French Blockbusters? --; 1. The Lang Plan and its Aftermath --; 2. Popular French Cinema and ‘Cultural Diversity’ --; 3. The Debatable Destiny of Amélie Poulain --; 4. Valerian and the Planet of a Thousand Critics --; 5. Countercurrents in French Action Cinema --; 6. Serial (Bad?) French Comedies --; Conclusion: A Disputed Heritage --; Index; restricted access N2 - Rethinks the transnational dimensions of the contemporary French film industryThe digitised spectacles conjured by a word like ‘blockbuster’ may create a certain cognitive dissonance with received ideas about French cinema – long celebrated as a model for philosophical, economic and aesthetic resistance to globalised popular culture. While the Gallic ‘cultural exception’ remains a forceful current to this day, this book shows how the onslaught of Hollywood mega-franchises and new media platforms since the 1980s has also provoked an overtly commercialised response from French producers eager to redefine the stakes and scope of their own traditions.Cutting a swath through recent French-produced cinema, French Blockbusters offers the first book-length consideration of the theoretical implications, historical impact and cultural consequences of recent popular films that are rapidly changing what it means to make – or to see – a ‘French’ film today. From English-language action vehicles like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Besson, 2017) to revisionist historical films like Of Gods and Men (Beauvois, 2011) and crowd-pleasing comedies like Intouchables (Toledano & Nakache, 2011), the variously filiated ‘local blockbusters’ from contemporary France brim with the seeds of cultural contradiction, but also with the energy of a counter-history UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474424240 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781474424240 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781474424240/original ER -