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| Illustrations | |
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| Introduction | |
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| The Invention of Motion Pictures and the Silent Era of Film | |
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| France at the Turn of the Twentieth Century | |
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| The Invention of the Cinematographe | |
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| Georges Melies and the Adventure of the Film Studio | |
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| Growth of a National Cinema: Charles Pathe and Leon Gaumont | |
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| The Invention of Genres: Louis Feuillade and Max Linder | |
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| Avant-garde Cinema, French Impressionism, and Surrealism: Louis Delluc, Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Luis Bunuel, and Rene Clair | |
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| The Golden Age of French Cinema | |
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| The Style of the 1930s | |
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| The "Talkies" | |
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| French Cinema and Economic Recession | |
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| Verbal Cinema or Filmed Language? Marcel Pagnol | |
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| Beyond Filmed Theater: Toward Poetic Realism | |
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| Artists and Masters of Poetic Realism: Jean Gabin, Arletty, Marcel Carne, Jean Renoir, and Jean Vigo | |
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| Cinematography and the Poetics of Images | |
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| French Cinema of the Occupation | |
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| France in 1940 | |
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| The Exodus of French Cinema Celebrities | |
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| French Cinema and Vichy | |
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| Propaganda and Censorship: The Case of Henri-Georges Clouzot | |
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| Working Conditions under the Occupation: Marcel Carne | |
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| Resistance and Liberation | |
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| The Postwar Era | |
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| The Fourth Republic and Postwar France | |
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| The Blum-Byrnes Agreements | |
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| The Prestige of French Cinema or Cinema of Prestige? Jean Cocteau | |
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| A Certain Tradition de Qualite | |
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| Comedy a la francaise: Claude Autant-Lara | |
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| Film Noir or film d'ambiance: Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jacques Becker, and Rene Clement | |
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| Toward a New Cinema: Robert Bresson, Jacques Becker, and Rene Clement | |
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| The Years of the French New Wave | |
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| France during and after the Events of 1958 | |
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| The Signs of Change: Louis Malle | |
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| Les cahiers du cinema and the Auteur Theory | |
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| The Emergence of the New Wave: Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, and Agnes Varda | |
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| The Return of Commercial Movie Successes | |
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| French Cinema of the 1970s | |
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| May '68: A New Cultural Era | |
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| Economic Assessment of French Cinema | |
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| The "Scandal" of the Cinematheque Francaise | |
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| Political Cinema as a New Genre: Louis Malle, Joseph Losey, and Costa-Gavras | |
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| The Last Days of the French Polar: Jean-Pierre Melville and Henri Verneuil | |
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| The Humanists' School: Claude Sautet, Francois Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer | |
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| The Storytellers: Bertrand Blier and Bertrand Tavernier | |
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| The Cinema of the 1980s | |
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| France in the 1980s | |
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| French Cinema of the 1980s: Over One Thousand Films Produced | |
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| Transformations in the French Film Industry | |
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| A New Partner: Television | |
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| The Old School of Filmmakers: Francois Truffaut, Bertrand Tavernier, Bertrand Blier, and Maurice Pialat | |
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| The Super Productions: Claude Berri and Jean-Jacques Annaud | |
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| New Directors for a New Generation: Jean-Jacques Beineix and Luc Besson | |
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| The Rebirth of Popular Comedies: Coline Serreau and Claude Zidi | |
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| The Last Decade and Beyond | |
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| French Society in the 1990s | |
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| The Improving Health of French Cinema | |
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| A Unique Financial-Aid System | |
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| French Television | |
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| French Cinema Abroad | |
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| New Artists, New Creators: Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro | |
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| The Epics: Regis Wargnier and Claude Berri | |
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| Period Dramas: Patrice Chereau, Alain Corneau, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, and Patrice Leconte | |
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| The Return of Comedies at the Box Office: Jean-Marie Poire and Francis Veber | |
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| The New French Cinema--Le Jeune Cinema: Mathieu Kassovitz and Eric Zonca | |
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| The Digital Revolution and the High-Definition System: Pitof | |
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| Abbreviations | |
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| Appendix | |
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| Notes | |
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| Select Bibliography | |
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| Index | |