The Strangers in the House PDF Download

Author: Georges Simenon
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 9781590171943
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Author: Christine Leteux
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299339807
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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From 1940 to 1944, the German-owned Continental Films dominated the French film landscape, producing thirty features throughout the Nazi occupation. Charged with producing entertaining and profitable films rather than propaganda, producer Alfred Greven employed some of the greatest French actors and most prestigious directors of the time, including Maurice Tourneur, Henri Decoin, Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Marcel Carné. Using recently opened archival documents, including reams of testimony from the épuration (purification) hearings conducted shortly after the war, Christine Leteux has produced the most authoritative and complete history of the company and its impact on the French film industry—both during the war and after. She captures the wide range of responses to the firm from those who were eager to work for a company whose ideology matched their own, to others who reluctantly accepted contracts out of necessity, to those who abhorred the company but felt compelled to participate in order to protect family members from Nazi reprisals. She examines not only the formation and management of Continental Films but also the personalities involved, the fraught and often deadly political circumstances of the period, the critical reception of the films, and many of the more notorious and controversial events. As Bertrand Tavernier explains in his foreword, Leteux overturns many of the preconceptions and clichés that have come to be associated with Continental Films. Published to rave reviews in French and translated by the author into English, this work shatters expectations and will reinvigorate study of a lesser-known but significant period of French film history.

Author: Andrew Spicer
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526141361
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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European Film Noir is the first book to bring together specialist discussions of film noir in specific European national cinemas. Written by leading scholars, this groundbreaking study provides an authoritative understanding of an important aspect of European cinema and of film noir itself, for too long considered as a solely American form. The Introduction reviews the problems of defining film noir, its key characteristics and discusses its significance to the development of European film, the relationship of specific national films noirs to each other, to American noir and to historical and social change. Eight chapters then discuss film noir in France, Germany, Britain and Spain, analysing both earlier developments and the evolution of neo-noir through to the present. A further chapter explores film noir in Italian cinema where its presence is not so well defined. Each piece provides a critical overview of the most significant films in relation to their industrial and social contexts. European Film Noir is an important contribution to the study of European cinema that will have a broad appeal to undergraduates, cinéastes, film teachers and researchers.

Author: Julian Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198207069
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 682

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This new history of Occupied France explores the myths and realities of four of the most divisive years in French history. -- p.[4] of cover.

Author: Russell Campbell
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476689997
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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For nearly a century, the work of Belgian crime writer and psychological novelist Georges Simenon, creator of Chief Inspector Maigret, has captivated readers worldwide. This investigation situates Simenon's work in its historical context and interprets it as a reaction to shifting gender relations in Western society. Simenon's compelling narratives capture the anxieties of men whose patriarchal position was under threat in an era of insurgent feminist movements. These concerns are also evident in Simenon's pervasive preoccupation with sexuality, as well as his political stance that stems from his petit-bourgeois upbringing. This groundbreaking study includes interwoven commentary on all 191 novels Simenon published under his own name, including several that have never been translated into English, as well as a number of short stories and several pseudonymous works.

Author: Deborah Walker-Morrison
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786735180
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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French film noir has long been seen as a phenomenon distinct from its Hollywood counterpart. This book - an innovative departure from conventional noir scholarship - now adopts a biocultural approach to exploring the French genre through the years 1941-1959. Chapters reveal noir as a product of the social and cultural factors at play in occupied, liberated and post-war France: marked by malaise at military defeat, Nazi collaboration and the impact of industrialisation. Furthermore, the book uncovers the evolutionary mechanisms of sexuality and reproduction beneath the national context that drive gendered behaviour on screen. During this period, for example, the emerging urgent demand for population growth, coupled with the severe shortage of eligible males, rendered the mating game particularly perilous for traditional women beginning to enter the workplace. This explains the cynical yet seductive behaviour of the femme fatale. Deborah Walker-Morrison focuses on the dangerous, often deadly, desires of an array of male and female character-types: moving past the celebrated, fatal `femme' to tragic heroines, psychopathic narcissists, fatal `hommes' and gangster anti-heroes. The book re-examines productions by directors such as Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jacques Becker and Jules Dassin and pulls together strands of sociological, biological, psychological and evolutionary science to create an illuminating study of the intense human passions underlying the cut-throat world of noir.

Author: Yehuda Moraly
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1782845844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
The era of the German Occupation of France constituted, surprisingly, a golden age for the arts: literature, theater, popular music and cinema. These works of art seem to be devoid of political impact. The widespread trend of unrealistic and fantastic art during this period is explained by some scholars as the artists escape from the omnipotent eye of German censorship. The purpose of the book is to show that, contrary to the accepted view, some of these films were intimately linked to the political situation. They convey the demonization of characters that, while not specifically presented as Jews nevertheless manifested anti-Semitic stereotypes of the Jew as ugly, rootless, low, hypocritical, immoral, cruel and power hungry. All five movies analysed (Les Inconnus dans la maison, dir. Henri Decoin, 1942; Les Visiteurs du Soir, dir. Marcel Carne, 1942; L'Eternel retour, dir. Jean Delannoy, 1943; Les Enfants du Paradis, dir. Marcel Carne, 1943) present characters not identified as Jews but who exhibit negative Jewish traits, in contrast to the aristocratic characters whom they aspire to emulate. They demonstrate, implicitly, central themes of explicit anti-Semitic propaganda. Yehuda Moraly addresses two current major misconceptions regarding the Cinema of Occupied France: (1) that the accepted view that there were almost no explicitly Jewish characters in the cinema of that time and place is patently incorrect; and (2) that the feature films of Occupied France were not as it is commonly thought free of the propaganda messages that permeated the press, the radio and documentary films. Analysis of these films brings out the contradictory nature of European anti-Semitism. On one hand, the Jew is the anti-Christ, throttling the world with disgusting materialism while on the other hand, he is representative of an ancestral stifling morality, which it is time to abolish.

Author: Susan Hayward
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252073304
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Les Diaboliques (The Fiends) was a top grossing film in 1955. Clouzot shrouded his film in mystery, beseeching his audience not to give away the ending. He also radically changed the original story of Boileau and Narcejeac's novel (Celle qui n'etait plus), heterosexualising the original lesbian plot. His film demonstrates how to imply, rather than show, horror, keeping the spectator in a state of continued suspense, only releasing us in the few final frames. Fifty years later, Les Diaboliques still intrigues perhaps due to its excessive ambiguities and numerous plot twists that make it a film noir to end all films noirs, and not least the great performance of Simone Signoret. In this enjoyable and challenging film stuy Susan Hayward, leading writer on French cinema, sets Les Diaboliques against the political culture of its time and demonstrates the importance of Clouzot as a master of the thriller genre. She gives an illuminating in-depth textual analysis of the film and presents a comparison with its US remake which, juxtaposed with the original film book, highlights the great staying power of Clouzot's version, still a popular film with international audiences half a century after its premiere. Book jacket.

Author: Alan Goble
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110951940
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1044

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Author: R. Lanzoni
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137100192
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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French comedy films occupy a specific cultural space and are influenced by national traditions and shared cultural references, but at the same time they have always been difficult to classify. This book investigates the different methods in which these comedies textually inscribed and exemplified a variety of cultural and historical landmarks.