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Coline Serreau is one of the most famous female French directors alive, not only in France but also abroad. This book is devoted not only to some relevant biographical aspects of Serreau's personal and artistic life, but also to the social, historical and political context of her debut. It deals with the 1970s' flavour of Serreau's work and more especially with the importance of politics. Taking intertextuality in its broadest sense, it assesses the strong literary influence on the tone, genre and content of Serreau's films and dramas. The book is concerned with the cinematographic genres Serreau uses. It provides a description and an analysis of Serreau's comedies, within the wider perspective of French comedies. The book also deals with the element of 'family' or community which is recurrent in Serreau's films and plays. During the 1980s, Serreau's career moved towards fiction, and she worked both for the cinema and the theatre. Serreau often underlines her family's lack of financial resources. The book considers the specificity of French cinema in the 1970s before analysing in more detail Serreau's first film. Serreau's work on stage and on big or small screens was strongly influenced by the political mood which succeeded May '68 in France. The book also discusses the idea of utopia which was the original theme of Serreau' first documentary and which is central to her first fiction film, Pourquoi pas!. Female humour and laughter cannot be considered without another powerful element: the motivation of often transgressive laughter.
French cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. This chapter deals mainly with a description and an analysis of Serreau’s comedies, within the wider perspective of French comedies (or comedies à la fran ç aise). The aim is to show to what extent her comedies both reproduce and reject the usual and typical ‘ingredients’ of the genre. The specificity (or the lack of specificity) of French comedies in general is also considered. After a presentation of the genre, which is one of the most popular in France, the issue of its traditionally male
the silent years of the European cinema overcame what would become a major problem for most contemporary national cinemas apart from that ofthe United States. The proliferation of American remakes of European films (including Serreau’s Trois hommes et un couffin) could also be considered in this light, although this is obviouslynot the only reason. In France, comedy is probably the oldest and the most popular cinematographic genre. For a very long period it has also been an almost exclusively male preserve, a feature it shares
– theatre traditions (Lanzoni 2014 ), to comic stardom (Vincendeau 2000 ) and to the attractiveness of specific comedy plots for remakes (Mazdon 2000 ; Moine 2007 ). However, French comedy screenwriters are part of a strong francophone tradition, even if they also refer to other cinematic influences in interviews. Specifically, the American comedy style appeals as a model, with screenwriters making repeated explicit references to
for a French comedy, as the butt of the joke. In addition to this use of the ménage à trois , the film’s energetic, witty dialogue delivered in inverted street slang ( verlan ) incorporates the vaudeville traditions of mainstream French screen comedy (quickfire dialogue and wordplay) into the vernacular of contemporary urban youth. Elsewhere, and just as importantly, Métisse relies extensively on
formulaic in its use of genre (on-off romance, criminal thugs, chase sequences) and in its characterisation. As in French comedy tradition, the focus is on a comic duo, in this case the muscled, tall and dark Lanvin teamed with the diminutive and balding Blanc. The physical contrast between the actors is exaggerated via the action. François’s strength, athleticism and good looks are emphasised in fight sequences and romantic
Nikita ’ (the English title for Nikita ). Whereas Léon is an action film set in New York and co-produced by Columbia, Taxi is set in Marseille, displays typical traits of French comedy, and was entirely produced and distributed by a French company. Including all the classic ingredients of the Hollywood action film, and adapting the on-wheel, speed-related plot inaugurated by Speed (Jan de
role and revealing his capacity to portray extraordinary qualities of emotional depth, it permitted Sandrine Bonnaire to incarnate a more complex female role than had previously been seen in any film by Leconte. The man’s man – or perhaps more accurately the boy’s boy – of French comedy thus began to treat the question of female subjectivity. He states: ‘à partir de Monsieur Hire , j’ai éprouvé le besoin de travailler autant
. The film thus ends with the trio escaping to freedom on Patrick’s former girlfriend’s purloined scooter, Patrick having learnt at last how to understand and manipulate prejudices based on appearances instead of being the victim of them. The film inflects concerns about ethnic difference and identity with an interest in ‘deviant’ sexualities which recalls other successful French comedies such as Gazon maudit (Balasko, 1994) and the more
auteur and mainstream films (Vincendeau 2000 : 23–4). Consequently, though the success of Kassovitz’s involvement in Amélie opened potentially lucrative doors for starring roles in mainstream French comedies (Jeffries 2001 ), the young filmmaker refused all such offers until the opportunity to act in Costa-Gavras’s Amen presented itself. Moreover, during the early 2000s Kassovitz prioritised