French Cinema in the 1980s

French film in the 1980s might have lacked the invention of the New Wave but gritty police thrillers and nostalgic costume-dramas such as Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources brought French cinema to a wider audience than ever before.

This landmark study is not merely a history of French film in the 1980s, but offers a set of critical essays on the crisis of masculinity in contemporary French culture, and its interrelationship with nostalgia. After a brief overview both of the crisis in the French film industry during the 1980s, and of the socio-political crisis of masculinity in the wake of 1970s feminism, the book is divided into three sections: the retro-nostalgic film, the Polar, or police thriller, and the comic film.

The nostalgia section covers Un amour de Swann, Un dimanche la campagne, Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources, and Coup de foudre. The section on the police thriller begins with Truffaut's last film, Vivement dimanche!, and includes a chapter on three thrillers by a variety of directors (La Balance, Police, Dtective). Its main focus, however, is on thrillers by the directors of the cinma du look (Diva, Subway, Mauvais sang). The last section on the comic film looks at three films which were successful both in France and abroad: Trois hommes et un couffin (remade in Hollywood as Three Men and a Baby), La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille and, finally, Depardieu's gamble at cross-dressing, Tenue de soire.