1. Introduction: The Expanding Imagination of Mainstream French Films and Television Series
Part I New Figures, New Voices
2. From ImpersoNation to ImPosture: (Sub)urban Fantasy in Fanny Herrero’s Dix pour cent and Drôle
3. Sign Language, Multilingualism and the Postnational Popular Screen: From La Famille Bélier and Marie Heurtin to La Révolution
4. Alexandre Aja: A Postnational Genre Auteur?
Part II Embodying the Postnational: Fans, Filmmakers, Action Spectaculars
5. An Alternative to Hollywood? EuropaCorp’s “Blockbusters” and the Global Audience
6. The Limits of Luc Besson’s “Made-in-France” Blockbusters: From the Transnational to the Postnational in Valerian and Anna
7. Whose Lost Bullet? Netflix, Cultural Politics and the Branding of French Action Cinema
Part III French Femininity and (Post)Feminism
8. Charlotte Rampling Made in France: From a National to a Postnational Identity
9. National and Postnational Femininity in Engrenages:The Limits of Empowerment
10. Camille Cottin: A Comic Reappropriation of French Femininity in a Globalised, Postfeminist Culture
Part IV Industry Players: From Product to Brand
11. Depuis que le Streaming Existe?: Gaumont and French Cinema in the Streaming Era
12. Netflix’s Lupin: Cultural Heritageand Internationalisation in the Age of Global SVoD Platforms
13. An Industry Perspective on Dix pour cent and Ten Percent. Interview with Harold Valentin and Christian Baute
Mary Harrod is Associate Professor in French Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She has published widely on topics in contemporary popular film and media from both Europe and the USA, with an emphasis on issues of transnational and/or gender identity.
Raphaëlle Moine is Professor of Film Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, France. Her publications include Cinema Genre (2008), Remakes: les films français à Hollywood (2007), A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema (with Alistair Fox, Michel Marie and Hilary Radner; 2015)Vies héroïques: biopics masculins/biopics féminins (2017).
This book investigates the recently accelerated phenomenon of mainstream French film and serial television’s remarkable popularity not only within but – more novelly for European audiovisual narratives – outside the domestic context. Treating changes that have taken place in France's production landscape during the mass rollout of global streaming platforms as revelatory of broader tendencies in media production and circulation in Europe and beyond, the collection explores emergent influential players (Omar Sy, Camille Cottin, Alexandre Aja and Fanny Herrero), companies such as Netflix and Gaumont, and new genres, identities and representations on screen. It thus draws together a body of new research by international experts in French and European media production to analyse popular film and television series from France through a postnational lens with regards to both economic and institutional norms and to culture as a whole.