While popular European cinema is strongly linked with the dominant American version of popular film, it cannot be read simply as Hollywood in foreign dress. The styles, stars and genres of popular European cinema - Swedish melodramas, Italian horror movies, French musicals - all have their own conventions, superfically similar to Hollywood and yet certainly distinct from it. The popular cinema of Europe has been suprisingly little studied as both art and social document. Popular European Cinema seeks to fill this gap and to illuminate two compelling contemporary issues: the nature of the...

The second edition of this innovative textbook brings together leading scholars to provide detailed analyses of twenty-two key films within the canon of French cinema, from the 1920s to the 1990s. Films discussed include:
* masterpieces such as Renoir's La Bete Humaine and Carne's Les Enfants du Paradis
* popular classics such as Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Ma Nuit chez Maud
* landmarks of the New Wave such as Les 400 Coups and A bout de souffle
* important films of the 1990s such as Nikita and La...