Le Jour se leve (1939) directed by Marcel Carne, is widely recognised as the classic French Poetic Realist film. Told in flashback, it recounts the story of a man who has committed a murder, and who awaits his fate as the police close in. Carne shuttles between different registers, tones and textures throughout, marshalling the studio's resources to create striking pictorial compositions. The film also contains the great French star Jean Gabin's most iconic performance as Francois, marooned at the top of his apartment building. Ben McCann's perceptive and lively book traces the evolution of...

French film design throughout the 1930s was not just descriptive, but also expressive: sets were not merely part of the background, but were vital components of a film s overall atmosphere, impact and critical afterlife. This was a period when sets were ripped open, as painted backdrops were replaced by three-dimensional constructions to ensure greater proximity to reality. Accomplished set designers such as Alexandre Trauner, Jacques Krauss and Eugene Lourie crafted a series of designs both realist and expressionistic that brought out the underlying themes of a film s narrative and helped...