Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema - (Studies in Modern and Contemporary France) by Nicoleta Bazgan

About the Book

The first book on films that screen Parisiennes as city women, as urban residents, or as women fighting to find a place in the city. An exciting new perspective on Parisian women on screen, combining blockbusters movies, art-house films, and films directed by women. A unique focus on women as protagonists in the city of Paris through close film analyses. An innovative analysis combining gender, urban, and film studies, employing an intersectional perspective. A timely chronology of how women in Paris were screened in French cinema from 1957 to the present.

Book Synopsis

Ebook available to libraries exclusively as part of the JSTOR Path to Open initiative.

Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema examines French films that screen women as main characters in the city of Paris from 1957 to the present day. The book investigates how women perceive, use, and inhabit the city of Paris on-screen, showing that the strong connection between the city and its women offers a strategic site to examine gender in urban space in cinema. Close readings of key popular movies, art-house films, and films directed by women reveal that the on-screen interactions between female protagonists and city spaces are crucial to understanding women's place(s) in Paris in different social and historical contexts. Moving beyond the mythical Parisienne and the celebrated flâneuse, the book analyzes the Parisiennes as city women to capture the interactive exchange between female protagonists and urban spaces, focusing on spatial perception, everyday urban practices, and lived experience. Most importantly, these on-screen Parisiennes show women's lives and struggles in the city and imagine women asserting the right to be residents of Paris, as city women. The Parisiennes as city women screen women who aim to walk freely the city streets and imagine Paris on their own terms, providing a more egalitarian model to the off-screen city.

Review Quotes

'Parisiennes looks at a fascinating range of material, drawing in lesser known and more familiar works. Focus on Akerman's little seen Nuit et jour is particularly attractive, but so many films are brought beautifully to light here.'

Emma Wilson

'Based on strong scholarship in French cinema, studies of the city in film and the concept of the Parisienne, this book makes an original and nuanced intervention in French cinema studies, with its focus on a range of Parisian women in different types of films - from popular blockbusters such as Amélie to classic auteur films like Cléo de 5 à 7.'

Ginette Vincendeau

About the Author

Nicoleta Bazgan is an Affiliated Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.