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Publisher:
Liverpool University Press
Online publication date:
July 2017
Print publication year:
2014
Online ISBN:
9781781385975

Book description

From the fleetingly captured street scenes of the city symphony, to the meticulously reconstructed studio city of musical comedies; from the propagandistic Popular Front documentaries about construction workers, to poetic realism’s bittersweet portraits of populist neighborhoods: Social Architecture explores the construction, representation and experience of spaces and places in documentary and realist films of the French 1930s. In this book, Margaret C. Flinn tracks the relation between the emergent techniques of French sound cinema and its thematic, social and political preoccupations through analysis of discourse in contemporary press, theoretical texts and through readings of films themselves. New light is shed on works of canonical directors such as Renoir, Clair, Vigo and Duvivier by their consideration in relationship to little known documentary films of the era. Flinn argues that film has a readable architecture—a configuration of narrative and representations that informs, explains, and creates social identities, while reflecting upon the position of individuals within their societies.

Reviews

With a comprehensive bibliography, readable style, and pertinent screengrabs, this book opens up new pathways for understanding and appreciating the complex terrain of 1930s French cinema. 

Source: French Studies Vol. 69 No. 3

Flinn’s book is a valuable and original contribution to research on one of the most important periods of French film history.

Edward Ousselin Source: French Review

Social Architecture of French Cinema, beautifully and accessibly written, is an important contribution to both film studies and architecture. The book generates numerous ideas that could be employed in other related fields as well.
H. Hazel Hahn, Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

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