A study of French film in the inter-war years focusing on women, particularly women singers, and the role they played in shaping a national, populist, Paris-oriented French cinema.

Long before Edith Piaf sang "La vie en rose," her predecessors took to the stage of the Belle Epoque music hall, singing of female desire, the treachery of men, the harshness of working-class life, and the rough neighborhoods of Paris. The realist singer signaled the emergence of new cultural roles for women as well as shifts in the nature of popular entertainment. This book provides a genealogy of realist performance through analysis of the music hall careers and film roles of Mistinguett, Josephine Baker, Frehel, and Damia. Above all, it offers a fresh interpretation of 1930s French cinema, emphasizing its love affair with popular song and its close connections to the music hall and the cafe-concert. Illustrations.

Summary: "Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination presents for the first time a comparative study of European film set design in the late 1920s and 1930s; based on a wealth of designers ʼ drawings, film stills and archival documents, the book offers a new insight into the development and significance of trans-national artistic collaboration during this period. European cinema from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is famous for its attention to detail in terms of set design and visual effect. Focusing on developments in Britain, France, and Germany, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema provides a comprehensive analysis of the practices, styles, and function of cinematic production design during this period, and its influence on subsequent filmmaking patterns."--Publisher description.

At the forefront of the entertainment industries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were singular actors: Sarah Bernhardt, Gabrielle Réjane, and Mistinguett. Talented women with global ambitions, these performers pioneered the use of film and theatrics to gain international renown. Transnational Trailblazers of Early Cinema traces how these women emerged from the Parisian periphery to become world-famous stars. Through intrepid business prowess and the cultivation of celebrity images, these three artists strengthened ties among countries, continents, and cultures during pivotal years of change.

This thoroughly revised and expanded edition of a key textbook offers an innovative and accessible account of the richness and diversity of French film history and culture from the 1890s to the present day. The contributors, who include leading historians and film scholars, provide an indispensable introduction to key topics and debates in French film history. Each chronological section addresses seven key themes – people, business, technology, forms, representations, spectators and debates, providing an essential overview of the cinema industry, the people who worked in it, including technicians and actors as well as directors, and the culture of cinema going in France from the beginnings of cinema to the contemporary period.

In Music and Cosmopolitanism, Cristina Magaldi examines music making in a past globalized world. This volume focuses on one city, Rio de Janeiro, and how it became part of a larger world through music and performance. Magaldi describes a process of creating connections beyond national borders, one that is familiar to contemporary city residents, but which was already dominant at the turn of the 20th century, as new technological developments led to alternative ways of making and experiencing music.