French novels, plays, poems and short stories, however temporally or culturally distant from us, continue to be incarnated and reincarnated on cinema screens across the world. From the silent films of Georges Méliès to the Hollywood production of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary directed by Sophie Barthes, The History of French Literature on Film explores the key films, directors, and movements that have shaped the adaptation of works by French authors since the end of the 19th century. Across six chapters, Griffiths and Watts examine the factors that have driven this vibrant adaptive industry, as filmmakers have turned to literature in search of commercial profits, cultural legitimacy, and stories rich in dramatic potential. The volume also explains how the work of theorists from a variety of disciplines (literary theory, translation theory, adaptation theory), can help to deepen both our understanding and our appreciation of literary adaptation as a creative practice. Finally, this volume seeks to make clear that adaptation is never a simple transcription of an earlier literary work. It is always simultaneously an adaptation of the society and era for which it is created. Adaptations of French literature are thus not only valuable artistic artefacts in their own right, so too are they important historical documents which testify to the values and tastes of their own time.

Introduction: Deceptive binaries : adaptations and their literary sources / Kate Griffiths -- The currency of adaptation : art and money in silent cinema (1899-1929) / Andrew Watts -- Who is adaptation? Interpersonal transactions in film (1927-39) / Kate Griffiths -- Politics, propaganda, and the censored screen : adapting French literature during the German occupation (1940-44) / Andrew Watts -- The formative function of the dominant film poetics : the impact of film movement, moment, and genre (1945-70) / Kate Griffiths -- The history of adaptation; adaptation and history (1970-2004) / Kate Griffiths -- Textual migration and adaptive diaspora : French literature adaptations beyond France (1996-2016) / Andrew Watts.

French novels, plays, poems and short stories, however temporally or culturally distant from us, continue to be incarnated and reincarnated on cinema screens across the world. From the silent films of Georges Méliès to the Hollywood production of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary directed by Sophie Barthes, The History of French Literature on Film explores the key films, directors, and movements that have shaped the adaptation of works by French authors since the end of the 19th century. Across six chapters, Griffiths and Watts examine the factors that have driven this vibrant adaptive industry, as filmmakers have turned to literature in search of commercial profits, cultural legitimacy, and stories rich in dramatic potential. The volume also explains how the work of theorists from a variety of disciplines (literary theory, translation theory, adaptation theory), can help to deepen both our understanding and our appreciation of literary adaptation as a creative practice. Finally, this volume seeks to make clear that adaptation is never a simple transcription of an earlier literary work. It is always simultaneously an adaptation of the society and era for which it is created. Adaptations of French literature are thus not only valuable artistic artefacts in their own right, so too are they important historical documents which testify to the values and tastes of their own time.

This magnificent volume provides a complete history of the literature of France from its origins to the present day, taking us beyond traditional definitions of 'literature' into the world of the best-seller and, beyond words, to graphic fiction and.

This collection presents new essays in the complex field of French literary adaptation. Using a variety of textual and interpretive approaches, it sheds light on issues of gender, sexuality, class, politics and social conventions while acknowledging a range of contexts, from the commercial to the archival and the aesthetic. The chapters, written by eminent international scholars, run chronologically from The Count of Monte Cristo through Proust and Bonjour, Tristesse to Philippe Djian’s Oh... (adapted for the screen as Elle). Collectively, they fill a need for contemporary discussions on the significance of France’s literary representations in the history of global cinema.

It can be argued that cinema was created in France by Louis Lumière in 1895 with the invention of the cinématographe, the first true motion-picture camera and projector. While there were other cameras and devices invented earlier that were capable of projecting intermittent motion of images, the cinématographe was the first device capable of recording and externally projecting images in such a way as to convey motion. Early films such as Lumière's La Sortie de l'usine, a minute-long film of workers leaving the Lumière factory, captured the imagination of the nation and quickly inspired the likes of Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and Charles Pathé. Through the years, French cinema has been responsible for producing some of the world's best directors--Jean Renoir, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Louis Malle--and actors--Charles Boyer, Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, and Audrey Tautou. The Historical Dictionary of French Cinema covers the history of French film from the silent era to the present in a concise and up to date volume detailing the development of French cinema and major theoretical and cultural issues related to it. This is done through a chronology, an introduction, photographs, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on many of the major actors, directors, films, movements, producers, and studios associated with French cinema. Going beyond mere biographical information, entries also discuss the impact and significance of each individual, film, movement, or studio included. This detailed, scholarly analysis of the development of film in France is useful to both the novice and the expert alike.

The most comprehensive history of literature written in French ever produced in English.