French Cinema: Stardom, Gender and Popular Film

Film Studies' growing legitimacy as an academic discipline in the UK was cemented in 1985 by the award of the very first British PhD in the field. Remarkably, this highly influential study was authored by a scholar not herself of Anglophone origin: Ginette Vincendeau. Hailing from the Vendée and the working-class suburbs of Paris, Vincendeau has since continued to transcend national boundaries through her pioneering scholarship and define paradigms for studying cinema as a social and aesthetic phenomenon that have inspired generations of scholars.

This special anthology of new critical writing on French and European cinema unites established and emergent researchers whose work would simply not have existed in the way it does without Vincendeau's visionary contribution. Covering topics as diverse as stardom, film history, popular cinema, and gender studies, the book pays homage to Vincendeau as both a unique critical thinker and an exceptional teacher and mentor.

Stuart Bell is Ginette Vincendeau's final PhD student in the Film Studies Department at King's College London. Mary Harrod is Professor of French and Screen Studies at the University of Warwick, and co-Chief General Editor of French Screen Studies, with Ginette Vincendeau. Alastair Phillips is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick.