NOUVELLES FEMMES

Women and film in France.

Film historian Knudson looks at French cinema, with a focus on female actors, writers, and directors who shaped, and were shaped by, the artistic revolution known as the New Wave. Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina, Anouk Aimee, Jean Seberg, Delphine Seyrig, and Agnès Varda are among many others who broke away from stereotypical female characters in pre–World War II films dominated by costumed, high-budget, historical dramas—disparagingly called cinéma de papa—starring actresses who fit a mold of glamour and sexual allure. In the 1950s, influenced by Hollywood movies that featured feisty, strong-willed women, New Wave directors—such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Louis Malle—created movies that both drew on their idealized images of women and evolved to reflect the tensions and realities of women’s lives. Some New Wave films introduced young free spirits rejecting social strictures; others, multifaceted, mature women facing the complexities of their lives. Viewers were drawn to the dynamics between male and female characters, as well as between actresses and directors. Knudson examines these relationships in detail: Bardot and Roger Vadim; Moreau, Malle, and Truffaut; Emmanuelle Riva and Alain Renais; Karina and Godard; Godard and Seberg. These affairs led many directors to envision women as passive, beautiful objects of desire, but over time, that image began to shatter. “I’m not an apparition, I am a woman,” Seyrig retorts in Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses (1968). Knudson reveals how women’s images were compounded by official censorship and directors’ self-censorship, which avoided nudity and subjects such as abortion, birth control, and prostitution. Drawing liberally on interviews, Knudson allows her large cast of characters to speak candidly and perceptively about their lives and work.

Engaging, well-researched cultural history.