French B Movies: Suburban Spaces, Universalism, and the Challenge of Hollywood

Minority communities in French cities are embracing American culture, history, and theory to create their own voices, cultures, and histories, challenging mainstream French film's notions of identity, belonging, and marginalization. Filmmakers have also turned to Hollywood genre conventions to address these issues, resulting in the emergence of French B Movies as a privileged site to understand the state of the French film industry in the age of globalization.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 346 pages
Publication date: 07 March 2023
Publisher: Indiana University Press

In the impoverished outskirts of French cities, known as the banlieues, minority communities are embracing American culture, history, and theory to assert their unique voices, cultures, and histories. Filmmakers have followed suit, employing Hollywood genre conventions to challenge notions of identity, belonging, and marginalization in mainstream French cinema.

French B Movies argues that French banlieue films, far from being a fringe genre, provide a privileged lens through which to understand the current state of the French film industry in the age of globalization. This gritty style can be observed in popular arthouse films like Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine and Bande de filles (Girlhood), as well as the massive Netflix hit series Lupin. David Pettersen delves into how directors in these works and others seamlessly blend features of banlieue cinema with genre formulas associated with Hollywood and Black cultural models, as well as how transnational genre hybridizations, such as B movies, have become integral to the ecosystem of the French film industry.

By combining film analysis, cultural history, critical theory, and industry studies, French B Movies unveils how featuring the banlieues is as much about envisioning new identities and production models for French cinema as it is about representation.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780253064899