The Arts

Robert Guédiguian

by Joseph Mai

Description

Intervening at the crossroads of philosophy, politics, and cinema, this book argues that the career of Robert Guédiguian is the result of one of the most original and coherent projects in contemporary French cinema: to make a committed, historically-conscious cinema, in a local space, over a long period of time, but most especially with friends. The account starts with in-depth consideration of friendship and its relation to philosophy, politics, time, and space. The book chronologically traces this project as it begins in Guédiguian's hometown, the Communist-leaning Marseille. It further unfolds through the political transformations of the 1980s Left and the local activism and utopias of the 1990s, and spreads into Guédiguian's varied explorations of genre and register. Close analysis is accompanied with historical and social contextualization, but also with a consistent return to the underlying, radical and philosophically rich project.

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Reviews

Intervening at the crossroads of philosophy, politics, and cinema,this book argues that the career of Robert Guédiguian, director of Marius et Jeannette (1997) and other eminently popular auteurist films, is the result of one of the most subtly original and coherent projects in contemporary French cinema: to make a committed, historically-conscious cinema, in a local space, over a long period of time, but most importantly with a small number of close friends. The account starts with a nuanced consideration of friendship and its relation to political action and moral philosophy (including the themes of time, space, and human flourishing). Taking a chronological organisation, the book then traces Guédiguian's project from its beginning in his hometown, the communist-leaning Estaque neighborhood of Marseilles. Individual chapters explore Guédiguian's rousing but pessimistic experiments with popular form during political upheaval in the 1980s left; his deep and exhilarating advocacy of local activism and utopias in the 1990s; and finally his varied explorations of genre and register, politics and ethics, in more recent work. In the Conclusion, close filmic analysis and historical contextualisation give way to a portrait of the unique, determined, long-term project of friendship that defines both Guédiguian's cinema and his life.

Author Biography

Joseph Mai is Professor of French at Clemson University

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date August 2022
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781526163974 / 1526163977
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatPrint PDF
  • Pages168
  • ReadershipGeneral/trade
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions198 X 129 mm
  • Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 2730
  • SeriesFrench Film Directors Series
  • Reference Code14720

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