French Impressionist Cinema, also referred to as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde, is a term applied to a group of French films and filmmakers of the 1920s.
Film scholars have had much difficulty in defining this movement or for that matter deciding whether it should be considered a movement at all. David Bordwell has attempted to define a unified stylistic paradigm and set of tenets. 1 Others, namely Richard Abel, criticize these attempts and group the films and filmmakers more loosely, based on a common goal of “exploration of the process of representation and signification in narrative film discourse.” 2 Still others such as Dudley Andrew would struggle with awarding any credibility at all as “movement.” 3
Read more about French Impressionist Cinema: Filmmakers and Films (greatly Abridged), Periodization, Stylistic Paradigm, Relation To/Deviation From Hollywood Stylistics, Criticism, Theory
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or cinema:
“Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you’re trying to escape?”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)
“Strangers used to gather together at the cinema and sit together in the dark, like Ancient Greeks participating in the mysteries, dreaming the same dream in unison.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)