5 The polar
-
Guy Austin
Abstract
The first French thrillers date from the silent era, with Louis Feuillade's popular Fantômas and Judex series. The French thriller, also known as the polar or film policier, has been cited as 'the principal means by which the French cinema's relationship to Hollywood has been articulated' breadth of the genre thus contributed to its popularity in the subsequent decade: a quarter of all French films made in 1981 were polars, and many of those were box-office successes. At the most commercial end of the market, two kinds of polar dominated in the 1970s and 1980s: the action-packed comedy-thriller and the stylised gangster format. In 1957 Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, journalists on Cahiers du cinema, wrote Hitchcock, the first serious critical work on this seminal director to be published. Of the various film-makers who initiated la nouvelle vague, Chabrol is the one most closely associated with the polar.
Abstract
The first French thrillers date from the silent era, with Louis Feuillade's popular Fantômas and Judex series. The French thriller, also known as the polar or film policier, has been cited as 'the principal means by which the French cinema's relationship to Hollywood has been articulated' breadth of the genre thus contributed to its popularity in the subsequent decade: a quarter of all French films made in 1981 were polars, and many of those were box-office successes. At the most commercial end of the market, two kinds of polar dominated in the 1970s and 1980s: the action-packed comedy-thriller and the stylised gangster format. In 1957 Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, journalists on Cahiers du cinema, wrote Hitchcock, the first serious critical work on this seminal director to be published. Of the various film-makers who initiated la nouvelle vague, Chabrol is the one most closely associated with the polar.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Preface ix
- Acknowledgements x
- 1 French cinema from 1895 to 1968, a brief survey 1
- 2 The Occupation, colonial conflicts, and national identity 17
- 3 Representations of sexuality 55
- 4 Women film-makers in France 98
- 5 The polar 118
- 6 Fantasy film 143
- 7 The heritage film 167
- 8 Comedy 199
- 9 Le jeune cinéma and the new realism 220
- Filmography 242
- Index 246
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Preface ix
- Acknowledgements x
- 1 French cinema from 1895 to 1968, a brief survey 1
- 2 The Occupation, colonial conflicts, and national identity 17
- 3 Representations of sexuality 55
- 4 Women film-makers in France 98
- 5 The polar 118
- 6 Fantasy film 143
- 7 The heritage film 167
- 8 Comedy 199
- 9 Le jeune cinéma and the new realism 220
- Filmography 242
- Index 246
