Late-colonial French Cinema
Filming the Algerian War of Independence
by Mani Sharpe
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Book Presentation:
Deploying the term ‘late-colonial’ to describe a body of largely French films made during, and in response to, the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), this book revolves around one question – what is late-colonial French cinema? – generating two answers.
Firstly, Sharpe argues that late-colonial cinema represents a formally and thematically important, yet unappreciated tendency in French cinema; one that has largely been overshadowed by a scholarly focus on the French New Wave. Secondly, Sharpe contends that whilst late-colonial French cinema cannot be seen as a coherent cinematic movement, school of filmmaking, or genre, it can be seen as a coherent ethical trend, with many of the fifteen central case studies explored in Late-colonial French Cinema filtering the Algerian War of Independence through a discourse of ‘redemptive pacifism’.
About the Author:
Mani Sharpe is a Lecturer in Film in the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures at the University of Leeds. He is the author of several articles on late-colonial French cinema, having published in French Studies, Journal of European Studies, Journal of War and Culture Studies, and Studies in French Cinema, amongst others.
Press Reviews:
This is a book full of riches, combining scholarship and style. The research is meticulous, the contextualisation magisterial. A major contribution to cultural history as much as to film studies, Sharpe’s work forms a missing piece of the jigsaw regarding French cinematic representations of Algeria.
-- Guy Austin, Newcastle University
In this expertly written book, Mani Sharpe uncovers a buried web of French late-colonial film. A varied array of shorts and features expose and dissimulate a dissolving French-Algeria. Sharpe's exploration of masculinity and militantism in these resurfacing artifacts demands our immediate attention.
-- Nicole Beth Wallenbrock, City University of New York
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