A Thousand Screenplays

The French Imagination in a Time of Crisis

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by Sabine Chalvon-Demersay

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

sociology, France, movie script

Publishing date

1999

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 208 pages
5 ½ x 8 ½ inches (14 x 21.5 cm)

ISBN-10
ISBN-13

0-226-10069-3
978-0-226-10069-2

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Book Presentation:
In 1991, French public television held an amateur screenwriting contest. When Sabine Chalvon-Demersay, a French sociologist, examined the roughly 1,000 entries, she had hoped to analyze their differences. What she found, however, surprised her. Although the entrants covered nearly every social demographic, their screenplays presented similar characters in similar situations confronting similar problems.

The time of crisis presented by the amateur writers was not one of war, famine, or disease—it was the millennial dilemma of representation. In a world plagued by alienation, individualization, and a lack of mobility, how can members of a society combat their declining senses of self?

Although the contestants wrote about life in France, their concerns and struggles have a distinctly universal ring. A lucid, witty writer, Chalvon-Demersay offers a clear, if still developing, photograph of the contemporary imagination.

See the publisher website: University of Chicago Press