Americanism, Media and the Politics of Culture in 1930s France

Gangsters, aviators, hard-boiled detectives, gunslingers, jazz and images of the American metropolis were all an inextricable part of the cultural landscape of interwar France. While the French 1930s have long been understood as profoundly anti-American, this book shows how a young, up-and-coming generation of 1930s French writers and filmmakers approached American culture with admiration as well as criticism. For some, the imaginary America that circulated through Hollywood films, newspaper reports, radio programming and translated fiction represented the society of the future, while for others it embodied a dire threat to French identity. This book brings an innovative transatlantic perspective to 1930s French culture, focusing on several of the most famous figures from the 1930s – including Marcel Carné, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Julien Duvivier, André Malraux, Jean Renoir and Jean-Paul Sartre – to track the ways in which they sought to reinterpret the political and social dimensions of modernism for mass audiences via an imaginary America. In 1930s France, the growing reach and influence of American media helped to form a new generation of artists and intellectuals who redefined what it meant to be modern and French. During this decade, France experienced their own Great Depression, which - along with other rippling effects of the First World War - stirred up a crisis of cultural identity. With Americanism, Media and the Politics of Culture in 1930s France, David A. Pettersen focuses on key figures, texts, and films of the 1930s to shed light on the evolution of modern French culture brought about by the influence of, and a deep engagement with, American mass media. -- Provided by publisher This book examines transatlantic influences on 1930s French culture, focusing on the impact of American mass culture and media in the form of the gangster, the aviator, hard-boiled detective fiction, jazz and the Western on canonical French writers and filmmakers.