Negotiating the auteur: Dominique Cabrera, Noémie Lvovsky, Laetitia Masson and Marion Vernoux

This book aims to provoke increased interest in the work of the four directors: Dominique Cabrera, Noémie Lvovsky, Laetitia Masson and Marion Vernoux, although some of their early works have become more difficult to access, most of their films remain commercially available through French distributors. The four directors are not new arrivals and began making films in the early 1990s, yet they have received scant critical attention in both popular and academic film criticism. They share similar profiles in terms of box office success, number of films made and generational affinities and, shorts and feature films in France. They make films that straddle boundaries of categorisation and therefore escape the quickly established and self-perpetuating groupings that serve as powerful frameworks for popular access via DVD distribution, critical canonisation and academic curricula. Whilst Cabrera attests her sanguine awareness of the discriminatory treatment of women in all areas of the film industry she rejects the suggestion that the process of her filmmaking is determined by sexual difference or a gendered creative identity, asserting provocatively. The book discusses Masson's use of romance and detective narratives to debunk the former and subvert the later. The career path of Lvovsky remains distinctive from that of other directors. Vernoux's oeuvre maintains a coherent focus on the modes of transgression present within the generic conventions of comedy and romance in films which exploit the common narrative device of the encounter to propel narratives and characters across social boundaries within a dominant generic focus on romantic comedy. Front matter Dedication Contents List of plates Series editors’ foreword Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: continuing negotiations Dominique Cabrera: intimate constructions of a ‘bonheur collectif ’ Noémie Lvovsky: rupture and transmission Plates Laetitia Masson: suspect identities Marion Vernoux: encountering difference Filmographies Index Dobson provides detailed critical analysis of films by Dominique Cabrera, Laetitia Masson, Noémie Lvovsky and Marion Vernoux, and presents common threads including the possible construction of social intimacy, the political demystification of romance narratives and the role of nostalgia in contemporary French cinema. -- . Dobson provides detailed critical analysis of films by Dominique Cabrera, Laetitia Masson, Noemie Lvovsky and Marion Vernoux, and presents common threads including the possible construction of social intimacy, the political demystification of romance narratives and the role of nostalgia in contemporary French cinema. -- .