Stars and stardom in French cinema

French cinema is second only to Hollywood in the number of its movie stars who have emerged to achieve international fame. France is, in fact, arguably the only country other than the United States to have an international "star system." Yet these glamorous and charismatic stars differ from their U.S. counterparts in that they maintain more freedom to control their own images and often straddle both mainstream and auteur cinema. Ginette Vincendeau, a leading authority on French cinema, analyzes the phenomenon of French film stardom and provides brilliant in-depth studies of the major.
Content: The French star system --
Max Linder : the world's first film star --
Jean Gabin : from working-class hero to godfather --
Brigitte Bardot : the old and the new : what Bardot meant to 1950s France --
Jeanne Moreau and the actresses of the new wave : new wave, new stars --
Louis de Funès : le gendarme et les cinéphiles --
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon : one smiles, the other doesn't --
Catherine Deneuve : from ice maiden to living divinity --
Gérard Depardieu : the axiom of contemporary French cinema --
Juliette Binoche : the face of neo-romanticism.
Abstract: An analysis of the phenomenon of French film stardom. It provides in-depth studies of the major popular stars of French cinema, including Max Linder, Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Depardieu. It explores the stars' images and performance, as well as French culture and society.