Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema ─ A Beauvoirian Perspective

In spite of her work on the concept of the "othering" gaze, a major theme that runs through second-wave Anglophone feminist film theory, as well as her long-professed fascination with cinema, French feminist and existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) has largely been ignored within the realm of film studies, note Boule (contemporary French studies, Nottingham Trent U., England) and Tidd (French studies, U. of Manchester, England), who present 11 essays that re-open the dormant dialogue between Beauvoir and film theory. Specific topics include the implications of Beauvoir's account of childhood for the analysis of Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence (2004), Beauvoir's portrayal of motherhood and female sexuality in The Second Sex and recent roles played by Isabelle Huppert, the notion of freedom as an ambiguous dialectical interplay between individual choices and social conventions and Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road (2008), the relationship between Beauvoir's philosophy and melodrama, and the existentialist analysis of ageing femininity and screen representations in Yamina Benguigui's Inch'Allah Sunday (2001). Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jean-Pierre Boule is Professor of Contemporary French Studies at Nottingham Trent University and the author of a number of books, notably on Sartre, including Sartre mediatique (1992) and Sartre, Self-Formation and Masculinities (2005). He is the co-founder of the U.K. Sartre Society and executive editor of Sartre Studies International. His most recent books include Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed, co-edited with Benedict O’Donohoe (2011) and a companion volume to the present one, Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Sartrean Perspective, co-edited with Enda McCaffrey (2011).