Prof Ginette Vincendeau
At the heart of Louis Malle’s groundbreaking and controversial film is the liaison between Lucien, a young, uneducated peasant in Figeac, South-West France, and France Horn, the sophisticated daughter of a wealthy Jewish tailor in hiding. Lucien and France’s budding relationship is played out against the background of the local Gestapo headquarters and the larger historical context in which normal power relations are inverted and moral boundaries blurred.
Ginette Vincendeau is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London. She has written widely on French Cinema. Among her books are Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (2000), Jean-Pierre Melville, an American in Paris (2003) and La Haine (2005). Her new book Popular French Cinema, from the Classical to the Trans-national, will be published in 2011.
