Je T’Aime... Moi Non Plus

Je T’Aime... Moi Non Plus
Author: Lucy Mazdon
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1845458559

A series of limiting definitions have tended to delineate the Franco-British cinematic relationship. As this collection of essays reveals, there is much more to it than simple oppositions between British critical esteem for the films of France and French dismissal of ‘le cinéma British’, or the success of Ken Loach et al. at the French box office and the relative dearth of French movies on British screens. In fact, there has long been a rich and productive dialogue between these two cultures in which both their clear differences and their shared concerns have played a vital role. This book provides an overview of the history of these relations from the early days of sound cinema to the present day. The chapters, written by leading experts in the history of French, British and European cinema, provide insights into relations between French and British cinematic cultures at the level of production, exhibition and distribution, reception, representation and personnel. The book features a diverse range of studies, including: the exhibition of French cinema in Britain in the 1930s, contemporary ‘extreme’ French cinema, stars such as Annabella, David Niven and Jane Birkin and the French Resistance on British screens.

Serge Gainsbourg: a Fistful of Gitanes

Serge Gainsbourg: a Fistful of Gitanes
Author: Sylvie Simmons
Publisher:
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2002
Genre: Singers
ISBN: 9781900924405

In this, the first English biography to capture Gainsbourg in all his contradiction and gleeful outrageousness, Simmons tells the fascinating story of the Gallic star. Drawing on hours of new interviews with his intimates-among them Jane Birkin, Sly & Robbie, Marianne Faithfull, and celebrated producer Philippe Lerichomme-Simmons describes in crackling prose the scope of Gainsbourg's achievement while doing full justice to his complicated emotional life. Simmons's work will stand as the definitive take on a dizzying genius.

Gainsbourg

Gainsbourg
Author: Gilles Verlant
Publisher:
Total Pages: 589
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780966234671

When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France went into mourning: François Mitterand himself proclaimed him "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire." Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic "yé-yé" beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. But mourned as much as his music was Gainsbourg the man: the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing "Je t'aime moi non plus" was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the "Marseillais" earned him death threats from the right, and the dirty-old-boy wordsmith who could slip double-entendres about oral sex into the lyrics of a teenybopper ditty and make a crude sexual proposition to Whitney Houston on live television. Gilles Verlant's biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s-1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy's granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolita of pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium.

Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson

Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson
Author: Darran Anderson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1623565979

Outside his native France, the view of Serge Gainsbourg was once of a one-hit wonder lothario. This has been slowly replaced by an awareness of how talented and innovative a songwriter he was. Gainsbourg was an eclectic, protean figure; a Dadaist, poète maudit, Pop-Artist, libertine and anti-hero. An icon and iconoclast. His masterpiece is arguably Histoire de Melody Nelson, an album suite combining many of his signature themes; sex, taboo, provocation, humour, exoticism and ultimately tragedy. Composed and arranged with the great Jean-Claude Vannier, its score of lush cinematic strings and proto-hip hop beats, combined with Serge's spoken-word poetry, has become remarkably influential across a vast musical spectrum; inspiring soundtracks, indie groups and electronic artists. In recent years, the album's reputation has grown from cult status to that of a modern classic with the likes of Beck, Portishead, Mike Patton, Air and Pulp paying tribute. How did the son of Jewish Russian immigrants, hounded during the Nazi Occupation, rise to such notoriety and acclaim, being celebrated by President François Mitterand as "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire"? How did the early chanson singer evolve into a musical visionary incorporating samples, breakbeats and dub into his music, decades ahead of the curve? And what are the roots and legacy of a concept album about a Rolls Royce, a red-haired Lolita muse, otherworldly mansions, plane crashes and Cargo Cults?

Yé-Yé Girls of '60s French Pop

Yé-Yé Girls of '60s French Pop
Author: Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe
Publisher: Feral House
Total Pages: 557
Release: 2013-11-18
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1936239728

Yé-Yé means Yeah Yeah! and is best known as a style of '60s pop music heard in France and Québec.

The Man Who Grew His Beard

The Man Who Grew His Beard
Author: Olivier Schrauwen
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2011-09-27
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1606994468

The Man Who Grew His Beard is Belgian cartoonist Olivier Schrauwen's first American book after having staked a reputation as one of Europe's most talented storytellers. It collects seven short stories, each a head-spinning display of craft and storytelling that mixes early twentieth-century comics influences like Winsor McCay with a thoroughly contemporary voice that provokes and entertains with subversively surreal humor and subtle criticism of twentieth-century tropes and images.

Sex, Sea, and Self

Sex, Sea, and Self
Author: Jacqueline Couti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2021
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1800859945

Sex, Sea, and Self reassesses the place of the French Antilles and French Caribbean literature within current postcolonial thought and visions of the Black Atlantic. Using a feminist lens, this study examines neglected twentieth-century French texts by Black writers from Martinique and Guadeloupe, making the analysis of some of these texts available to readers of English for the first time. This interdisciplinary study of female and male authors reconsiders their political strategies and the critical role of French creoles in the creation of their own history. This approach recalibrates overly simplistic understandings of the victimization and alienation of French Caribbean people. In the systems of cultural production under consideration, sexuality constitutes an instrument of political and cultural consciousness in the chaotic period between 1924 and 1948. Studying sexual imagery constructed around female bodies demonstrates the significance of agency and the legacy of the past in cultural resistance and political awareness. Sex, Sea, and Self particularly highlights Antillean women intellectuals' theoretical contributions to Caribbean critical theory. Therefore, this analysis illuminates debates on the multifaceted and conflicted relationships between France and its overseas departments and expands ideas of nationhood in the Black Atlantic and the Americas.

Dust & Grooves

Dust & Grooves
Author: Eilon Paz
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1607748703

A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.

Codex Espangliensis

Codex Espangliensis
Author: Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Publisher: City Lights Books
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2000-06
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780872863675

Inspired by the pre-Hispanic codices that escaped immolation during colonial invasions, this artists' book opens out in accordion folds expanding to a length of over 21 feet. Rice has created a series of beautiful and jarring montages in which the mixture of languages, slang, poetry, and prose of Gomez-Pena's performance texts are woven through and around Chagoya's collages filled with pre-Hispanic drawings, colonial-era representations of New World natives, and comic book superheroes. Irreverent to the last, Gomez-Pena and Chagoya employ iconic figures and persistent stereotypes to overturn the fantasies of nationalism, ethnocentrism, and historical amnesia that cloud international relations. Rice's masterful typographic compositions orchestrate the text's many voices and views, offering a history of the Americas which must be read forward and backward, in fragments and in recurring episodes - in short, as history itself tends to unfold. About the Authors Guillermo Gomez-Pena was born in Mexico City in 1955 and came to the U.S. in 1978. His work, which includes performance art, poetry, journalism, criticism, and cultural theory, explores cross-cultural issues and North/South relations. He is the recipient of an American Book Award for The New World Border (City Lights) and a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, among many other honors. Enrique Chagoya is a Mexican-born painter and printmaker who has been living and working in the U.S. since 1977. The recipient of two NEA Fellowships, his most recent show of paintings was at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. He currently teaches at Stanford University. Felicia Rice is a book artist, typographer, printer, and publisher whose work has earned her many honors. She lectures and exhibits internationally, and her books are represented in the collections of various museums and libraries. She currently directs the graphic design and production program at the University of California, Santa Cruz Extension.