Americans & Film in Paris

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Painters, sculptors, musicians, directors, and writers from the United States have used Paris as a place of inspiration and refuge. Our course will dive into the works of American expats and look at the influences they absorbed in France and then shared when they came back to their home country. A second theme will be the location of Paris as a site for many American-made and French films.

Movies that focus on Paris as a site are engaging with political issues, not simply romance and comedy. Different genres can be found when studying Cinema in Paris. The Josephine Baker Story is a TV film from 1991 that chronicles her life. The famous African American singer worked for the French Resistance during World War II. Born in St. Louis in the United States, she later renounced her American citizenship and moved permanently to France.

One of the best-known films from the French New Wave is Jean-Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (Breathless, 1960), describing the life of a hustler. Michael Haneke’s Caché (Hidden) is a psychological thriller from 2005 and engages with the suppressed memory of the conflicts with Algeria. Sarah’s Key, a drama from 2010, directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, deals with the Holocaust. Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed the unforgettable Amélie (2001) as well as Delicatessen (1991). The popular film Intouchables (2011) by Oliver Nakache was a box office hit in France and overseas. It describes the relationship between a quadriplegic French aristocrat and his young black caregiver. The French woman director Céline Sciamma has produced unforgettable and provocative films, among them Girlhood (2014), a coming-of-age drama, focusing on teenage young women of color who grow up in the French suburbs. Finally, we will also trace the steps of Marie Antoinette (2006) by following Sophia Coppola to Versailles.