Screenwriters in post-war French cinema: an overview

Abstract

This article aims to sketch out the landscape of screenwriting in mainstream French cinema in the post-war period (1945–1958). Taking the box office top twenty for each year as its corpus, this article will set out the situation of screenwriting in France in relation to the variety of genres and types of films favoured by audiences. By examining the way screenwriting is portrayed in the popular film press of the time (notably Cinémonde), the article also aims to recentre the debates away from the politique des auteurs which dominated the so-called cinéphile press of the time (Cahiers du cinéma, Positif, Arts etc.) and to consider what discourses dominate in a publication which does not have any particular axe to grind with the so-called ‘tradition of quality’. Thus, the article will also address one of the foundation myths of the New Wave; that is to say, that post-war French film was dominated by a literary cinema which was therefore also a cinema mired in convention.

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