Digitizing Frenchness in 2001: On a ‘Historic’ Moment in the French Cinema

Abstract

Inexorably intertwined with American cinema, the digital French cinema has defined itself with and against its ever-present rival across the Atlantic. This article attempts to complicate what would be a predictable narrative of Americanization of French cinema, or the Gallicization of an American cinema by suggesting that at stake in this process is the historically rooted identity of Frenchness itself. It recalls that as the cinema has been one of the preeminent cultural activities of the French in terms of time and money spent, it is logically a privileged space in which to study the evolution of French culture and identity.¹