Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema

Ebook available to libraries exclusively as part of the JSTOR Path to Open initiative.

Parisiennes: City Women in French Cinema examines French films that screen women as main characters in the city of Paris from 1957 to the present day. The book investigates how women perceive, use, and inhabit the city of Paris on-screen, showing that the strong connection between the city and its women offers a strategic site to examine gender in urban space in cinema. Close readings of key popular movies, art-house films, and films directed by women reveal that the on-screen interactions between female protagonists and city spaces are crucial to understanding women’s place(s) in Paris in different social and historical contexts. Moving beyond the mythical Parisienne and the celebrated flâneuse, the book analyzes the Parisiennes as city women to capture the interactive exchange between female protagonists and urban spaces, focusing on spatial perception, everyday urban practices, and lived experience. Most importantly, these on-screen Parisiennes show women’s lives and struggles in the city and imagine women asserting the right to be residents of Paris, as city women. The Parisiennes as city women screen women who aim to walk freely the city streets and imagine Paris on their own terms, providing a more egalitarian model to the off-screen city.