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readers with a general interest in French culture and film studies, either in a program of studies or who harbor an individual interest. Each film“can be used to introduce a facet of French culture, such as education, history, representation of French society in film, representation of stereotypes, national and personal identity and immigration” (20). The chapters cover films by the following directors in this order: François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Agnès Varda, Louis Malle, Claude Miller, Nicolas Philibert, Francis Veber, Christophe Gans, and Ismaël Ferroukhi. The déroulement is more or less historical moving from 1959 (Les 400 coups) to 2004 (Le grand voyage). Vanderschelden titles the chapters, however, to capture a broader context, for example, “François Truffaut:AnAuteur’s Representation of Childhood.”After identifying Truffaut as “a ring-leader of the New Wave,” auteur, and prolific critic, she notes how his personal history led to cinema consuming his life (23). Truffaut’s role in film history is followed by synopses of two films, Les 400 coups and L’argent de poche, and then their production contexts. The childhood theme gets thorough discussion, as do filmic concerns (style,use of space,camerawork,sound and music,narrative and time,editing). The conclusion charts Truffaut’s evolution as it moves from an auteurist perspective to a more independent and accessible cinema. The remaining nine chapters follow similar trajectories,each crafted for the specific director and social issue.Studying French Film takes us on an easy-to-follow trip from the New Wave to today’s transnational and postmodern visions. It is indexed and offers chapter notes and extensive bibliographies. The general bibliography appears orphaned: better to have an all-inclusive bibliography, separated into general works as well as the chapter-specific ones. The glossary of film terms seems superfluous: they should simply have been footnoted. The entire volume would have benefited from better copyediting. I found the font choices off-putting. What distinguishes this work from many others, however and more importantly, is the breadth of genres (New Wave, documentary, historical drama, comedy, etc.), the types of production (artistic, mass market, multicultural), and the mix of French close textual analysis and cultural and gender studies favored by Anglo-Saxon approaches . With only ten chapters showcasing ten cinéastes and fifteen films, the depth of the analyses makes it useful, and Vanderschelden’s analyses and discussions are provocative. Virginia Commonwealth University Kathryn Murphy-Judy Williams, James S. Space and Being in Contemporary French Cinema. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2013. ISBN 978-0-7190-8432-4. Pp. 257. $95. In dialogue with contemporary studies on place, space, region, cityscape, and postcolonial landscapes, this book makes both theory and application accessible to all. Williams seamlessly weaves description, theory, and analysis in a way that is exciting 210 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1 Reviews 211 to those specialized and those unfamiliar with the films of focus. His clearly-defined distinction between“place”and“space”incorporates outlines of influential theories by Foucault, Lefebvre, Certeau, Deleuze, and Augé, which aid the reader in capturing both the evolution and complexities of the field. The first forty pages, concentrating on notions of cinematic space “from the practice and theory of screenspace to the place of space in modern French thought”(xv), allow for the six following chapters to concentrate on rigorous analysis of films by Dumont, Guédiguian, Cantet, Kechiche, and Denis. This range of contemporary filmmakers from different perspectives and traditions is the volume’s strength. It complements publications such as Archer’s The French Road Movie: Space, Mobility, Identity (2012) and Block’s World Film Locations: Paris (2012), which includes Guha’s “Remaking the Cinematic City: Claire Denis’s Paris.” Understanding film as a site of relations, Williams delves into encounters of spectator and film, character and sites of identity construction, time and space. Stepping away from the “legendary” Paris, the volume explores the North, Marseille, sites of the Republic, school settings, work space/classroom, the non-space of work, and post-colonial landscapes. Chapters draw from the uniqueness of each filmmaker’s approach,including the dynamic of Dumont and the audience,Cantet’s“always already codified,apportioned,distributed, even segregated [space]”(147...

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