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The Western Frontier and American Pulp in la Zone: Marcel Carné's Terrain vague (1960) as Proto-Banlieue Film
- JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
- Michigan Publishing
- Volume 60, Issue 1, Fall 2020
- pp. 111-132
- 10.1353/cj.2020.0065
- Article
- Additional Information
ABSTRACT:
This article examines Marcel Carné's film Terrain vague (Wasteland, 1960) as a precursor to post-1980 banlieue (disadvantaged suburbs) genre films due to its representation of the transcultural and postcolonial dimensions of this marginalized space. Carné's critically disparaged film was produced when US cultural imperialism and the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) converged in the metropole. In representing this context, the film presages banlieue film themes and media stereotypes that will intensify in post-1980 France; as the banlieue becomes increasingly racialized, it becomes more troublingly associated with the US ghetto and aberrant virility.