The survival of cinema in Europe and the analysis of its heritage are key issues for the new century. This book asks how we can define European cinema and how it should be studied. It provides an overview of the problems, traditions and key questions that have informed the study of European cinema, investigating the links and tensions between Europe and Hollywood and exploring the different experiences of national identities within a common European framework. Twelve case studies of individual European films ranging from The Battleship Potemkin and The Lodger, to La Haine and Trainspotting, illustrate the distinctiveness and variety of cinema in Europe as well as the various critical methods by which it can be studied. With its detailed analysis of films from several European countries including Britain and Russia, the book encourages a comparative approach and raises urgent questions about the future of European cinema in the context of globalization. It will be of interest to students in Film Studies, European Studies and Modern European Languages and Cultures.

Also by Jill Forbes:

The Cinema in France: After the New Wave

Les Enfants du paradis

Contemporary France: Essays and Texts on Politics, Economics and Soceity(with Nick Hewlett)

French Cultural Studies (with Michael Kelly)

Also by Sarah Street:

British National Cinema

British Cinema in Documents

Cinema and Stat4e: The Film Industry and the British Government, 1927-84 (with Margaret Dickinson)

Moving Performance: British Stage and Screen, 1890-1920s(with Linda Fitzsimmons)