<p>Noel Burch is Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University Charles de Gaulle in Lille. His book Theory Of Film Practice is widely regarded as one of the key works of Western film criticism.<p>Genevieve Sellier is Professor of Film Studies at the University Michel de Montaigne in Bordeaux. She is the author of several books in French as well as Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema, also published by Duke University Press.
The Battle of the Sexes in French Cinema, 1930-1956 makes an incontrovertible case for a social history of French cinema, bringing to light a whole world of films, and a period in French film history, overlooked by formalist critics. Noel Burch and Genevieve Sellier's analyses of character, gender, and ideology are trenchant, and there is an analytic surprise on every page of this fascinating book. Required reading! - Alice Kaplan, author of Dreaming in French This flawless translation of La Drole de guerre des sexes is a boon to cinema studies. Noel Burch and Genevieve Sellier rightly argue that attention to the New Wave and auteur theory obfuscated much of the great film made in France during the years prior to the war, during the Occupation, and after the Liberation. Their book will rejuvenate historical and ideological study of classical French cinema in the Anglophone world. Anyone interested in French film history and theory will find it invaluable. - Tom Conley, author of An Errant Eye: Poetry and Topography in Early Modern France