French film design throughout the 1930s was a period of ‘ripping open’ film sets to make them not just descriptive, but also expressive. This book details the elaborate paraphrasing tendencies of French film design in the period, exploring the crucial role of the set designer in the film’s evolutionary process.

Ben McCann is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Adelaide. He is the co-editor of (2011) and the author of (2013). He is currently writing a book on the French director Julien Duvivier.

«This is a superbly researched book that adds a welcome new perspective to scholarship on production design, film history, and the French studios of the 1930s.» (Sue Harris, French Studies 70, 3 2016) «McCann’s characterisations and descriptions are vivid, clear, and evocative, and carry a pictorial weight. His study is valuable both for its specific considerations of films and designers, and for the broader questions it provokes about the role of production design in the film-making process.» (Philippa Hawker, Australian Book Review 2/2014) «Ben McCann has given us a fascinating and highly readable book that excels in its sharp close viewing style, its vibrant description of visual detail, and its focus on the specificity of set design and the contributions of particular designers to classic French cinema. After each chapter, readers will doubtless find themselves, as I did, wanting to return to these well-known films for a closer look.» (Alison J. Murray Levine, H-France Review 14/2014)

Contents: 1930s Set Design: Contexts and Practices – 1930s Set Design: Conventions and Codes – 1930s Designers: Praxis in Practice – The Poetic Realist Set – Micro-Design: Action Spaces and Objects – Cityscapes: Paris Plays Itself.