Chic, sophisticated, seductive, and enigmatic, the Parisienne possesses a je ne sais quoi which makes her difficult to define. Who or what la Parisienne is, and how she is depicted in cinema, is the subject of this new and exciting study.

In the first book-length publication to explore the Parisienne type on film, Chaplin expands on existing scholarship in the fields of art history, literature, and fashion history, to both enrich the discussion of these films, and to offer new perspectives. 

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, and drawing on film, art, literature, cultural histories of Paris and popular texts such as fashion magazines and style guides, La Parisienne in cinema covers a wide range of film genres and movements, including silent cinema, French Poetic Realism, the New Wave, Hollywood cinema, the musical, and contemporary and art house cinema. The evolution of a Parisienne iconography is mapped through a series of original and close readings of films as diverse as Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, Stanley Donen’s Funny Face and François Ozon’s 8 Women. The book also traces the Parisienne type through her various incarnations as muse, cosmopolite, icon of fashion, femme fatale, courtesan, and star. 

Accessible and wide-ranging, this interdisciplinary and lively work will be of immediate interest to students and researchers working in Film Studies and French Studies and the broader humanities as well as a general interest audience. It is also essential reading for cinephiles and Francophiles alike.