ABSTRACT
In introducing this book I deliberately avoided justifying its chronological boundaries. Their historical significance is obvious. The volume opens on the eve of the last European war and closes when Europe is about to become a federation, but for cinema these dates are of no importance. Taken as a cultural whole or considered in relation to their respective countries of origin, European films did not go through any change in 1940 or in 1990. Sure enough, there were considerable modifications in their development, but this happened in the 1960s at a time when, from a political point of view, Europe was very peaceful. I could have told my readers right at the beginning that they would be confronted with a discrepancy in chronology. I did not do so because it is problematical to question historical delimitations which, being considered evident by historians and by the general public, are directly imported into film studies. Many works have already stressed the impact of the Second World War, of decolonization or of May 1968 on film production. It is certainly true that politics are sometimes echoed in movies: there were films on resistance, on the nuclear threat, on the Cold War and on the rivalry between west and east. But while these series deserve to be scrutinized for the information they provide on public opinion and reaction, they are extremely limited in number and are exceptions among the dominant production which scarcely concerned itself with current events.
