Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

'La Parisienne' in Cinema: Between art and life by Felicity Chaplin

by
June-July 2018, no. 402

'La Parisienne' in Cinema: Between art and life by Felicity Chaplin

Manchester University Press (Footprint), $166 hb, 213 pp, 9781526109538

'La Parisienne' in Cinema: Between art and life by Felicity Chaplin

by
June-July 2018, no. 402

On the cover of Felicity Chaplin’s La Parisienne in Cinema: Between art and life, Audrey Hepburn, arms aloft, reigns triumphant in a strapless scarlet evening gown and organza shawl. This is a scene from Funny Face (1957), in which she plays a shy Greenwich Village bookshop employee transformed into a high-profile fashion model.

At first glance, this image might seem a surprising cover choice. Is Hepburn – a British citizen, born in Brussels, brought up in Belgium, England, and the Netherlands before becoming a Hollywood star – an emblematic Parisienne? In Chaplin’s terms, yes, without a doubt: as the author makes abundantly clear, the subject of her study is a figure with fluid, contradictory, evolving qualities. She is not defined by her origins. Some of the most representative examples of ‘la Parisienne’ she cites are, like Hepburn, from elsewhere: Ingrid Bergman, Anna Karina, Jean Seberg, and Nicole Kidman, for example. The films do not have to be set in Paris: characters carry their ‘Parisienne’ qualities with them. These works can be made by French directors; they can be the product of the Hollywood imagination; they can represent a cross-cultural combination.

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.