Jacques Feyder’s Paris, 1923–35: Cartographies of gender, class and empire

Abstract

Jacques Feyder ranked among France’s most critically acclaimed directors during the 1920s and 1930s. Over the course of these decades, he repeatedly illustrated tensions pertaining to class, gender and empire in Paris. Drawing on close textual analysis, historical contextualization and archival research, this article traces two developments in Feyder’s vision of the capital and its shifting economic, political and cultural climate: first, the evolution of Paris from a locus clearly signposted by recognizable locations to a studio-built milieu that is heavily reliant on generic Parisian tropes; second, the city’s transition from a site where the post-war national psyche and associated family structures can be optimistically redefined to a politically volatile environment replete with criminality and sexually disruptive women.