Narrative mutations

In the most prominent article of nouvelle vague self-definition - that of the filmmaker as auteur - the new French cinema was underlining its relationship with the literary tradition that had been both pathway and obstacle to its independence. This paper examines a particularly intense phase of French cinema s quest for high culture legitimacy, namely the period covering the Occupation and the rise of the New Wave - 1940 to 1958. It evaluates how the combination of historical circumstance and Vichy government policy enhanced the position of cinema relative to literature, and opened the way for subsequent deve/opments in literary and cinematographic expression, both as independent arts and in their interrelationship. Concentrating on works of fiction, it adopts the Ricoeurian view that such narratives afford crucial insight not only into artistic production, but also into the identity of the society that produced it. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]