Dream Country : the Ireland text in French cinema, 1937 to 1978

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the Ireland text in French cinema, 1937-1977. Less than one hundred feature films have been made by Irish film-makers in Ireland in cinema’s first century but more than two thousand fiction films with Irish subjects have been produced outside the country. As a result of this, it could be said that the study of cinema and Ireland necessitates an intercultural approach. While other critics have focused, almost exclusively, on representations of Ireland constructed by the cinema cultures of the United States and of England. I examine the Ireland text in French cinema, a text which has never been studied before. This thesis begins by exploring some of the historical research carried out in the field of relationships between Ireland and France and by noting key representations of Ireland and Irish figures in other texts taken from popular culture where these have high cultural value. My examination of French film production in the twentieth century has yielded five key films produced by France, spanning the period 1937 when the first major French fiction film with an Irish subject was released, to 1978, when the last major film about Ireland appeared.