Event Calendar
Even as actresses become increasingly marginalized by Hollywood, French cinema is witnessing an explosion of female talent—a Golden Age unlike anything the world has seen since the days of Stanwyck, Hepburn, Davis, and Garbo. Scores of French actresses are doing the best work of their lives in movies tailored to their star images and unique personalities.
Join us on October 8, as Mick LaSalle dicusses his latest book, The Beauty of the Real. The book showcases a range of contemporary French actresses whose flashing intelligence and fearless willingness to depict life as it is lived gives audiences what they are looking for in movies, but so rarely find: insights into womanhood, meditations on the dark and light aspects of life’s journey, and revelations that invite viewers to reflect on their own lives.
Books will be available for purchase and inscription by the author.
Mick LaSalle, Film Critic, San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle is the author of three books: Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood; Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of Modern Man; and The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses. He was the co-author and associate producer of the Complicated Women documentary, which debuted on Turner Classic Movies in 2003. LaSalle is a well-known critic and regular instructor for Stanford Continuing Studies.
This program is co-sponsored by Stanford University Libraries and Stanford Continuing Studies. For more information on Mick LaSalle’s Fall quarter course, “Before They Stopped the Party: The Ten Greatest Pre-Code Movies,” please see the course page.
Free and open to public