Read more
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Introduction
Part I: Romy Schneider's Germanic Career: 1953 - 1959
1. Romy before Sissi
2. Sissi: Romy becomes European
3. Romy after Sissi: Transition to the 1960s
Part II: Romy Schneider's International Career: 1960-1969
4. Negotiating an Alternative Image in European Art Cinema
5. The International Star
6. The French Reinvention
Part III: Romy Schneider's French Career: 1969 - 1982
Introduction: Schneider and the 'long 1970s'
7. The 'Ideal French Woman'
8. Schneider's Occupation Films
9. Pathos and Hysteria
Conclusion: The Legacy of Romy Schneider
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Bibliography
Filmography
About the author
Marion Hallet has a PhD in Film Studies from King’s College London, UK. She specializes in star studies, gender representations, popular films and francophone cinema. She is a Scientific Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Namur, Belgium, and a political advisor for the francophone Green party in Belgium. She has published in French Screen Studies, Genre en séries, Celebrity Studies, and is a regular contributor to the feminist site le genre et l’écran.
Summary
The beautiful Austrian-born Romy Schneider was one of Europe’s most popular film stars and a cult figure from the moment she played ‘Sissi’ (Empress Elisabeth of Austria) in the hugely popular Sissi trilogy in the mid-1950s. Although Schneider died in 1982, she continues to be one of the most popular stars in European cinema history. This book analyses her impressive career to place her within a range of European female stars, particularly Germanic and French, who defined cultural and ideological images of femininity on European screens.
Schneider, who worked and was celebrated in Austria, Germany, Hollywood, and France, represents a fascinating case study to explore key questions of trans-European and transnational stardom, and Marion Hallet makes a valuable intervention in this growing field within star studies. Romy Schneider: A Star Across Europe shows how the representations of women stemming from Schneider’s star image supported specific and shifting cultural and social agendas regarding femininity, from the 1950s to the 1980s. This book explores the significance of Schneider’s image both when she was working and since, within Western European film culture and celebrity culture.
Foreword
This book explores the star image of Austrian born actress Romy Schneider (1938-1982), with her evolving cinema roles together with her acting choices and events in her private life, led her career into varied and fascinating directions within European and Hollywood cinemas.
Additional text
Marion Hallet’s superb study of Austrian actress Romy Schneider is a rich and incisively comparative examination of what made her a unique European star. Beyond Schneider’s significant contribution to the changing definitions of female agency in Austrian, German, French, and even some end-classic Hollywood cinema, Hallett explores a screen legacy that makes her an icon for transnationalism in film even today.
