Power Point Presentation for And God Created Woman

1. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• 1. This is the first film we have seen in color. What does the use of
color change? How does the film make use of color (visually,
thematically, etc.)? Would this have been the same film in black
and white? Why?
• 2. Compare this film to Touchez pas au Grisbi. What similarities
do you see between the two films? What differences do you see?
Are the films more similar or more different? Read together what
do they suggest about 1950s France?
• As the title suggests, this film is very much about woman. How are
women depicted in the film? How is Juliette depicted in the film?
What does the film have to say about women, and particularly
about women in 1950s France?

2. AND GOD
CREATED WOMAN
Roger Vadim
Themes, Settings, Context, Visual Composition

3. CONTEXT
• Made in 1956 on eve of collapse of 4th Republic
• High Production Values, Use of Color and Cinemascope
• Foregrounded Bardot as Sex Kitten (reflecting changing ideas
about women)
• (First issue of Playboy is December 1953)
• Made against backdrop of French Algerian War (suggested
through the presence of the Mediterranean, the military
convoys, etc).
• Setting on the Riviera shows growing tourism, international
commerce, cosmopolitanism disrupting rural life

4. SETTING

5. SIMILARITIES WITH T0UCHEZ
PAS AU GRISBI
• Foreign Presence/Foreign
Capital
• Changing roles of women
• Inter-generational relations
• Gender relations/ Gender
roles
• Contrast between interior
and exterior spaces
• Modernity in conflict with
tradition

6. DIFFERENCES WITH TOUCHEZ
PAS AU GRISBI
• Provence (vs. Paris)
• Day vs. Night
• Focus on women more than
men (Juliette is center of
film)
• Use of color
• Social class differences
forgrounded more clearly
• Different view of
globalization and changing
female roles

7. MEN VS. WOMEN

8. LOVE, SEX, FREEDOM

9. ENCROACHING
GLOBALIZATION

10. DISAPPEARANCE OF
TRADITIONAL FRANCE

11. THEMES
• Men vs. Women (changing gender
roles)
• “Modernization”
• Globalization
• The role of money in society /
interpersonal relationships /
prostitution
• Impossibility of Love/Enduring Love
• Women’s sexual identity
• Woman as object of male desire
• Veiled references to immigration
and Algerian War
• The dramatic pace of change in
France