[1.] The avant-garde: -- The impressionist avant-garde -- Surrealism's enduring bite: Un Chien andalou -- The surrealist film: Man Ray and the limits of metaphor -- Le Sang d'un Poéte: film as orphism -- [2.] In the wake of surrealism: -- From Entr'acte to a Nous la Liberté: René Clair and the order of farce -- Vigo's Zéro de conduite: surrealism and the myth of childhood -- [3.] Film and society: -- Jean Renoir and the mimesis of history -- Prévert and Carné's Le Jour se lève: proletarian tragedy -- [4.] Existentialist moment: -- Bresson's Un condamné à mort: the semiotics of grace -- The existential play in Truffaut's early films -- [5.] Postmodernism: -- L'Année dernière a Marienbad: the narration of narration -- Postmodern dilemmas: Godard's Alphaville and Deux ou trois choses que je sias d'elle -- Afterword: Is film a language?