Le seul, le vrai, le paradis: Cultural mobility and French musical films (1930–50)

Maurice Chevalier, Juliette Gréco, Yves Montand, Édith Piaf, Charles Trenet – all these names refer to the close connection between French chanson and French cinema of the first half of the twentieth century. This article examines two dimensions of cultural mobility that align through a differentiated understanding of the artistic liaison between the popular music genre of French chanson and French musical films during the first decades of cinematic sound. First, the significant role and excessive use of the chanson will be examined along the parameters of cultural integration, distribution and transfer, all of which are inseparably linked to questions of cultural and social identity in the French musical of the 1930s and 1940s. Second, the formation, establishment and impact of the singer–actor as a professional field within the cinematic sphere will be discussed from the perspectives of mobility and migration. The methodologically areal term ‘space’ will be enhanced by notions of social and cultural mobility recently brought forth by the cultural disciplines. This article helps to decipher aspects of cultural mobility in French musical films and sheds light on the potential for the cinema in increasing music’s mobility.