In a “history” of the impact on Europe of American popular culture, the systematic elevation of Hollywood movies to the ranks of great art would make an intriguing chapter. Legend has it that the feat was accomplished almost singlehanded by motivated and volatile intellectuals from Paris sticking their heads together and pulling off a brilliant public relations stunt that came to be known as Cahiers du cinéma and Nouvelle Vague.

The legend bears some relation to the facts, but only insofar as it has allowed a very simple version of a very complicated cultural phenomenon to gain widespread or at least topical currency. Today, at a time when film criticism is again increasingly oriented towards theory, the more controversial sides of the episode seem to have been put to rest. Nonetheless, two implications deserve to be studied more closely. One is the feedback which Hollywood's European fame has produced in the United States, and the value now attributed by Americans to their indigenous cultural assets in this field. It is noticeable, for instance, that after a very fitful shift, when news from France was greeted with derision and incredulity in New York and Los Angeles, the Hollywood cinema, especially the films of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, has come to be recognized and often nostalgically celebrated as a (if not the) truly original contribution of the United States to art and aesthetics in this century. The fact that there exists an American Film Institute, and that courses are being taught on the American cinema at countless universities, indicates a change of attitude quite as decisively as do the antiquarian labors and pastiche work of Peter Bogdanovitch (cf. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, WHAT's UP DOC? and PAPER MOON) and the many New York movie houses which are taking notice of the “director's cinema” when billing their rerun double features, while even five years ago only the stars would have been the attraction.

The other question is prompted by a more general reflection: what does enthusiasm for Hollywood tell us about intellectual or scholarly interest in popular culture, and particularly American culture? There is little doubt that this enthusiasm is, within Europe, predominantly and characteristically French.