From Perversion to Purity: The stardom of Catherine Deneuve

Catherine Deneuve is indisputably one of the world's most celebrated actresses, both in her own native France and throughout the world. Her career has spanned five decades during which she has worked with some of the most significant French auteurs, as well as forging partnerships with international directors such as Polanski and Bunuel.

Deneuve's star persona has attained iconic status, often being used as the symbol of French womanhood and civic identity. This wide-ranging collection of essays, by a selection of international film and cultural studies scholars, undertakes analyses of Deneuve's status as globally recognised actress and as glamorous fashion muse. The ambiguous and shifting associations of Deneuve with sexual frigidity, perversion, purity, maternity and ageing are read as symptoms of the ways in which female sexual and social identities are constructed, stereotyped and, indeed, contested in the popular European imaginary.