Abstract
Although various critics have drawn attention to the importance of cinema in Patrick Modiano's writing, there has so far been no substantial or systematic account of the phenomenon, and a first goal of this study is to remedy that omission. Secondly, in a period when the momentum of cultural narrative practice has been heading more in the direction of cinema than of literature, Modiano's work offers a more general insight into some of the cultural and artistic tensions between literature and cinema in contemporary France. This study argues that, rather than being in conflict with cinema, Modiano's narratives help define a certain modus vivendi, a way for literature to participate with cinema in what appears as a new and more variegated space in French culture.