With the increasing importance of the decorative arts in late 19th century France, evidenced by movements such as Symbolism and Art Nouveau, the concept of “d�cor” came to symbolize the intimate reciprocity between groups of artists and works of art. This dissertation frames three works by Claude Debussy – La Damoiselle �lue, Pr�lude de l’apr�s-midi d’un faune, and the Bilitis tableaux vivants Musique de sc�ne – within the broader resonances of d�cor at the fin de si�cle. In doing so, it reveals the ways in which the idea(l) and practice of d�cor informed Debussy’s milieu and shaped both the production and reception of his music.

“Nostalgia film,” also referred to as “colonial nostalgia film” and “heritage film,” is a genre that offers audiences a romanticized representation of the French past, including (problematically) its legacy of colonialism. My dissertation, oriented around four case studies – of Régis Wargnier’s Indochine, Pierre Schoendoerffer’s Điện Biên Phủ, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s L’Amant, and Trần Anh Hùng’s L’Odeur de la papaye verte – interrogates the relationship between sound, music, and “nostalgia” in this specific body of early 1990s French films set in colonial-era Vietnam. It offers a sustained critique of the relationship between the mise-en-bande and the narrative and representational frameworks of these films. It also considers the impact of this relationship in subsequent films, such as Trần’s Cyclo (1995) and Việt Linh’s Mê Thảo, thời vang bóng (2002).