He uses such modern devices as complex narrative structures and the mixture of genres within a single film, but he does not desert the popular cinema's emphasis on storytelling and emotion.
The dissertation traces Lelouch's development from his early experiences in marginal areas of film production (amateur films, documentaries, Scopitones, commercials, low budget features) to the great success of A Man and a Woman and his career as a leading director of features. Four main periods of Lelouch's work are discussed: the apprenticeship of 1960-65, the subjective films of 1966-69, the crime films of 1970-73, and the moralizing genre films of 1974-77. After the chronological survey, two final chapters consider Lelouch in relation to the French New Wave and to the theme of alienation.
While much film criticism is either fawningly positive or violently negative, this dissertation describes Lelouch as a director with both large talents and important flaws. He is inventive, witty, good with actors, and extremely skillful in the technical aspects of filmmaking. His films often combine entertainment with some kind of reflection on contemporary problems. However, Lelouch's thinking tends to be scattered or simplistic; he has wonderful ideas for films, but rarely works them out with great thoroughness and depth. His films of the 1960s are emotionally strong but often disorganized and limited in perspective. The crime films of the early 1970s (The Crook; Smic, Smac; Smoc; Money, Money, Money; Happy New Year) are better; the genre form provides discipline and a framework for multi-leveled filmmaking. Lelouch uses irony here to combine upbeat adventure with overtones of social satire. His later genre films (Cat and Mouse; The Good and the Bad; Si C'Etait a Refaire; Another Man, Another Chance), though nicely crafted, are sometimes simplistic and complacement in their ideas.
Lelouch is in many ways an excellent filmmaker, but he has not consistently achieved a synthesis of the artistic and the popular, or, as he puts it, the "noble" and the "generous.