A liquid crystal device is constituted by a pair of transparent substrates each having thereon a transparent electrode, and a chiral smectic liquid crystal composition disposed between the substrates so as to assume at least two optically stable states. At least one of the substrates is provided with an alignment film which comprises a polyimide represented by a recurring unit of formula (I) shown below and has been subjected to a uniaxial aligning treatment. ##STR1## wherein A denotes a planar tetravalent organic residue group comprising an aromatic ring, an aromatic polycyclic ring, a heterocyclic ring or a condensed polycyclic ring, and B denotes a divalent aliphatic group comprising .paren open-st.CH.sub.2 .paren close-st..sub.n (n: an integer of at least 1) or an alicyclic ring. The chiral smectic liquid crystal composition may contain at least one species of fluorine-containing mesomorphic compound comprising a fluorocarbon terminal portion and a hydrocarbon terminal portion connected with a central core and having a smectic phase or a latent smectic phase.