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Cinema of France

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The art of motion-picture making within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad is collectively known as French cinema.

France, especially, has long been a gathering spot for artists from across Europe and the world. For this reason French cinema is sometimes intertwined with the cinema of foreign nations. Directors from nations such as Poland (Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrzej Żuławski), Argentina (Gaspar Noe, Edgardo Cozarinsky), and the Soviet Union (Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak, Gela Babluani) are equally prominent in the ranks of French cinema as the native Frenchmen.

History

Late 19th century to early 20th century

In the late 19th century, during the early years of cinema, France produced several important pioneers. Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinématographe and their screening of L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat in Paris in 1895 is marked by many historians as the official birth of cinematography. During the next few years, filmmakers all over the world started experimenting with this new medium, and France's Georges Méliès was influential. He invented many of the techniques now common in the cinematic language, and made the first ever science fiction film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune, 1902).

Other early individuals and organizations of this period included Gaumont Pictures and Pathé Frères. Alice Guy Blaché was one of the first pioneers in cinema. She made her first film in 1896, La Fée aux Choux, and was head of production at Gaumont 1897-1906, where she made in total about 400 films. Her career continued in the United States. Several pioneers such as Maurice Tourneur or Léonce Perret continued their career in United States after World War I.

During the period between World War I and World War II, Jacques Feyder became one of the founders of poetic realism in French cinema. He was also a dominating character within French Impressionist Cinema as well as Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Jean Epstein, see Cinéma Pur.

After World War I, the French film industry was weak, because of missing assets. As every European war leading country, France suffered of a strong financial lack, which was very hard for the film industry to find investors. So the French film production decreased as well as the production of the most other European countries too. This was the chance for the US film industry to enter the European cinema market with their own production, which could be sold cheaper than the European productions, because the studios had already recouped their investments in the home market. So, even more film studios in Europe, and also in France, crashed, which was the impulse for many European countries to install barriers to import. In view of the quota-rules of neighbor states such as Great Britain or Germany, France installed an import quota of 1:7, which means, that for every seven foreign films imported to France, one French film has to be produced and shown in French cinemas. In 1931, Marcel Pagnol filmed the first of his great trilogy, Marius, Fanny, and César. He followed this with a number of films including the The Baker's Wife. Beginning in 1935, renowned playwright and actor Sacha Guitry directed his first film. He made more than 30 films that are seen as the precursor to the new wave era.

In 1937 Jean Renoir, the son of famous painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, directed what many see as his first masterpiece, La Grande Illusion (The Grand Illusion). In 1939 Renoir directed La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game). Several movie critics have cited this film as one of the greatest of all-time.

Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) was filmed during World War II and released in 1945. The three-hour film was extremely difficult to make due to the conditions during the Nazi occupation. Set in Paris in 1828, the film was voted "Best French Film of the Century" in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals in the late 1990s.

Post-World War II: 1940s-1970s

In the critical magazine Cahiers du cinéma founded by André Bazin, critics and lovers of film would discuss film and why it worked. Modern film theory was born there. Additionally, Cahiers critics such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, etc. went on to make films themselves, creating what was to become known as the French New Wave. Some of the first movies of this new genre was Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and - the leading movie - Truffaut's The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cent Coups, 1959) starring Jean-Pierre Léaud. From 1959 till 1979 Truffaut followed Léaud's character Antoine Doinel, who falls in love with Christine Darbon (Claude Jade from Hitchcock's Topaz) in Stolen Kisses, marries her in Bed & Board and separates from her in the last Post-New-Wave-Movie Love on the Run. Produced during this period, French comedies with Louis de Funes are a best in French box office: Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At, La Grande Vadrouille (1966) (17 000 000 ) from Gérard Oury with Bourvil, La Folie des grandeur with Yves Montand...

Personalities from this period

Actors

Directors

1980s

1990s

Current situation

As the advent of television threatened the life of cinema itself, countries were faced with the problem of reviving cinema-going. The French cinema market, and more generally the French-speaking market, is smaller than the English-speaking market, one reason being that some major markets such as the United States are fairly reluctant to import foreign movies. As a consequence, French movies have to be amortized on a relatively small market and thus generally have budgets far lower than their American counterparts, ruling out expensive settings and special effects. Interestingly, the once prospering filmmaking industry of countries such as Italy has now largely been eliminated. The French government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, including:

  • the Canal+ TV channel has a broadcast license imposing that it should support the production of movies;
  • some taxes are levied on movies and TV channels for use as subsidies for movie production;
  • some tax breaks are given for investment in movie productions;
  • the sale of DVDs and videocassettes of movies shown in theaters is prohibited for six months after the showing in theaters, so as to ensure some revenue for movie theaters.

French films

Notable contemporary French cinema personalities

Actors

Directors

  • Marcel Achard
  • Marc Allégret
  • Yves Allégret
  • Jean-Jacques Annaud
  • Alexandre Alexeieff
  • Michel Audiard
  • Claude Autant-Lara
  • Jacques Becker
  • Raymond Bernard
  • André Berthomieu
  • Luc Besson
  • Pierre Billon
  • Yves Boisset
  • Bernard Borderie
  • Jean Boyer
  • Robert Bresson
  • Alberto Calcavanti
  • Maurice Cammage
  • Maurice de Canonge
  • Claude Chabrol
  • Maurice Cloche
  • Henri-Georges Clouzot
  • Jean Cocteau
  • Pierre Colombier
  • Alain Corneau
  • Louis Daquin

  • Henri Decoin
  • Jean Delannoy
  • Jacques Deray
  • Julien Duvivier
  • Jacques Feyder
  • Georges Franju
  • Abel Gance
  • Jean Giono
  • José Giovanni
  • Jean Girault
  • Michel Gondry
  • Gilles Grangier
  • Jean Grémillon
  • Sacha Guitry
  • René Le Hénaff
  • Robert Hossein
  • André Hunebelle
  • Christian-Jaque
  • Léo Joannon
  • Alex Joffé
  • Krzysztof Kieslowski
  • Jean-Paul Le Chanois
  • Pierre Chenal
  • René Clair
  • Louis Daquin
  • Philippe Labro
  • Maurice Labro
  • Gqeorges Lacombe
  • Georges Lampin
  • Georges Lautner
  • Marcel Lherbier
  • Anatole Litvak
  • Louis Malle
  • André Malraux
  • Jean-Pierre Melville
  • Edouard Molinaro

Further reading

  • Armes, Roy. 1985. French Cinema. London: Secker and Warburg
  • Aumont, Jaques. 2000 2nd ed. 'The Fall of the Gods: Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris (1963). Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Austen, Guy. 1996. Contemporary French Cinema. Manchester: Manchester University Press
  • Boston, Richard. Boudu Saved From Drowning. London: BFI
  • Burch, Noel and Sellier, Genevieve. 2000. 'Evil Women in the Post-war French Cinema'. Sieglohr, Ulrike.ed. Heroines Without Heroes. London: Cassell
  • Condron, Anne Marie. 1997. ''Cinema' . Perry, Sheila. Ed. Aspects of Contemporary France London : Routledge
  • Darke, Chris. 2005.Alphaville. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-986-9
  • Douchet, Jean. 1999. French New Wave. New York: Distributed Art Publishers
  • Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. 1996. To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press
  • Forbes, Jill. 2000. La Haine. In Forbes, Jill and Street, Sarah. European Cinema: An Introduction. London: Palgrave
  • Forbes, Jill. Les Enfants du Paradis. London: BFI
  • Forbes , Jill. 1992 . The Cinema in France After the New Wave. Basingstoke : Macmillan
  • Gillain, Anne. 2000 2nd ed. 'The Script of Delinquency: François Truffaut's Les 400 coups' (1959). Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Graham , Peter. 1997. ' New directions in French Cinema'. Nowell - Smith Geoffrey Ed : Oxford History of World Cinema :Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Greene, Naomi. Landscapes of Loss: The National Past in Postwar French Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press
  • Hayes, Graeme. 1999. 'Representation, Masculinity, Nation: The Crises of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (Carax 1991).' Powrie, Phil. Ed. French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: OUP
  • Hayward, Susan. 2000 2nd ed. 'Beyond the Gaze and into femme filmcriture: Agnès Varda's Sans toit ni loi'. Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Hayward, Susan. 1993. French National Cinema. London: Routledge, 2nd ed. Routledge 2005, Paperback, ISBN 0415057299
  • Hayward, Susan. 2005. Les Diaboliques. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84511-102-8
  • Hayward, Susan. 2002. 'Luc Besson'. Tasker, Yvonne. ed. Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers : Routledge: London
  • Hayward, Susan. 2000 2nd ed. 'Recycled woman and the postmodern aesthetic: Luc Besson's Nikita (1990). Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. 2000 2nd ed. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Hughes, Alex and Williams James S. Eds. 2001. Gender and French Cinema. Oxford: Berg
  • Hughes, Alex and Williams, James S. 2001. ' Introduction'. Hughes, Alex and Williams, James S. Eds. Gender and French Cinema. Oxford: Berg
  • Jackel, Anne. 1996. ' European Co-production Strategies: the Case of France and Britain'. Moran, Albert Ed. Film Policy. London: Routledge
  • Jackson, Julian. 2001. France the Dark Years. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Jeancolas, Jean-Pierre. 2000 2nd ed. 'Beneath the despair, the show goes on: Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du paradis (1943-45). Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Kaplan, Nelly. Napoleon. London: BFI
  • Kedward, H. R. 2000.'The Anti-Carnival of Collaboration'. Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Konstantarakos, Myrto. 1999.'Which Mapping of the City? La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995) and the cinema de banlieue.' Powrie, Phil. Ed. French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: OUP
  • Lanzoni, Remi. 2002. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. London: Continuum
  • Leahy Sarah and Hayward Susan. 2000. 'The Tainted Woman: Simone Signoret, Site of Pathology or Agent of Retribution? Sieglohr, Ulrike.ed. Heroines Without Heroes. London: Cassell
  • Marie, Michel. 2003. (Trans Neupert) The French New Wave, an Artistic School. Oxford: Blackwell
  • Marie, Michel. 2000 2nd ed. '"It really does make you sick!': Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle (1959)". Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • MacCabe, Colin.2003.Godard a portrait of the artist at 70.London: Bloomsbury
  • Morrey, Douglas. 2005. Jean-Luc Godard. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-6759-6
  • Neupert, Richard.2002. A History of the French New Wave Cinema. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press
  • Perry, Sheila. Ed.1997. Aspects of Contemporary France. London : Routledge
  • Powrie, Phil. Ed. 1999. French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: OUP
  • Powrie, Phil. 1999. 'Heritage, History, and 'New Realism': French Cinema in the 1990s'. Powrie, Phil. Ed. French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: OUP
  • Powrie, Phil. 2002. 'Jean-Jaques Beneix'. Tasker, Yvonne. Ed Fifty Contemporary Filmakers. London: Routledge
  • Predal, R. 1991 Le Cinéma Français depuis 1945. Paris Nathan
  • Reader, Keith. 2002. 'Laisser-passer'. Sight and Sound Volume 12 Issue 11, pp 49-50
  • Sellier, Geneviève. 2001. 'Gender, Modernism and Mass Culture in the New Wave.' Hughes, Alex and Williams, James S. Eds. Gender and French Cinema. Oxford: Berg
  • Sorlin, Pierre. 2000 2nd ed. 'A breath of sea air: Jacques Tati's Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1952). Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Tarr, Carrie. 1999. 'Ethnicity and Identity in the cinéma de banlieue'. Powrie, Phil. Ed. French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: OUP
  • Thompson, David. 2003. 'Lust for Life'. Sight and Sound. August Vol 13 / Issue 8, pp 30-33
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 2003. 'Ageing Cool'. Sight and Sound. September, Vol 13 Issue 9 pp 26-28
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 2000 2nd ed. 'Designs on the banlieu: Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995). Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette.eds. French Film: texts and contexts. London: Routledge
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 2003. Jean-Pierre Melville. London: BFI
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 1998. Pepe le Moko. London: BFI
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 1997. 'The Popular Art of French Cinema'. Nowell - Smith Geoffrey Ed : Oxford History of World Cinema :Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 2000. Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. London: Continuum
  • Vincendeau, Ginette. 'White Collar Blues'. Sight and Sound Volume 12 Issue 4, pp 30-32. (on Laurent Cantet)
  • Warner, Mary. 1993. L'Atalante. London : BFI
  • Williams, Alan. 1992. Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Cambridge Mass. : Harvard

Notes

See also

External links



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