CINEMA OF FRANCE

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

Contents

History

Late 19th century to early 20th century

Personalities from this period

Actors

Directors

Current situation

French films

Notable contemporary French cinema personalities

Actors

Directors

Further reading

See also

External links

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 cinema. 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 neighbour states such as Great Britain or Germany, France installed a 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.^[1]
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''. The french film comedy with Louis de Funes is a best film of box office french. Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At "La Grande Vadrouille (1966) " ( 17 000 000 entré french ) for Gerard Oury with Bourvil, la folie des grandeur with Yves Montand...

Personalities from this period

Actors

★ Catherine Deneuve

★ Brigitte Bardot

★ Sarah Bernhardt

★ Marcel Marceau

★ Jeanne Moreau

★ Michel Piccoli

★ Jacques Tati

★ Jean-Louis Trintignant

★ Jean-Pierre Léaud

Directors

★ Olivier Assayas

★ Jacques Becker

★ Robert Bresson

★ René Clément

★ Claude Chabrol

★ Henri-Georges Clouzot

★ Jacques Demy

★ Arnaud Desplechin

★ Jean Eustache

★ Philippe Garrel

★ Charles Gerdes

★ Jean-Luc Godard

★ Sacha Guitry

★ Claude Lelouch

★ Louis Malle

★ Chris Marker

★ Jean-Pierre Melville

★ Maurice Pialat

★ Jean Renoir

★ Alain Resnais

★ Jacques Rivette

★ Éric Rohmer

★ Claude Sautet

★ Coline Serreau

★ François Truffaut

★ Roger Vadim

★ Agnès Varda
===1980s===

★ In 1979 La Cage aux Folles is a Golden Globe Award winner with Michel Serrault.

★ When Jean-Jacques Beineix made ''Diva'' (1981) it sparked the beginning of the 80s wave of French cinema. Movies which followed in its wake included ''Betty Blue'' (''37°2 le matin'', 1986) by Beineix, ''The Big Blue'' (''Le Grand bleu'', 1988) by Luc Besson and ''The Lovers on the Bridge'' (''Les Amants du Pont-Neuf'', 1991) by Léos Carax.
===1990s===

★ In 1991, Jean-Pierre Jeunet made ''Delicatessen'', followed by the 1995 ''The City of Lost Children'' (''La Cité des enfants perdus''). Both films featured a distinctly fantastic style.

★ In 1992, Claude Sautet wrote (with Jacques Fieschi) and directed ''Un Coeur en Hiver'', considered by many to be a masterpiece.

★ In the mid-1990s, Krzysztof Kieślowski released his ''Three colors'' trilogy, '', '' and ''.

★ Mathieu Kassovitz's film ''Hate'' (''La Haine'', 1995) made Vincent Cassel into a star.

★ Luc Besson's ''The Fifth Element'' became a cult favorite.

★ In 2001 after a brief stint in Hollywood with the fourth ''Alien'' film (''), Jeunet returned to France with ''Amélie'' (''Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain'') starring Audrey Tautou and Mathieu Kassovitz.

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

:'List of French films'

Notable contemporary French cinema personalities

Actors

★ Isabelle Adjani

★ Renée Adorée

★ Anouk Aimée

★ Mathieu Amalric

★ Jean-Hugues Anglade

★ Fanny Ardant

★ Jean-Pierre Aumont

★ Daniel Auteuil

★ Charles Aznavour

★ Emmanuelle Béart

★ Monica Bellucci

★ Claude Berri

★ Juliette Binoche

★ Bernard Blier

★ Bourvil

★ Pierre Brice

★ Charles Boyer

★ Capucine

★ Jean-Pierre Cassel

★ Vincent Cassel

★ Christian Clavier

★ Aurore Clément

★ Clotilde Courau

★ Marion Cotillard

★ Valérie Crunchant

★ Béatrice Dalle

★ Marie-Louise Damien

★ Lili Damita

★ Danielle Darrieux

★ Jamel Debbouze

★ Virginie Déjazet

★ Alain Delon

★ Julie Delpy

★ Catherine Deneuve

★ Gérard Depardieu

★ Patrick Dewaere

★ Françoise Dorléac

★ Mélanie Doutey

★ Romain Duris

★ Jacques Dutronc

★ Jérémie Elkaïm

★ Charles Nicolas Favart

★ Frédéric Febvre

★ Fernandel

★ Lolo Ferrari

★ Sara Forestier

★ Brigitte Fossey

★ Pierre Fresnay

★ Louis de Funès

★ Jean Gabin

★ Jacques Gamblin

★ Charlotte Gainsbourg

★ Daniel Gélin

★ Judith Godrèche

★ Juliette Gréco

★ Eva Green

★ Georges Guibourg

★ Lucien Germain Guitry

★ Sacha Guitry

★ Jane Hading

★ Johnny Hallyday

★ Françoise Hardy

★ Isabelle Huppert

★ Eva Ionesco

★ Irène Jacob

★ Claude Jade

★ Marlène Jobert

★ Louis Jourdan

★ Louis Jouvet

★ François Jules Edmond Got

★ Valérie Kaprisky

★ Anna Karina

★ Tchéky Karyo

★ Mathieu Kassovitz

★ Salim Kéchiouche

★ Véra Korène

★ Sylvia Kristel

★ Dominique Laffin

★ Karen Lancaume

★ Samuel Le Bihan

★ Jacques Lecoq

★ Adrienne Lecouvreur

★ Virginie Ledoyen

★ Jean Lefebvre

★ Max Linder

★ Vincent Lindon

★ Sylvia Lopez

★ Aurélien Lugné-Poe

★ Jean-Pierre Léaud

★ Virginie Ledoyen

★ Jean Marais

★ Marcel Marceau

★ Sophie Marceau

★ Olivier Martinez

★ Mathilda May

★ Étienne Mélingue

★ Roxane Mesquida

★ Bernard Minet

★ Mistinguett

★ Yves Montand

★ Jeanne Moreau

★ Michèle Morgan

★ Magali Noël

★ Philippe Noiret

★ France Nuyen

★ Pascale Ogier

★ Hervé Paillet

★ Pierre Palmade

★ Vanessa Paradis

★ Anne Parillaud

★ François Périer

★ Gérard Philipe

★ Michel Piccoli

★ Roger Pierre

★ Dominique Pinon

★ Marie-France Pisier

★ Perrette Pradier

★ Yvonne Printemps

★ Wojciech Pszoniak

★ Blanche Ravalec

★ Benoît Régent

★ Serge Reggiani

★ Gabrielle Réjane

★ Jean Reno

★ Jean Richard

★ Stéphane Rideau

★ Jean Rochefort

★ Sonia Rolland

★ Viviane Romance

★ Ludivine Sagnier

★ Xavier Saint-Macary

★ Maria Schneider

★ Emmanuelle Seigner

★ Michel Serrault

★ Delphine Seyrig

★ Simone Signoret

★ Simone Simon

★ Audrey Tautou

★ Bertrand Tavernier

★ Jean-Louis Trintignant

★ Marie Trintignant

★ François Truffaut

★ Gaspard Ulliel

★ Christian Vadim

★ Michael Vartan

★ Lino Ventura

★ Hervé Villechaize

★ Jacques Villeret

★ Marina Vlady

★ Anne Wiazemsky

★ Lambert Wilson

★ Jean Yanne

Directors

★ Jean-Jacques Annaud

★ Olivier Assayas

★ Alexandre Alexeieff

★ Gela Babluani

★ Yaruch Bann

★ Claude Berri

★ Luc Besson

★ Bertrand Blier

★ Catherine Breillat

★ Léos Carax

★ Yves Caumon

★ Jean-Paul Civeyrac

★ Edgardo Cozarinsky

★ Arnaud Desplechin

★ Jean Eustache

★ Jean-Luc Godard

★ Michel Gondry

★ Jean-Pierre Jeunet

★ Mathieu Kassovitz

★ Krzysztof Kieslowski

★ Jan Kounen

★ Patrice Leconte

★ Anatole Litvak

★ Louis Malle

★ André Malraux

★ Gaspar Noé

★ François Ozon

★ Roman Polanski

★ Maurice Pialat

★ Claude Sautet

★ Coline Serreau

★ Bertrand Tavernier

★ Agnès Varda

★ Francis Veber

★ Andrzej Żuławski

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

See also

★ List of French films

★ Culture of France

★ World cinema

★ History of cinema

★ List of French language films

★ Cinema of Quebec

External links

★ european-films.net - Reviews, trailers, interviews, news and previews of new and upcoming European films (in English)

★ Sacramento French Film Festival An annual festival featuring the best of new and classic French cinema

★ Blogger Tearfree and readers assemble an amusing analysis of French Film Qualities

★ Champagne and popcorn, a blog entirely dedicated to French films released in the U.S.

★ COL COA French Film Festival, City of Lights, City of Angels - A Week of French Film Premieres in Hollywood - April 16th - 22nd, 2007