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Cinema of France
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The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies, making within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad. France was the birthplace of cinema and saw many of its initial significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements have begun in France, including the Nouvelle Vague. It is noted for having a particularly strong film industry, due in part to a certain level of protection afforded it by the French government.
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The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies, making within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad. France was the birthplace of cinema and saw many of its initial significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements have begun in France, including the Nouvelle Vague. It is noted for having a particularly strong film industry, due in part to a certain level of protection afforded it by the French government. For this reason also, it is able to stand up quite well to competition from America, when compared with the cinema industries of other countries. Characteristics include slower plotlines, strong character development and a deviance from happy or conclusive endings.
Apart from its strong indigenous film tradition, France has also 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 Zulawski), Argentina (Gaspar Noe, Edgardo Cozarinsky), and Russia/the Soviet Union (Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak, Gela Babluani, Otar Iosseliani) are equally prominent in the ranks of French cinema as the native Frenchmen. Also, French directors such as Luc Besson in the United States, have been important in the development of Cinema in other countries.
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 L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat in Paris in 1895 is considered 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 science fiction film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune, 1902).
Other individuals and organizations of this period included Gaumont Pictures and Pathé Frères. Alice Guy Blaché was a pioneer in cinema, making her first film in 1896, La Fée aux Choux, and was head of production at Gaumont 1897-1906, where she made about 400 films. Her career continued in the United States. Several pioneers such as Maurice Tourneur or Léonce Perret continued their careers in the 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 also dominated French Impressionist Cinema, along with Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Jean Epstein, see Cinéma Pur.
After World War I, the French film industry was not well, because of a lack of capital. As with every other European country recovering from the war, France suffered major financial problems, which made it very hard for the film industry to find investors. So French film production decreased as it did in most other European countries. This gave the US film industry a chance to enter the European cinema market. American films could be sold more cheaply than European productions, because the studios had already made back their costs in the home market. Thus, film studios in Europe failed, which gave many European countries reason to set import barriers. France installed an import quota of 1:7, in other words, for every seven foreign films imported to France, one French film was to be produced and shown in French cinemas.
Notable films of the 1930s included René Clair's Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Jacques Feyder's Carnival in Flanders (1935), Julien Duvivier's La belle equipe (1936). In 1931, Marcel Pagnol filmed the first of his great trilogy, Marius, Fanny, and César. He followed this with other films including the The Baker's Wife. In 1935, renowned playwright and actor Sacha Guitry directed his first film. He made more than 30 films that are precursors to the new wave era. In 1937, Jean Renoir, the son of 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 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.
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.
Many contemporaries of Godard and Truffaut followed suit, or achieved (international) critical acclaim with styles of their own, such as the stylish, minimalist films of Robert Bresson and Jean-Pierre Melville, the Hitchcockian thrillers of Henri-Georges Clouzot and other New Wave films by Agnès Varda and Alain Resnais. The movement, while an inspiration to other national cinema's and unmistakably a direct influence on the future New Hollywood directors, slowly faded by the end of the 1960s.
During this period, French commercial film also made a name for itself. Immensely popular French comedies with Louis de Funes topped the French box office, such as the war comedy La Grande Vadrouille (1966) from Gérard Oury with Bourvil, which attracted over 17 million visitors and was the most successful film in French theaters for over 30 years. An other example was La Folie des grandeurs with Yves Montand. French cinema also was the birthplace for many subgenres of the crime film, most notably the modern caper film (starting with 1955's Rififi by American-born director Jules Dassin and followed by a large number of serious, noirish heist dramas as well as playful caper comedies throughout the sixties) and the "polar", a typical French blend of film noir and detective fiction. In addition, French movie stars began to claim fame, abroad as well. Popular actors include Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Gabin and Brigitte Bardot.
- In 1992, Claude Sautet wrote (with Jacques Fieschi) and directed Un Coeur en Hiver, considered by many to be a masterpiece.
- In 2002, Brotherhood of the Wolf became the second-highest-grossing French-language film in the United States in the last two decades; this $29 million-budgeted French film also went on grossing over $70 million in theaters worldwide.
- The rural comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis attracted over 20 million visitors in 2008, the first French film to do so. Its US$ 193 million gross in France alone puts it just behind Titanic as the most successful film of all time in French theaters, and is arguably the highest any film has ever made in a single country outside the U.S. (perhaps only by the Japanese animated film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which made US$ 153 million in Japan alone in the same year).
- Throughout the decade, following in the footsteps of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (with 1997's Alien Ressurection) and Luc Besson (1997, The Fifth Element, The Transporter) in the nineties, several French directors made international productions, often in the action genre, such as Gérard Pirès (Riders, 2002), Pitof (Catwoman), Jean-François Richet (Assault of Precinct 13), Florent Emilio Siri (Hostage, 2006), Christophe Gans (Silent Hill), Mathieu Kassovitz (Babylon A.D.), Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk), Alexandre Aja (Mirrors) and Pierre Morel (Taken, 2008), which was an English language French production with international stars.
Government protection
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. 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.
See also
External links
- - Unifrance is an organization dedicated to promoting French cinema worldwide:
french feature and short films, international festivals, industry directories
- - Reviews, trailers, interviews, news and previews of new and upcoming European films
- - An annual festival featuring the best of new and classic French cinema
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- - A blog entirely dedicated to French films released in the U.S
- - A blog with reviews of contemporary French films and news on French cinema
- - City of Lights, City of Angels - A Week of French Film Premieres in Hollywood - April 16 - 22nd, 2007
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