100 years
of French cinema :
A hundred years ago, with the first public projection of
the cinematograph of the Lumière brothers on the
Parisian grand boulevards, an invention was born which was
going to revolutionize the the men relations in the world
and to open new horizons to imagination and artistic creation.
In France, it is with ostentation that one celebrates this
first century of the cinema, through a multitude of exposures,
retrospectives, television broadcasts and books. Label France,
that he devoted his special file, will return throughout
the year on the cinema and the demonstrations organized
throughout the world in particular by the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs.
The history of the French cinema, the actors who made it
known abroad, the design of the cinema like an art, the
French tradition of reception of the foreign artists, its
system of assistance and unique coproduction in the world...
are as many topics debated in this special file through
portrayals, interviews and investigations. Engine.
The poetic
realism of the Thirties :
New surprise, at the beginning of the Thirties: the cinema
was endowed with speech and it did not know it! As it uses
it very freely, some claim that it is misusing it. How if
one could speak too much when Sacha Guitry, Marcel Pagnol
or Jacques Prévert dialogue for you! " Atmosphere,
atmosphere, I have a mouth of atmosphere? ", Arletty
showing indignation in the Hotel of North" I ensure
you, dear cousin, that you said "odd, odd" ",
said Michel Simon to Louis Jouvet, in a Funny drama "
Me, I said "odd"? it is odd ", the other
answers.
The actors are the kings of the festival: Raimu, Fernandel,
Viviane Lovesong. Since he whispered to her, in Quay of
mists, " You have beautiful eyes, you know!",
Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan form the cinematographic French
couple. Soon, one does not swear any more but by Danielle
Darrieux. All the women get dressed, are capped and troll
like her during these black years of the Occupation where
the heart of the French beats in the hidden, like that of
the lovers who are frustrated by the Visitors of the evening...
With the triumph of” the Children of the paradise”
of Marcel Carné, considered as one of best films
of the history of the cinema, with the proliferation of
the film clubs, , the concept "of author"is imposed
to liberation. The stars are erased to the benefit of the
scenario writers and their universe: Jacques Tati and Feast
day, Robert Bresson and The women of the wood of Boulogne,
Jean Cocteau and the Beautiful one and the Animal.
Among the fiercest to defend author's movies, through the
review of the Books of the cinema, the critic Andre Bazin
and his disciple, the young François Truffaut. At
the beginning of the Fifties, while Fernandel makes makes
a misfortune in vicar in Don Camillo and that Gerard Philipe
involves all the hearts in Fanfan the tulip, Truffaut vituperates
against his beloved cinema which seems to him fallen between
the hands of cold technicians and without heart. Nevertheless,
Truffaut passionately defends Renoir, Bresson, Becker or
max Ophuls. He defends also a "little-known star"
that everyone attacks: Brigitte Bardot.
After some minor films, she becomes the biggest star of
the French cinema, in 1956, with “And God” created
the woman of Roger Vadim. It is not because she sprawls
in the sin that Bardot makes scandal, but because she could
sprawl, if the heart told her. It is her freedom which the
middle-class, of which she herselfself belong, judge unbearable.
Bardot kills what the post-war period had accumulated of
weight and rigorism. Following her, all explodes. With blows
of brilliant clumsiness, Godard, starting from “At
the tip of breath”, violates the grammar of the cinema.
Agnès Varda shoots the streets (Cléo from
five to seven), François Truffaut, the evolution
of her double, Antoine Doinel (Four Hundred Blows, Love
at twenty years, stolen kisses).
Bardot
and the revolution of the New Wave :
Jacques Rivette, in a Paris which belongs to him, invents
Balzac plots. Eric Rohmer starts his "moral tales",
of which the most famous is My night at Maud. Jacques Demy
and Michel Legrand, them, invent, with the Umbrellas of
Cherbourg, a new kind: neither musical, nor opera; not,
a film "in sung". A new generation of actors interpret
these films where all is dared: Catherine Deneuve and her
sister, Francoise Dorléac, Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina,
Bernadette Lafont and, of course, Jean-Paul Belmondo who
will, from At the tip of breath to Pierrot the insane one
of Godard, while passing through the Man of Rio of Philippe
de Broca, make fly in bursts the picture of the young first
classic.
The decade which follows is less adventurous. The popular
actors are quadra - even quinqua -: Philippe Noiret, Michel
Piccoli, Yves Montand. All three act with the beloved of
the French: Romy Schneider. The first in Old rifle of Robert
Enrico, the two others, under the direction of Claude Sautet
(Things of the life, César and Rosalie). Sautet becomes
the cantor of France whose concern is dissimulated under
a tradition of good quality. Impeccable, all that is impeccable.
Those that kick in stretchers pay an expensive cost. Patrick
Dewaere commits suicide. Jean Eustace dies a few years after
having signed a brutal film about the dissatisfaction and
despair: the Mom and the Whore. All the same, the Seventies
reveal a couple of stars: Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu.
She, rarely appears on the screens, but each one of its
appearances is an event, from the History of Adele H to
the Margot Queen. He has a bulimia of roles. With time,
the hooligan of the Waltzers plays Zola (Germinal) and Balzac
(Colonel Chabert). What happened, meanwhile? Many things.
Jacques Demy died. And Truffaut also, after having shot
two of his best beautiful films, the Woman of at side and
Highly Sunday! with Fanny Ardant "who seems to come
from a country which does not exist", according to
his expression. A generation of esthetes arrived, small
geniuses of the beautiful picture:: the loft of Diva became
as famous as the mouth of Beatrice Dalle in 37°2 the
morning, of Jean-Jacques Beineix. The young people were
an idol in Luc Besson, of which they saw Great Blue ten
times. And Christian Clavier became the Louis de Funès
of a modern Gerard Oury: Jean-Marie Poiré, the producer
of the Visitors. At the hour of the assessments, all is
not good, but the French cinema exists. Better: it contributed
to the existence of the others. Neither stiletto heels of
the Spanish Pedro Almodovar, nor Blue, White and Red of
the polish Krzysztof Kieslowskis could have seen the day
without this system of helps, that some criticize and that
a lot of European countries envy in France.
And then, what a pallet of authors! Alain Resnais has just
made his most inventive film: Smoking, No smoking, André
Téchiné, in the force of the age, make a success
of his freest movie: the wild Reeds and we await this year
the last-born, inter alia, of Jean-Paul Rappeneau (Hussard
on the roof with Juliette Binoche), Bertrand Tavernier (Soft
food) or Claude Lelouch (Poor wretches of the XXth century).
The young people are not in peace. Just names, almost still
unknown, but who will not remain so for a long time: Arnaud
Desplechin, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa, Marion Vernoux, Tonie
Marshall, Pascale Ferran, Mathieu Kassovitz... It is that
it is long-lived, this old centenary French cinema. Long-lived
and well decided to remain alive. This number of Label France
is the proof.
Festival
of cannes
