Les 400 Coups, Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau, Le Samouraï, L’armée des ombres, Rififi…. Jean Vigo, Claude Lelouch, Jean Gabin, this is a difficult subject to tackle in 5-7 minutes. Bonne chance.
All of it
1. I took a class with Claire Denis last summer and she says Godard’s “Pierrot Le Fou” changed everything for her. I have heard that from my father-in-law who is a French photographer of the same generation. Personally, I have seen it a few times now, and I would only give it a B or B+.
2. Robert Bresson’s “Balthazar, Par Hazard” blew me away when I first say it several years ago. It is so raw and simple and timeless. I could instantly see the direct influence it (or he, Bresson) has had on a half dozen of contemporary directors.
3. Lastly, I would say ‘Rosetta’ or ‘La Promesse’ or ‘Le Fils’ by the Dardenne Brothers. Technically speaking, they are not from France, but Belgium, but their movies are Francophone.
These aren’t necessarily “milestones” in cinema, but they are, in my humble opinion, the most important films of late, in the French language.
5 minutes? you can’t even say the words “i will now present a lecture on the history of french cinema” in 5 minutes! you gotta be kidding, or exaggerating. there’s no such thing as a 5 minute lecture.
tell them that cinema itself was invented by the french. talk about the lumiere brothers. technological innovation, the invention of documentary, and the invention of fiction film.
The Dardenne’s are great, but you can’t talk about Belgian film in a lecture about French film.
I had forgotten about Vigo… and the Dardenne Brothers… yeah the time constraints are pretty ridiculous, but it’s only a 200 level course and I guess I did choose the topic, but I figured that it would be easier to talk about something for which I had a passion. It’s interesting to hear that Pierrot le Fou his thought of so highly, I loved the film, but very rarely hear it brought up when Godard is the topic of conversation. It really hard to decide but I think I’m gonna have to just narrow it down to 4 or 5 important films and then just name drop a metric ass load of directors who, provided I had time I would talk about at great length.
Les Enfants du Paradis by Marcel Carné
I heard that Truffaut said he would have given all of his films to have made that one.
Agnes Varda was considered the grandmother of the French New Wave moment (because she made films before the movement began) which revitalized cinema all over the world. The “first” movie of the French New Wave movement was Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge aka Handsome Serge aka Bitter Reunion. Although most people say the real start of the New Wave was Godard’s Breathless.
Truffaut.
Truffautttt.
Well, imagine this!
If you trust the word of someone who teaches the subject:
RENOIR! RENOIR! RENOIR!
… and then there’s everybody else.
OK …
Filmmaking begins (sort-of) in Paris in the 1890s with the LUMIERE BROTHERS, and then narrative film takes its lead from Los Angeles by means of GEORGES MELIES. Don’t ever discount their respective contributions.
RENOIR is the next big step, and his work in the 1920s and especially the 1930s is crucial to the growth of all world cinema (GRAND ILLUSION and THE RULES OF THE GAME being the most significant works). Also, Jean VIGO and his masterful artistry, most notably L’ATALANTE and ZERO FOR CONDUCT.
WWII occupied France is a lesson in itself, but in cinema it means the underground film movement, and the most prominent figures emerging from it become Henri-Georges CLOUZOT and LE CORBEAU, RENE CLEMENT and FORBIDDEN GAMES, and Marcel CARNE with CHILDREN OF PARADISE.
Post-WWII sees the emergence of Jean COCTEAU and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Jean-Pierre MELVILLE with LES ENFANTS TERRIBLE and BOB LE FLAMBEUR, and, in an entirely different vein, Jacques TATI and his entire ‘M. Hulot’ series, beginning with MON ONCLE.
Then, and only then, can you begin Le Nouvelle Vague (1957-64). And most importantly, you must remember WHY they were making the films the way they were.
Start with Melville again as its “Godfather.” Bring in the “Cahiers Five” — GODARD, TRUFFAUT, RIVETTE, ROHMER and CHABROL — and add MALLE, VARDA, RENAIS, EUSTACHE, MARKER, VADIM and DEMY. Those are the most prominent and important names to remember.
The film BREATHLESS is where all of modern cinema begins. Its place in cinema history is there with BIRTH OF A NATION and CITIZEN KANE.
And since? BRESSON is the real giant, then TAVERNIER, ANNAUD, KASOVITZ, and JUENET.
There, how’s THAT for a ridiculous assignment of 5-7 minutes?
I agree with Allison. You really can’t leave Agnès Varda out of this discussion. Or Marcel Carné, for that matter.
Would not the place in history Henri Langlois and his Cinematheque Francais occupy be a fantastic way to cover the New Wave as well as what came before and after? His passion is so infectious.
If you want to get into the modern scene at all, you should at least mention Haneke (especially Cache) and Olivier Assayes (Irma Vep or Demonlover, maybe?). Since you mentioned the “state of French cinema,” I assume the modern cinema would be important for your purposes.
A few suggestions:
1. I’ve heard it said that Carne’s “Children of Paradise” is celebrated as possibly the greatest achievement in French cinema. I would definitely at least mention it if I were presenting.
2. While “The Rules of the Game” is considered top notch Renoir…I would still think about the other options from his catalogue that were also extremely important: “Grand Illusion” and “La Bete Humaine” being two examples that come to mind right away.
3. When talking about the French New Wave, it might be good to mention Andre Bazin, and auteur theory. He was one of the most important voices at that time.
I personally feel Rohmer is the personification of French cinema.
Plus Ophuls’ “Le Plaisir”, Cocteau/Melville’s “Les Enfants Terribles”, Resnais “Last Year in Marienbad” and Tati’s “Playtime”.
I thought “La Haine” was a great film and, given the events of the past couple of years, very prescient. One that often gets overlooked is “Le Boucher” by Claude Chabrol, which is interesting in many ways, both cinematic and its take on post WWII French guilt. The eighties Cinema du Look group of filmmakers, Luc Besson et al., should probably be mentioned as well, the best film from that period, in my opinion, being J.J. Beineix’s “Diva”. I love this topic!
Given the time limit, hit a few high points people will remember.
Start as suggested with Lumiere and Melies, then go to Surrealism, which is a predominantly French thing. Keep in mind “Un Chien Andalou” and “L’Age d’Or,” highly important French films even if their director was Spanish. Throw in Jean Vigo, then Jean Cocteau. From there, it’s an easy step to “Rules of the Game,” which makes a nice segue, as it sparked a riot, just as “L’Age d’Or” did. Then “Children of Paradise” for the war years, then French New Wave: “Breathless,” “Jules and Jim,” “400 Blows,” Varda’s “Cleo From Five to Seven,” Resnais’ “Hiroshima Mon Amour.” Bresson’s “Au Hasard, Balthasar.” Fast-forward to Rohmer, ""My Night at Maud’s." For the 1970s, point out the continuing influence of surrealism (Bunuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”) and French New Wave (“Day for Night,” Rivette’s “Celine and Julie Go Boating,”) etc.
Given the time limit, that might be the big overriding idea to go for: how it has been influential, and how the influence continues. Bring it up to date with “Cache,” “Amelie,” “The Triplets of Belleville,” etc., French films that continue to attract worldwide audiences.
All of your suggestions are great, I will of course be talking about Lumiere brothers, The surrealists, Vigo (Zero for Conduct was a dream to watch), Cocteau, and then the poetic realists Renoir and Carne and then I’m not quite sure what films I will mention from the New wave, but I will make sure to mention all of the key directors as well as the Left bank group (Varda, Resnais etc.) and I was for sure planing on going into the Cahier du look, but had overlooked the continuance of surrealist aspects etc. as well as “The Triplets of Belleville”… This is going to be tough, and to have to present not in English, my first language, but in French, a language that, while I love to listen to, I have a VERY hard time speaking in.
Anywho, while I have this thread going, might as well ask few other questions, to spark conversation, firstly if you had to chose one French film to show a clip from in the confines of this report what would it be? Secondly, what is your favorite period, director, or film from the french film history? And, thirdly, name some of your favorite quotes from French film.
and I’ll start firstly: I’ve been thinking maybe closing my presentation with the trailer for Breathless… but I’m interested in hearing what some of you might use…
Secondly: I really can’t pick a favorite or any of those things so I will just make a list of some that come to mind; I love the Poetic Realism I have seen, as well as the Surrealist films (in particular the Blood of a Poet (which I guess I’m not sure would completely count but I think it totally is)) and I have an undying love for the Nouvelle Vague, Godard, Truffaut, as well as the people making films at the time which are not often considered New Wavers in the Cahiers du Cinema sense like Melville, Bresson, Cocteau, Resnais, tati, Varda, and I would like to see some Vadim, and I also enjoy some of the newer stuff that I have seen as well.
Thirdly: The quote that really comes to mind because it totally embodies the spirit of any creative individual especially filmmakers (and as a second esp. the Nouvelle Vague for their revolutionary ideals) and that is the response that Melville’s character in Breathless gives to Patricia’s question of “what is your greatest ambition in life?” and in my opinion of the best quotes in film history “To become immortal, and then to die.”
Anyway lets keep this lively conversations going!
It took me a while to develop a taste for Godard… I eventually got there via Renoir and Truffaut… I agree with Truffaut that Jean Renoir is the greatest of all filmmakers, his great humanity underscores all his work. In my 20’s I thought ‘Breathless’ was rubbish.. now after many years of delving into French masters like Clouseau, Melville, Clement, Carne and Duvivier, I think it’s a great film. Le Mepris (Contempt)got me liking him, and A Bande Apart blew me away.
Poetic realism is a little mis-named, I prefer Poetic Fatalism, it seems to take on more depth for me. My favourite in this genre is easily Pepe Le Moko, and Port of Shadows, both masterpieces that had the French sending the Hollywood of Von Sternberg back to it, to inform the likes of Bogart and film noir.
Too many great films to mention…….. 400 Blows made me weep, La Grande Illusion made me even sadder about war, Lower Depths lifted me up. Bob Le Flambeur amazed me with it’s style and verve, Le Trou had me on edge…… I have to stop!
Are the French the greatest filmmakers? I think a compelling case can be made……
By the way, does anyone have any desire for me to post my top 100 French films? I have to warn you tho, I list way too many Chabrol and Truffaut films.
To Musycks: It I had seen Breathless any earlier in my life I may not have been quite ready for it, and some of the other Godard that I watched at around the dame time was a bit out there, Week-end Pierrot Le Fou, Masculine Feminine, and Contempt were a bit much to take the first time around, but only got better with repeated viewings and thought. Godard had a huge impact upon the way I looked at cinema. I also think that an extremely compelling argument can be made for the fact that the French are, if not the best filmmakers at least some of the most imaginative, innovative, and beautiful masters of the medium.
To Allison: Sure! I started this Thread in hopes to spark discussions about, what I view as, some of the most interesting of cinematic history and tradition. So, please do post your top whatever 100 1,000 100,000, I’d love to read it!
“The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.” — Rules of the Game
Nice one Rodney! That is indeed a CLASSIC line!
Edouard… 5-7 minutes, gosh, it’s the express way.
I would avoid the name dropping if I were you and focus on two or three names or movies.
Recently Christophe Honore’s “les chansons d’amour” seems to be a good gateway. Honore’s using the “nouvelle vague” as a cinematographic material and works as modernisation/actuallisation from an honest trilogy of auteurs : Godard, Truffaut and Demy. It might be usefull to show what is the french nouvelle vague, I guess.
If you choose another gateway (I mean the french cinema is not to be reduced to the nouvelle vague) then it might be complicated. I guess Bresson’s a man escaped is another gateway as much as Playtime’s Tati.
It depends on what you want to do : movie first or speach first. Then 7 minutes is mission impossible.
But if I had to choose a way in french movie, I’d go this way : joining the study of socialism/Marx’s materialism and movie : it’s the highway bounding Renoir to the Nouvelle Vague. It’s the hard limit fo this movement too. Now I guess nouvelle vague is washed up, because in some extense Marxism is washed up (in France I mean).
oh and by the way, I might help you with the french, since I am.
and if you want a quote ‘Ophuls, madame de : Monsieur de says to madame (They are cheating on each other, bored to death) " ce n’est que superficiellement que nous sommes superficiels"
the favourite moviemaker??? it depends on the day, I guess… today Bresson, tomorrow Demy, next week Melville and so forth… But the most influential today might of course be G-d Art and I’d say Melville too. Today. but tomorrow?
Thank you for the recommendations and help Mathieu! I think that what I’m going to end up doing is doing a short wrap up of the different decades and then focusing in on 3-5 films or directors… which I will chose using a combination of my own knowledge, the suggestions I have gotten on here, and the recommendations I get from my film studies professor Dr. Wheeler Winston Dixon (and also using his book, “A Short History of Film”). I think that this will be the only way… since it’s due tomorrow.
If I were doing your presentation, I would choose the Band of Outsiders scene of them running through the Louvre, or the famous jump cut in Breathless for the demonstrative clip.
Yes, you might want to touch on Godard in order to impress your professor: http://eng-wdixon.unl.edu/dixon.html But just make sure you know what you’re talking about, bc it seems like he’s an expert on Godard.
Allison,
Dixon is not the teacher that I have to present to, luckily, although I have had to write papers for him all of my film studies academic career , which is indeed a bit daunting since he is an expert on a fair bit of cinema and has written many books as well as made many avant guard films in his day. But I did talk to him today to try and get his opinion, which pretty much mirrored the opinions of this forum that 5-7 minutes is a rather short amount of time in which to discuss such a rich history… so here I sit in the French Language lab trying to A) figure out what to cover, and B) Figure out how to cover it in FRENCH… this should be fun.
Edouard Hill
Alright, so I have to present to my French class a lecture on the history of the French cinema, and while I would consider this one of my cinematic strong suits (while I in NO WAY claim to know everything about it) I have no idea how I’m going to condense such a rich history of film into a 5 to 7 minute lecture. So, since none of this is of any consequence to your lives I shall get to the point, I present to you a simple question; what are, in your opinion, the milestones of French cinema? In this thread, regardless of whether it helps me or not, let’s start a conversation about the rich tradition of French movies. Favorite movies, directors, moments, Top 5 (10, 20, etc.) whatever floats your proverbial boat (cause I bet it will also float mine).
So to start, at the moment I have been all about: Breathless (Godard and really anything Godard I can get my hands on), Day for Night (Truffaut), Les Enfants Terribles (Cocteau/Melville), The Rules of the Game (Renoir), anything Bresson, Elevator to the Gallows (Malle), Mon Oncle (Tati), Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau), Bob the Gambler (Melville), and Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais)… Et vous?