France

Since World War I, French cinema has defined itself through its ambivalent relations with Hollywood cinema. Although French cinema was the dominant force in the international market until World War I, its influence extending as far as Australia, in the decades that followed the industry struggled to maintain its hold on French audiences. French stars, valued for their independence and their ability to represent "Frenchness" globally, have played an important role in this crusade. Though many would argue that this has been a losing battle, French product continues to dominate French screens, though, as often as not, it is the television screen that viewers watch today. Yet, initially, it was the French who discovered cinema as we know it.

SILENT CINEMA: 1895–1929

The invention of the cinema was credited to Auguste (1862–1954) and Louis Lumière (1864–1948), two brothers, who organized what is widely believed to be the first film screening on 28 December 1895, at the Grand Café in Paris, using the Lumière brothers' Cinématograph, which was both camera and projector. Though the American inventor Thomas Edison (1847–1931) had created film stock itself as early as 1889, it was the Lumière brothers who invented cinema as a mass entertainment event in which spectators were seated in front of a projected image, showing films such as L'Arrivéed'untrainà la Ciotat (Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, 1895), La Sortie des usines Lumière (Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory, 1895) and Demolition d'un mur (Demolition of a Wall, 1896). Their cinematographers, who traveled throughout the world shooting notable events, assembled a catalog of over one thousand films during the next two years. In France, their major competitor was Georges Méliès (1861–1938), with his Kinétograph. His production company Star Film, founded in 1896, specialized in fantastic, magical tales, in contrast with the Lumìre brothers, who concentrated on actualités. After making between six hundred and eight hundred films, Star Film went bankrupt in 1914, and Méliès ceased producing films in 1919.

A third significant figure in the development of French cinema was Charles Pathé (1863–1957) with his Eknétographe. Pathé founded Pathé Frères with his brother Émile in September 1896, and from 1902 his emblem, the red rooster, was synonymous with cinema around the world. Charles Pathé left France for the United States in 1914 because several of the most important branches of his company were located in territory occupied by the Germans. One of Pathé's major contributions to the development of cinema was to inaugurate in 1907 the tripartite system of production, distribution, and exhibition that characterizes the modern film industry. Under this system, exhibitors rent films through distribution companies. The number of film production companies quickly multiplied to include that of Léon Gaumont, who boasted the Chronophotographe and the first film director, Alice Guy (1873–1968).

The period of 1908 to 1914 is generally considered the golden age of comedy. During this era such stars as Max Linder (1882–1925), a brilliant comic actor who exerted a strong influence on comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and such directors as Jean Durand (1882–1946), as well as the animator Émile Cohl (1857–1938), came to the fore. Adaptations of novels were common, and feature-length films began to appear in 1911, as well as detective serials, associated with director Louis Feuillade (1873–1925). This period also saw the advent of Le Film d'Art, a company founded in February 1908, partly funded by Pathé. Le Film d'Art was noted for its production of quality filmed historical drama, such as L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise (The Assassination of the duc de Guise, 1908), directed by André Calmettes (1861–1942) and Charles Le Bargy (1858–1936) (who also took a leading role), with music by Camille Saint-Saëns.

Competition from American and Scandinavian producers had already weakened French international hegemony by 1912. Beginning in August 1914 with the onset of World War I, French film production dropped virtually to zero. After six months of inactivity, film production began again slowly with films like Feuillade's serial The Vampires (1915), which introduced one of the silent cinema's greatest stars, Musidora (1889–1957), who achieved great popularity in her role as the vamp Irma Vep.

POST–WORLD WAR I

The most salient feature of post–World War I France for future film scholars was the coalescence of the film culture around France's first cinéphiles and first avant-garde. Inspired by the influx of Hollywood films, a generation of young intellectuals took an interest in the cinema. An avant-garde sensibility emerged, championed by the journalist turned director, Louis Delluc (1890–1924), that had a profound influence on the development of cinema as a national art form, most notably on the New Wave in the post–World War II era. Although Delluc died in 1924, he gave his name to a prestigious prize for best film, and his writing influences French thought and film scholarship to this day.

For Delluc, cinema must be "cinematic" and "French." It must express the specificity of the cinematic medium as an art form while countering the tendencies of film as entertainment. Impressionism, associated with Delluc, was a loose and often inconsistent body of thought. The Impressionists reacted against the pictorial-realist tradition of French cinema by seeking inspiration in the editing and camera styles of new Hollywood directors, who had evolved away from a strictly documentary or theatrical presentation of story. Though often dismissed as melodramatic by contemporary audiences, films such as La Roue (The Wheel, Abel Gance, 1923) and L'Inhumaine (The New Enchantment, Marcel L'Herbier, 1923) exploited rhythmic editing, point-of-view shots, soft focus, and optical devices such as superimpositions to convey subjective experience. Writer-filmmakers associated with the movement such as Germaine Dulac (1882–1942) pursued the idea that film functioned like a language; however, the conviction that film was an art form rather than merely a vehicle for entertainment was Impressionism's most important legacy. Following his death, Delluc's influence was evident in the work of such directors as Dulac, Jean Epstein (1897–1953), Abel Gance (1889–1981), and Marcel L'Herbier (1888–1979), who remained affected by Impressionism goals while often moving in different directions. Dadaism and surrealism inspired a second avant-garde in 1923 and 1924. The American photographer Man Ray (Emanuel Rabinovich; 1890–1976) and the painter Fernand Léger (1881–1955) created experimental films that resembled the essay films of Dulac and the fantasies of the Brazilian expatriate director, Alberto Cavalcanti (1897–1982). Two directors who would leave their mark on French cinema as part of this movement were René Clair (1898–1981) and Luis Buñuel (1900–1983).

Though largely ignored by intellectuals, French cinema as a popular narrative form thrived during this period. Rarely exported, French popular film continued to appeal to French audiences, with serials such as L'Enfant roi (The Child King, Jean Kemm, 1923), or Fanfan-la-Tulipe (Fanfan the Tulip, René Leprince, 1925). Successful directors of the period included Julien Duvivier (1896–1967), Raymond Bernard (1891–1977), and Jacques Feyder (1885–1948). Facing increasing production costs, studios during this time inaugurated the European co-production, often working with German production companies.

Two of the most influential production companies, Ermolieff Films and Alexander Kamenka's L'Albatros, were founded by Russian émigrés, and produced films destined for the émigré audience as well as French works. This group of émigré Russians, known as les Russes de Montreuil (the Russians of Montreuil), included such directors as Yakov Protozanov (1881–1945), Victor (Vyatcheslaw) Tourjansky (1891–1976), and Alexander Volkov (1885–1942), as well as technicians and actors and actresses. Kamenka produced notable works of French cinema, such as Clair's Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie (An Italian Straw Hat, 1928), and Les Deux timides (Two Timid Souls, 1928). Later Kamenka produced Les Bas-fonds (The Lower Depths, Jean Renoir, 1936), which won the Louis Delluc Prize.

During this period, many stars were recruited from the stage or cabarets, including Maurice Chevalier (1888–1972), already a star of the Parisian music halls, who attained prominence in a series of movies foreshadowing the great success he would achieve in America in the 1930s. Other stars from theater included Michel Simon (1895–1975), Gaby Morlay (1893–1964), and Albert Préjean (1893–1979). Simon, in particular, represented the French tradition of the "monstre sacré," or "eccentric," the flamboyant character actor with a singularly striking physiognomy, used to great effect in, for example, Renoir's Boudu sauvé des eaux (Boudu Saved from Drowning, 1932).

By the end of the 1920s, French cinema had recovered from the effects of World War I. Though the battle with Hollywood at the international box office had been lost, French cinema had acquired the position of a national art form that was distinct from the entertainments produced for the masses. Paradoxically, Hollywood films, because of their impact on the avant-garde during the war years, were a primary influence in creating a French cinema that was cinematic and French, in the terms defined by Delluc. It is in Hollywood film that the Impressionists found their inspiration—in the camera work and editing of D.W. Griffith (1875–1948), the lighting of Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959), and the dreamlike scenarios of Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977). And it is Hollywood that left its imprint on the foundational avant-garde films of the dadaists and the surrealists—films such as Dulac's La Coquille et Le Clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman, 1928), and Buñuel's Un Chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929)—setting French cinema apart as the international forerunner of the "film-as-art" movement, a place that France arguably retained throughout the remainder of the twentieth century.

Although Hollywood was the object of polemical discussion, other national cinemas such as Russian cinema, particularly through émigré producers, and German cinema, in terms of financial backing, also influenced the directions of French cinema. French popular cinema—in the form of comedies and serials, as well as the popular policier (later known as the polar) or police film—continued to be effective in French theaters, constituting a parallel strand to the higher profile films praised by the intellectual elite. With the advent of sound, French cinema as art would encounter its biggest challenge.

SOUND FILM AND THE
CLASSICAL ERA: 1929–1940

The first sound studios opened in France in the autumn of 1929, inaugurating the golden age of filmed theater, and also precipitating an aesthetic crisis manifested in heated debate about the nature of cinematic art. While adherents to the legacy of Impressionism, such as Gance and L'Herbier, clung to the primacy of the image as the fundamental element of film language, directors like Duvivier and Renoir embraced sound as integral to the film medium. The film industry was also subject to financial crisis and over the decade was reorganized around companies like La Société Nouvelle des Établissement?té Nouvelle Pathé-Gaumount (the SNEG) and the Socie Cinéma (SNPC). Nonetheless, some of the great films of the French cinema were produced between 1934 and World War II, in part as the result of an influx of directors and technicians fleeing the Nazis from other countries. One such figure was the German director Max Ophüls (1902–1957), creator of the film La Tendre ennemie (The Tender Enemy, 1936), who became a French citizen in 1938. The production of feature films stabilized at about 100 to 120 films per year, a level of production that remained more or less the norm for the rest of the century.

Two directors who forged their own style within the confines of the filmed theater genre were Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) and Sacha Guitry (1885–1957). Pagnol, a successful director, writer, and producer, established his own studios in the South of France and produced a body of work associated with that region. Films for which he wrote the screenplay include the "Pagnol trilogy," made up of Marius (1931), Fanny (1932), and César (1936), dealing with the "little people" of Marseilles. The success of these films owed much to the superb performances of the actors, including (Jules) Raimu (1883–1946), Pierre Fresnay (1897–1975), Fernand Charpin (1887–1944), and Orane Demazis (1894–1991). Because of the subtlety and originality of his productions, and also because of the way that his work constituted an early exploration of regional identity, Pagnol's talent was recognized by critics such as André Bazin who, in principle, opposed the filmed theater style. Renoir's Toni (1935), a pivotal film in the development of the Italian neorealism, is one of the many films that demonstrated the importance of Pagnol's work for the future of French cinema. Both Pagnol's films and novels would influence the development of what is commonly called heritage cinema in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Guitry, less well known outside of France, was an actor and writer as well as a director. In his films of this period, he captured the essence of Parisian light comedy, a genre that disappeared during World War II. During this period French cinema also continued to borrow from the tradition of the music hall with films such as Zouzou (1934), starring the African American singer-dancer Josephine Baker (1906–1975).

In May 1936 the Popular Front, a historic alliance of leftist and radical interests, came to power, ruling until October 1938. This period, which saw the introduction of major social changes, such as paid holidays, trade union rights, and a public health service, unleashed a burst of creative intellectual and artistic energy, especially at the cooperative Ciné-Liberté, of which Renoir was a member. The rise and ascendancy of the Popular Front manifested itself in films that emphasized the worker. Renoir, for example, directed Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (The Crime of Monsieur Lange, 1936), the story of a worker's cooperative, the epic La Marseillaise (1938), and was involved in the making of La Vie est à nous (The People of France, 1936), a communist propaganda film. Though light comedies and musicals were more popular with the public, these films were praised by critics and film historians. With the defeat of the Popular Front, the melancholic tendencies of poetic realism became more marked and were reflected in narratives dealing with doomed love affairs, betrayals, and murders, usually set in Paris in working-class settings. Such films are exemplified by Le Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows, 1938) and Le Jour se lève (Daybreak, 1939) by Marcel Carné (1909–1996). Both films starred Jean Gabin (1904–1976), who, with Arletty (Arlette-Léonie Bathiat; 1898–1992), came to incarnate French working-class values, especially in terms of their spoken delivery, which was marked by a strong demotic accent. In addition to Carné, directors associated with this style were Renoir, Duvivier, and Jean Grémillon (1901–1959).

MARCEL CARNÉ
b. Albert Cranche, Paris, France, 18 August 1909, d. 31 October 1996

Marcel Carné is a controversial figure in French cinema, for while many see in his work an outmoded classicism that was transcended by the directors of the French New Wave, others find in it evidence of the vitality of studio filmmaking in the 1930s. Carné trained as a photographer and worked in journalism before hiring on as an assistant to René Clair and Jacques Feyder. Carné's first feature, Jenny (1936), starring Françoise Rosay, marked the beginning of his long and productive collaboration with the poet and scriptwriter Jacques Prévert.

Carné's genius lay in his ability to gather a team of creative artists: screenwriters (including Prévert), designers (including Alexander Trauner), composers (Maurice Jaubert, Joseph Kosma), and a bevy of French actors, including Jules Berry, Louis Jouvet, Michel Simon, and Arletty (Arlette-Léonie Bathiat). His most famous film is Les Enfants de paradis (Children of Paradise, 1945), which portrays the love affair between a demi-mondain (courtesan) and an actor.

From the mid-1930s until the late 1940s, Carné wasone of the most respected and powerful directors in France. He initially influenced the direction of French cinema through his writing in Cinémagazine, inspiring poetic realism. Poetic realism, which Carné later called le fantastique social (social fantasy), espoused a pessimistic view of the human condition, which he conveyed through artful composition, careful mise-en-scène, polished acting, high-key lighting, and tragic endings. His films in this style include Hôtel du Nord (1938), Le Jour se lève (Daybreak, 1939), and Le Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows, 1938), which sparked controversy for its morbid subject matter.

For better or for worse, Carné and his team communicated to a popular audience a pervasive atmosphere of melancholy that remains a milestone in French cinema. Following the end of his partnership with Prévert with Les Portes de la nuit (The Gates of Night, 1946) and La Marie du port (Mary of the Port, 1950), Carné lost his best collaborators, and his subsequent films were less accomplished.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Jenny (1936), Drôle de drame, ou L'étrange aventure de Docteur Molyneux (Bizarre, Bizarre, 1937), Port of Shadows (1938), Hôtel du Nord (1938), Daybreak (1939), Les Visiteurs du soir (The Devil's Envoys, 1942), Children of Paradise (1945), Gates of Night (1946)

FURTHER READING

Andrew, Dudley. Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Film. Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press, 1995.

Williams, Alan. Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Hilary Ann Radner

Renoir, who began his career with films like La Fille de l'eau (Whirlpool of Fate, 1925) and Nana (1926), both with the actress Catherine Hessling (1900–1979), is considered by many to be the most significant director of this period. His films ran the gamut of possible genres, from poetic realist films to avant-garde films, from comedies to popular melodramas, and from literary adaptation to Popular Front propaganda. Renoir's La Grande illusion (The Grand Illusion, 1937) and La Bête humaine (The Human Beast, 1938), both with Gabin, and his masterpiece, La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game, 1939), with Marcel Dalio (1900–1983), were box-office

triumphs. His career was interrupted by World War II, which he spent in Hollywood.

THE WAR YEARS: 1940 TO 1944

Though films were banned if deemed too demoralizing, the film industry was active during the nine months of French-German hostility in 1939 and 1940. Film production stopped completely during the summer of 1940; however, this hiatus inaugurated one of the most prosperous, if not the most creative, periods of French cinema.

Following the surrender of France to Germany, a new government was established at the small spa town of Vichy, in the unoccupied zone of central France, under the leadership of Maréchal Henri Philippe Pétain (1856–1951). Although autocratic and reactionary, the Vichy regime initiated an ambitious program to restore France to her former glory, including an effort to construct a quasi-mystical idealized vision of France grounded in a conservative social agenda and a focus on youth. The Vichy regime was quick to recognize the strategic importance of the film industry in advancing this agenda and almost immediately put in place structures that both supported and regulated the industry. In 1940, the Comité d'Organisation des Industries du Cinéma (Committee for the Organization of the Film Industry) was established, as was the COIC, which would become the Centre National de la Cinématographie (National Center for Cinematography), the CNC, in 1946. The COIC immediately set up regulations for the film industry and also a system of state support. Notably, the COIC created what would become IDHEC, Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (Institute for Film Studies) in 1944, under the direction of L'Herbier.

Financially, the COIC had a positive effect in terms of underwriting the French film industry, although it also served as a censorship arm of the Vichy government. In particular, it had an important function in terms of imposing restrictions on the activities of Jews in the film sector. A number of members of the film community fled to the United States, including such directors as Renoir, Clair, Duvivier, and Ophüls, as well as such?le Morgan (b. 1920). Others, like Pierre Chenal (1904–1990) and Louis Jouvet (1887–1951), took refuge in Latin America. In certain respects French cinema in 1941 was severely handicapped; nonetheless, the Vichy period proved to be a prosperous time for the industry overall. Cinemas were a popular haven from the cold and from the political and social pressures of the period. British and then American films were not available. For three years Hollywood was not a competitor in the French market, so audiences chose between German films, French films, and a few Italian films. A single national market encouraged big-budget productions, such as Les Enfants du paradis (The Children of Paradise, 1945), which was begun by Carne actors as Gabin and MicheItalian co-production.

The 220 feature-length films that constitute the Vichy cinema are not linked by any specific style or topic. The number of films that espoused right-wing views was no higher than during the prewar years (1934–1940); however, there was no counterbalancing progressive or leftist perspective. The settings lacked specificity—German uniforms and flags were rarely present within the frame—and the past, especially the nineteenth century, was preferred to the present. Popular genres included light comedies, thrillers, musicals, costume dramas, and a few fantasy films. A significant number of directors from the 1930s continued working through the 1940s, including Guitry, Pagnol, Grémillon, and Carné in 1943 as a?. New directors emerged from the ranks, including Jean Delannoy (b. 1908), Louis Daquin (1908–1980), André Cayatte (b. 1909), Claude Autant-Lara (1901–2000), Jacques Becker (1906–1960), Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907–1977), and Robert Bresson (1901–1999). Significant Vichy films include La fille du puisatier (The Well-Digger's Daughter, Pagnol, 1940), Lumière d'été (Light of Summer, Grémillon, 1943), L'Assassin habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21, Clouzot, 1942), and Les Anges du péché (Angels of the Streets, Bresson, 1943), based on a screenplay by Jean Giraudoux.

LEGACY AND REGENERATION: 1944 TO 1959

The end of the war and Liberation would present yet another challenge to the film industry. With Liberation came the creation of the Committee for the Liberation of Cinema and a journal, L'Écran français (French Screen), which appeared in July 1945. In the immediate postwar period, the French film industry was in crisis. Its equipment was outmoded or destroyed by the war and its personnel dispersed and demoralized. Most felt that the only solution was continuing the state regulation and support inaugurated by Vichy. In 1946 the CNC was created as an autonomous institution with the mandate of regulating and supporting the French film industry. It was funded through taxes levied on the industry itself. In the same year the Blum-Byrnes agreement was signed, which stipulated that during four weeks out of the year only French films could be shown in a given theater. In 1948, the period was extended to five weeks. In 1949, France signed an agreement with Italy that gave certain advantages to Franco-Italian co-productions. This agreement in turn supported the development of what came to be known as the Tradition of Quality.

The creation of the CNC, the regulations providing state-mandated support, the normalization of relations with the United States, and the creation of a film market enlarged initially by the addition of Italy laid down the basis for what has come to be known as the French mode of production—a compromise between state regulation and free trade under the guidance of the CNC. If, through its inception, this system was subject to controversy, in time it garnered strong popular support, particularly when other national cinemas in Europe suffered marked decline in the 1980s.

Though economically healthy, the industry was rigid, and from an artistic perspective it languished during the immediate post–World War II period. French cinema remained under the threat of censorship throughout the 1950s, when it touched on politically sensitive current events, such as the economic situation, the aftermath of World War II, the Cold War, the war in Indochina, and the Algerian War. This censorship program was effective particularly in terms of fostering a climate of self-censorship among directors and producers. By tacit agreement, there was little or no material produced that reflected on the war years or, more specifically, the problem of collaboration.

The French film industry was characterized by inflexibility, not only in terms of subject matter, but also in terms of personnel. Films were stylized, reflecting the domination of the industry by cinematographers and technicians who were protected and nurtured by the unionized structures of the big studios. Directors typically served long years of apprenticeship and were often forty years old before making a first film. One of the few directors to emerge in this period was Yves Allégret (1907–1986), who remained limited by his adherence to the traditions of the past. New, more notable actors and actresses included Simone Signoret (1921–1985), Gérard Philipe (1922–1959), and Madeleine Robinson (1916–2004).

This period was identified with the Tradition of Quality—dismissed by young critics of the period, such as François Truffaut (1932–1984), as "cinéma de papa" (daddy's movies). The Tradition of Quality emphasized craft over innovation, privileged established directors over new directors, and preferred the great works of the past to experimentation. Literary adaptation provided fertile ground for this decade, on the part of those who were anxious to prove the cultural superiority of French film in the face of a massive influx of Hollywood movies into the French market. Grémillon, Guitry, Pagnol, Renoir, Clair, and Duvivier continued to make films, as did the new generation that emerged during the Occupation. Autant-Lara, Clément, Georges Rouquier (1909–1989), Clouzot, Becker, Ophüls, Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), Bresson, and Jacques Tati (1908–1982) made significant films during this period. Characteristic Tradition of Quality films include Douce (Love Story, Autant-Lara, 1943), La Symphonie pastorale (Delannoy, 1946), and Casque d'or (Golden Marie, Becker, 1952). Actors associated with the Tradition of Quality are Philipe, Martine Carol (1922–1967), and Simone Signoret. Philipe's polished acting style and the sophisticated mature femininity of Carol and Signoret contrasted the youthful insouciance of the actors who would be used by the directors of the later New Wave.

The ciné-club movement, inaugurated by Delluc in the 1920s, became a significant force in French culture and in the development of French cinema. The cinéphile—the amateur fanatic of film and film history—appeared as a distinct character on the French cultural scene and was defined as specifically French, as the word itself suggests. The ciné-club produced a new type of film spectator, film critic, and eventually director, preparing the way for the French New Wave. Such film critics as André Bazin, Alexandre Astruc, Truffaut, and Ado Kyrou (Adonis Kyrou) revived the debates of the Impressionists in the context of post–World War II France. Cahiers du Cinéma (1951) and Positif (1952) replaced L'Écran français (1943–1953) and remained important venues for discussion about film throughout the twentieth century. This lively intellectual climate was a major force in the dramatic changes in film aesthetics and the film industry that subsequently took place.

The government also played a role in fostering a new generation and a new type of director. A regulation eliminating the double-bill (two feature-length films) created a renaissance of short films, as did the new system of supporting film projects based on quality that had been inaugurated by the CNC during this period. Such directors as Alain Resnais (b. 1922), Georges Franju (1912–1987), and Pierre Kast (1920–1984), later known as part of le groupe de trente (the group of thirty), were already making short films that fell outside the Tradition of Quality. These short films were distributed via the ciné-clubs and the art et essai theaters, that is, small theaters that were the equivalent of the art house theater in Great Britain and the United States. By the end of the 1950s, the old guard had been successfully challenged in the popular arena by young filmmakers, such as Roger Vadim (1928–2000) with Et Dieu … créalafemme (And…God created Woman, 1955). Critical reception of the outsider filmmakers was equally positive, as in the case of Jean-Pierre Melville's (1917–1973) Le Silence de la mer (Silence of the Sea, 1949), Astruc's Le Rideau cramoisi (The Crimson Curtain, 1953) and Les Mauvaises rencontres (Bad Liaisons, 1955), La Pointe-courte (AgnèsVarda, 1956), Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows, Louis Malle, 1958), Un Amour de poche (Girl in His Pocket, Kast,1958), and Goha (Jacques Baratier, 1958). Some of these films, such as La Pointe-courte, starring Philippe Noiret (b. 1930), encountered legal problems that forced them to be shown clandestinely in the first instance and prevented widespread distribution until many years later. On the whole, however, most members of the CNC were sympathetic to the ideals of the young filmmakers and were instrumental in supporting the changes to the cinema that characterized the late 1950s and early 1960s.

FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT
b. François Roland Truffaut, Paris, France, 6 February 1932, d. 21 October 1984

As a director, François Truffaut incarnates the virtues and weaknesses of the French New Wave. Much of his work reflects the troubled circumstances of his early life—illegitimacy, abandonment, and foster care. At age sixteen, Truffaut came under the influence of André Bazin, who served as a father figure and introduced him to the film society Objectif 49, a group that would become a forum for New Criticism. A noted critic from 1950, Truffaut wrote many periodical articles, including "Une Certaine tendance du cinéma française" (1954), in which he attacked the Tradition of Quality and set the agenda to revitalize French cinema.

Truffaut's work as a director is uneven. His first film, Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959), starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, was considered a triumph for a new generation of filmmakers because in it Truffaut introduced a more personal, spontaneous style that thumbed its nose at the stilted academic work of the studio directors who had dominated French film production during the postwar years. This film was financed by Truffaut's first wife, Madeleine Morgenstern, whose father owned one of the most powerful French distribution companies of the time, Cocinor. Despite his obsessive love of other women, she supported him throughout his career and was at his bedside when he died of a brain tumor at age fifty-two.

In a number of subsequent films, Truffaut used the Doinel character (played by Léaud) as an alter ego to mirror his own life, from the misunderstood child and troubled delinquent of The 400 Blows to the tormented lover and failed husband approaching middle age in L'Amour en fuite (Love on the Run, 1978). Truffaut is at his best when immersed in the study of character, as in Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim, 1962), in which the innocence, generosity, and tenderness of the three main characters is very sensitively captured, and at his worst when he attempts to imitate Hollywood directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he professed a strong admiration. An example of an unsuccessful effort to imitate a Hitchcock thriller is La Mariéeétait en noir (The Bride Wore Black, 1968), which even Truffaut declared he did not like much.

Truffaut's influence on cinema was international in scope. He conveyed in his films and in his writing an apparently inexhaustible and infectious enthusiasm for the possibility of authentic personal expression in the cinema. Perhaps his most moving film after The 400 Blows, L'Enfant Sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970) stars Truffaut as a scientist who attempts to communicate with an abandoned autistic child. Throughout his life, Truffaut believed that human communication could transcend language and culture. No doubt, his influence on young filmmakers derives from this faith.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959), Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player, 1960), Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim, 1962), La Mariéeétait en noir (The Bride Wore Black, 1968), Basiers volés (Stolen Kisses, 1968), La Sirène du Mississippi (Mississippi Mermaid, 1969), Le' Enfant Sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970), Domicile conjugal (Bed & Board, 1970), Deux anglaises et le continent (Two English Girls, 1971), La Nuit américaine (Day for Night, 1973), L'Histoire d'Adèle H. (The Story of Adele H, 1975), L'Argent de poche (Small Change, 1976), L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (The Man Who Loved Women, 1977)

FURTHER READING

Crisp, C. G. François Truffaut. London and New York: Praeger, 1972.

De Baecque, Antoine, and Serge Toubiana. Truffaut: A Biography. Translated by Catherine Temerson. New York: Knopf, 1999.

Petrie, Graham. The Cinema of François Truffaut. New York: A. S. Barnes and London: Zwemmer, 1970.

Truffaut, François. The Films in My Life. Translated by Leonard Mayhew. New York: Da Capo, 1994. Translation of Les Films de ma vie (1975).

——. Letters of François Truffaut. Edited by Gilles Jacob and Claude de Givray. Translated and edited by Gilbert Adair. Foreword by Jean-Luc Godard. Boston and London: Faber, 1989.

Hilary Ann Radner

By the end of the 1950s, French cinema had undergone a major transformation from a free-market economy to an economy largely submitted to state control. Stagnation had set in, provoking harsh criticism from a generation of film critics who had grown up with film as a major cultural force. The ciné-clubs had developed a

highly literate audience for film, sophisticated in their tastes, and informed about the historical issues governing the development of film. In the post–World War II years, debates about the status of film as art were reanimated by a new generation of critics writing for journals, such as Cahiers du Cinéma, and concerns about quality had become a paramount issue at the CNC. Polemical debates about the rigidity of the old guard created an environment receptive to a new kind of filmmaking, one that once again would define itself against Hollywood while looking to a number of Hollywood directors who had gained the status of auteur for inspiration.

THE FRENCH NEW WAVE AND ITS
AFTERMATH: 1959 TO 1969

The term "New Wave" (Nouvelle Vague) was coined by the journalist Françoise Giroud in a series of articles published in L'Express during 1957, based on surveys conducted by the magazine. The term was taken up again by L'Express in 1959 to describe a new group of directors who showed films at the Cannes Film Festival that year. The epithet "New Wave" was exploited by Unifrance-film, an official arm of the CNC, to popularize and distinguish these new French directors abroad and eventually became permanently associated with a group of young directors who emerged roughly at the end of the 1950s through the beginning of the 1960s. Also known as la Bande des Cahiers, these filmmakers were loosely united around a number of critics turned directors, such as Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930), who published in Cahiers du Cinéma.

Though a few directors associated with the French New Wave made films before 1959, such as Roger Leenhardt (1903–1985) and Melville, the first films of 97 of the 192 new French filmmakers cited by Cahiers du Cinéma in the New Wave special issue (1962) appeared between 1958 and 1962. Truffaut's Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959), often considered the benchmark film of the New Wave, was in fact preceded by films such as Le Beau Serge (Handsome Serge, 1958) and Les Cousins (The Cousins, 1959) by Claude Chabrol (b. 1930). The years 1958 and 1959 saw the deaths of a series of great directors who had produced significant work during the previous two decades—Ophüls, Grémillon, and Becker,

leaving a number of studio-trained successors in the wings: Edouard Molinaro (b. 1928), Claude Sautet (1924–2000), and Michel Deville (b. 1931) had solid careers and often migrated to features destined for television in the late 1960s and 1970s. However, the hegemony of the old studio system was drawing to a close.

Popular cinema, le cinéma du sam'di soir (Saturday night movies), remained a significant box-office force, often in the form of star vehicles for actors such as Fernandel (1903–1971) and Gabin. The growing impact of television resulted in lower numbers of ticket sales, but cinema still overshadowed television as the single most popular form of mass entertainment. The big-budget Tradition of Quality films suffered the most, though the genre was kept alive through Italian co-productions and was revived as the heritage film in the 1980s.

The productions, values, and techniques of the French cinema industry changed radically in the years that followed, opening up a new mode of production grounded in the small-budget film that made way for a new generation of directors with a different artistic conception of film. New lightweight equipment and more sensitive film stock permitted young filmmakers who saw themselves as auteurs to begin making films. These new technologies freed filmmakers from the constraints of the large studio-based, heavily unionized film crews that were integral to the film style associated with the Tradition of Quality.

The New Wave filmmakers might be said to share a certain sensibility—one that stood in stark contrast with the controlled mise-en-scène, trained performances, and studio lighting of the Tradition of Quality. By and large, New Wave directors favored improvisation and the use of available light, location shooting, direct sound, and vernacular language. Perhaps more importantly, this sensibility was associated with a mode of production, the small-budget film that gave the director complete artistic control, establishing him or her as the author or auteur of the work. The notion that the director functioned as the artistic creator of the film, with the film serving primarily as a vehicle for his or her vision, had a significant influence not only on film production but also on the way in which films were evaluated—in particular, in the context of a developing academic discourse on film.

New character types emerged with the New Wave, along with a more spontaneous acting style. Although the New Wave directors turned their backs on the established stars, the New Wave developed stars of its own, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo (b. 1933) and Jeanne Moreau (b. 1928), both of whom would go on to have international careers and have a significant impact on French cinema by sponsoring projects and taking a role in decisions about policy. Male stars such as Jean-Pierre Léaud (b. 1944) and Belmondo specialized in playing antiheroes, and together they formed the masculine face of the New Wave. Women stars such as Moreau, Bernadette Lafont (b.1938), Anna Karina (b.1940), and Brigitte Bardot (b.1934) played either gamine embodiments of youthful sensuality, or dark, neurotic intellectuals.

Strategies used by the French New Wave, such as direct sound and location shooting, were also part of the cinéma vérité movement that developed during the same period, associated with figures such as the anthropologist-filmmaker Jean Rouch (1917–2004). Again, the relatively low budgets associated with this genre of filmmaking made it attractive to intellectuals interested in interrogating social norms and circulating anti-establishment political statements. Not since the early days of cinema had it been possible for so many people to make so many films. A new pattern was established: directors no longer necessarily spent years working in the industry and perfecting their craft before embarking on a solo project. A director might make one or two more or less successful films before moving to some other activity. Though in fact New Wave directors worked with small, well-established crews maintained from one film to the next, they were the significant driving force behind the look, structure, and feel of the films.

JEANNE MOREAU
b. Jeanne Moreau, Paris, France, 23 January 1928

As a star, a woman, and a national figure, Jeanne Moreau exemplifies the ideal of the French film actress in the post–New Wave era. Though overshadowed in the popular press by such stars as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve, both of whom served as the model for Marianne, the official statue that represents France, Moreau, through her image as well as her position in the French film industry, embodied French femininity for a generation of film lovers. She personified the intelligent actress whose dark, mature, and potentially dangerous sensuality stood in stark contrast to the blonde sex kitten that dominated Hollywood screens. Moreau was considered un-photogenic, a jolie laide, whose personal magnetism and speaking voice overshadowed her features.

Her early background in theater lent credibility to her career in cinema, which began in 1948 and which includes over one hundred films. Her roles in films associated with the New Wave, such as Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows, 1958)and Les Amants (The Lovers, 1958), both directed by Louis Malle, gave her international prominence. Her portrayal of Catherine in Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim, 1962), directed by François Truffaut, New Wave director par excellence, solidified her star image. International films, including Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (The Night, 1961), Orson Welles's Une Histoire immortelle (The Immortal Story, 1968), Anthony Asquith's The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), and Carlo Diegues's Joanna Francesa (1973), also have featured prominently in her career.

Moreau took a substantial risk in choosing to work with young, relatively unknown directors in the late 1950s and the 1960s. Throughout her career, she made choices that reflected her sense of cinema as an art and, as a result, she is universally respected for her professionalism and commitment. In addition to awards for specific roles (Cannes, 1960; Académie du cinéma, 1962; Célsar, 1990), she has received lifetime tributes from the Cannes Film Festival (1992), the Venice Film Festival (Golden Lion, 1992), and the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (1998).

Moreau has been involved in all aspects of French cinema. She was twice Présidente of the Jury at the Cannes Festival, and in 1993, she was appointed Présidente of the Commission d'Avances sur Recettes, a body of experts that advises the Centre National de la Cinématographie. She has also supported Equinox, an organization she created in 1993 that holds annual workshops for new scriptwriters. Moreau has directed two films herself, Lumière (1976), a portrait of four film actresses, and L'Adolescente (The Adolescent, 1979), the evocation of a visit by a girl to her grandparents in Avignon on the eve of World War II. Moreau was elected a member of the Academy of Beaux Arts in 2001.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows, 1958), Les Amants (The Lovers, 1958), Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons, 1959), La Notte (The Night, 1961), Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim, 1962), Le Journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid, 1964), La Mariéeétait en noir (The Bride Wore Black, 1968), Querelle (1982), La Femme Nikita (Nikita, 1990), L'Absence (The Absence, 1993)

FURTHER READING

Vincendeau, Ginette. Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. London: Continuum, 2000.

Hilary Ann Radner

The New Wave philosophy did not mean that big-budget filmmaking was over in France or elsewhere, but it did introduce a parallel tradition that would make filmmaking more accessible to a wide range of individuals who declined to see cinema as mass entertainment, preferring to use film primarily as a form of personal or aesthetic expression. Within the New Wave, two equally important groups contributed to the rise of this new style in filmmaking: the very vocal group emerging out of Cahiers du Cinéma, including Chabrol, Truffaut, Godard, Jacques Rivette (b. 1928), Eric Rohmer (b. 1920), and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (1920–1989); and the equally productive, if less polemical, filmmakers who espoused a more personal vision, including Franju, Jean-Pierre Mocky (b. 1929), and Claude Lelouch (B. 1937). Un homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman, Lelouch, 1966) was arguably the most influential French film of the 1960s. Directors whose work was closely aligned with the new directions of current

literature, such as Renais and Buñuel, were sympathetic to the New Wave if not technically among its members and contributed to the aesthetic fecundity of the period. Resnais, though often associated with the New Wave, is distinguished from the typical New Wave directors by his willingness to efface himself through the adaptation of works by other writers, and by his highly intellectualized approach. His major films from the late 1950s and 1960s include Hiroshima mon amour (Hiroshima, My Love, 1959), with a script by Marguerite Duras (1914–1996), and L'Annéedernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad, 1961), produced in collaboration with Alain Robbe-Grillet (b. 1922), starring the cult actress Delphine Seyrig (1932–1990), and with costumes by Coco Chanel.

While the new breed of filmmakers was lionized at festivals, the career directors of established French cinema turned to television. The Buttes-Chaumont Studios, in particular, continued the Tradition of Quality in its productions for television. Directors emerged from the studio tradition, often the same age as the adherents of the New Wave, continued their careers—such as Delannoy, Gilles Grangier (1911–1996), and Denys de La Patellière (b. 1921). At Buttes-Chaumont these directors produced work that maintained the technical standards of the previous decades. Paradoxically, given France's reputation for intellectual fare, the biggest French box-office hit of all time was a popular comedy, La Grande Vadrouille (Don't Look Now We're Being Shot At, 1966), directed by Gérard Oury (b. 1919) and starring Bourvil (1917–1970) and Louis de Funès (1914–1983).

The strikes and upheavals of May 1968 had an immediate if not necessarily lasting effect on French cinema, when demonstrators disrupted the Cannes Film Festival. Plans to reform the processes of production and distribution were put forward but eventually discarded. Individual reactions were varied: Malle gave up fiction film for two years in order to make documentaries; Godard threw himself into collective productions that were never commercially distributed.

CINEMA IN FLUX: 1970 TO 1989

By the early 1970s, the effects of the New Wave and of May 1968 had dissipated. Certain directors, such as Truffaut, were reintegrated into the French mainstream and directed films that clearly continued the tradition of French cinema associated with figures like Guitry and Renoir. Conversely, Godard and Rivette experimented with form and content, while others, like Bresson—never part of the New Wave—steadfastly pursued a personal itinerary. Directors like Louis Malle pushed the boundaries of film content with productions like Le Souffle au coeur (Murmur of the Heart, 1971), about incest, and Lacombe Lucien (1974), about a young peasant who collaborates with the Germans. In the aftermath of the New Wave, a new generation of young filmmakers emerged that included Maurice Pialat (1925–2003), Jacques Doillon (b. 1944), and Jean Eustache (1938–1981), who continued the auteurist tradition inaugurated by the Cahiers group. More importantly, the role of cinema in French culture changed irrevocably, as it was no longer the primary medium of mass entertainment. By the end of the 1970s, more people watched films on television than in theaters.

By the mid-1970s, French culture had freed itself from the rigid hierarchies and social behaviors that previously characterized everyday life; however, the utopian environment anticipated by the activists in the 1960s did not become a reality. Censorship policies were abandoned (though the category X was created for taxation purposes). The result was a flourishing tradition of soft-core pornography, exemplified by Emmanuelle (1974), directed by Just Jaeckin (b. 1940). Global consumerism appeared as if it would successfully colonize French culture, which seemed in danger of losing its specificity.

An exception to this trend was the growing tradition of women's cinema, which gravitated to the Festival international de films de femmes (French International Women's Film Festival), established in Sceaux in 1979 and moved to Créteil in 1985. A number of significant women filmmakers emerged from the woman's movement

during the 1970s and went on to make important contributions to French cinema, including Yannick Bellon (b. 1924), Diane Kurys (b. 1949), and Coline Serreau (b. 1947). The influx of women filmmakers such as Christine Pascal (1953–1996) and Brigitte Roüan (b.1946) who emerged through festivals and as graduates of French film schools, continued to grow over the next two decades. Significant women directors who appeared in the 1980s and 1990s include Josiane Balasko (b. 1950), Claire Denis (b. 1948), and Catherine Breillat (b. 1950).

During these years Hollywood film gained new ground, further diminishing an audience already depleted by television. Nevertheless, French cinema remained a force in French culture. Popular comedies such as Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, 1973), starring Louis de Funès, continued to have strong box-office appeal. But by the late 1980s, Hollywood films systematically outperformed French films at the French box office. The growing prominence of the Césars, the French "Oscar" (first awarded in 1976 and initially dismissed by the international film industry), testified to the continuing importance of film within French culture, despite diminishing box-office returns. By the 1990s, half of the French population would watch la nuit des Césars (the night of the Cesars) on television.

The government's sustained support for the film industry in France reflected this centrality. Under the socialist government (1981–1995), support was stronger than ever before, ensuring the survival of the industry during a period in which the European cinema as a whole suffered a serious decline. Initiatives inaugurated by Minister of Culture Jack Lang (b. 1939), including the creation of eight maisons de la culture (regional cinema centers), encouraged regional filmmakers. However, on the whole, Paris remained at the heart of French feature-length production through the 1970s and 1980s. A significant diversification of perspective resulted from the number of foreign directors who exploited the favorable conditions offered to the film industry by the French government. Directors such as Joseph Losey, Ettore Scola, Otar Iosseliani, Hugo Santiago, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Raoul Ruiz, Andrzej Zulawski, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kiéslowski, and Emir Kusturica all made films in France, financed, at least partially, by French money.

During the 1980s, encouraged by the Socialist government, the liberalization of French culture and society continued, manifested in cultural pluralism and cultural sensitivity. For example, under the leadership of French comedian and film actor Coluche (Michel Colucci; 1944–1986), the artistic community created Les Restos du Coeur, which provided free meals for the homeless. In general, the 1980s were marked by disillusionment with social reform and economic change, leading to the rise of individualism of the 1990s and the gradual disappearance of the political film in France.

Until the mid-1980s, the success of popular cinema in France depended in large part upon film series coproduced by stars such as Belmondo, Alain Delon (b. 1935), and Funès. By the mid-1980s, this generation of stars had died or aged, and French cinema moved away from formula-driven production. Films such as Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Baby, 1985) and La Vie est un long fleuve tranquil (Life Is a Long Quiet River, 1987), box-office successes, were exceptions rather than the rule and did not fit any well-defined template. The number of box-office entries continued to fall, and by 1993 box-office receipts for French films were significantly less than for their Hollywood counterparts. The strategies and financial incentives promoted by Lang during this period insured that French filmmaking remained financially healthy; however, the industry's hold on French minds and culture waned. In particular, the youth segment that dominated audiences was more interested in foreign productions than in French material, an attitude that was reflected in the rise of international co-productions.

DISTRIBUTION AND THE EFFECTS OF
TELEVISION: THE 1980s

By the end of the 1980s, it could no longer be said that cinema dominated the French cultural landscape. It had become merely one medium among many that appealed to French audiences. Beginning in the late 1970s, French cinema became part of le paysage audiovisuel français (the French audiovisual landscape). Though certain established film stars retained their impact, the new generation of French film stars failed to achieve the cult status of their predecessors. The national film star was eclipsed by international celebrities from a variety of media, including music and television. Certain French stars, such as Juliette Binoche (b. 1964) and Gerard Depardieu (b. 1948), achieved world standing through participation in international co-productions; however, it was the rare French star who migrated to Hollywood, where male stars such as Charles Boyer (1899–1978), Chevalier, and Louis Jourdan (b. 1920) had achieved success during the classical era. Other French stars, for instance Isabelle Huppert (b. 1955), extended their audience by appearing in theater productions. In general, French stars continued to cross between a variety of media, including film, television, café-theater, and advertising. New French stars, however, failed to achieve the kind of international notoriety conferred by the paparazzi on the likes of Bardot, Catherine Deneuve (b. 1943), Belmondo, and Delon in previous decades.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, television became a significant distribution network for film through the development of privately owned television stations, pay-TV, and cable networks. Indeed, television became a repertory theater devoted to screening the entire archive of French cinema from the silent era onward. Theaters were unable to compete, and even art et essai theaters, with their niche audiences, were threatened with extinction.

Television channels were extremely competitive and quickly began producing films as well as distributing them, especially in order to offer new material during highly desirable time slots. The first attempts of this type date to 1959, but it was not until 1976 that television coproductions became popular, and by the beginning of the 1980s few films were produced without some sort of support from Canal Plus, a subscription-based, encrypted television distribution network and subsidiary of Vivendi, a multinational media company. Beginning in 1984, the television industry was taxed, and these new revenues offset the decline of ticket-entry based levies, which had been one of the primary sources of support for French cinema since the inauguration of the CNC and its policies.

The film industry received a further boost in 1985 when Lang created the Société de Financement de?matographiques et Audiovisuelles program (SOFICA), which offered tax shelters to companies investing in the film industry. Despite a steady decline in cinema attendance throughout the 1980s that reached its nadir in the early 1990s, these efforts succeeded in providing a sound financial basis for the French film industry. Yet the rise of international co-productions threatened the distinctiveness of French films while contributing to the industry's health and stability. Television had a paradoxical effect on cinema in France: on the one hand, it successfully challenged film as the primary form of mass entertainment; on the other, it was a source of financial support that enabled the film industry to continue to produce French films for a French public while encouraging the development of financially advantageous international co-productions.

With the rise of television, the distributor became a major force in the French film industry. Family-owned theaters disappeared and were replaced by multiplexes. In 1970, Pathé and Gaumont jointly created a network of over four hundred theaters under an umbrella organization, G.I.E. In 1971, the theaters grouped under UGC, l'Union générale des cinémas (the General Union of Film Theaters), which had been requisitioned by the state after World War II, privatized and became the heart of a network of several hundred cinemas. Another network, Parafrance, developed with the support of the CNC. But this system was unstable. In 1983 the CNC, empowered by a decree issued by Lang, dissolved G.I.E. Pathe Industries Ciné-Gaumont. By 1984, Parafrance was no more; however, Pathé and Gaumont reorganized, partitioned, and consolidated their shares of the market. The multiplex system became—the CNC's efforts notwithstanding—one of the formative influences on the further development of French cinema.

The major distributors were averse to taking risks. They evolved a system that maximized profit by saturating the national market with promotional materials and supporting multiple premieres in the most commercially viable locations. After 1989, it was not unusual to make eight hundred prints of a single film, which would then be shown simultaneously at ten percent of all theaters. The rising production costs made the financial risks greater, but the multiplex system also enabled producers to enjoy enormous financial rewards if they did have a box-office success. The incentive to produce blockbusters grew while the possibility of enjoying a modest success in a niche market diminished. Either a film made it big during the first week of its release or disappeared from the screen. Under this system, French cinema became even more vulnerable to the threat posed by Hollywood movies, particularly in the form of the blockbusters.

DEFEAT AND RENEWAL: SINCE 1990

Supported by Lang, heritage cinema, which favored literary adaptation, historical topics, costume dramas, and high production values, initially appeared as though it might revitalize the theatrical release. Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), by Jean-Paul Rappeneau (b. 1932), was a financial, critical, and popular success and was preceded by the successes of Jean de Florette (1986) and Manon des sources (Manon of the Spring, 1986) by Claude Berri (b. 1934). But this apparent trend immediately reversed itself. Big productions, such as Jean Galmot, aventurier (Jean Galmot, Adventurer, Alain Maline, 1990), bombed, while low-budget films, such as La Discrète (The Discreet, Christian Vincent, 1990), were box-office successes. The most obvious trend in this period was the grouping of individual filmmakers in terms of generations, beginning with an established group of still-active directors dating from the French New Wave period that included Bresson, Chabrol, Godard, Resnais, Rohmer, Rivette, and Varda. Other groups of younger filmmakers comprised those who positioned themselves as continuing the New Wave (André Téchiné [b. 1943], Benoît Jacquot [b.1947], and Claude Miller [b. 1942]), those who saw themselves as reviving the cinema of quality (Michel Deville, Claude Sautet, Bertrand Tavernier [b. 1941]), and, finally, those who conceived of themselves as pursuing an individualist vision (Doillon, Maurice Pialat [1925–2003], Philippe Garrel [b. 1948], and Alain Cavalier [b. 1931]). Another group of very heterogeneous filmmakers is made up of directors united by their interest in social issues. Often referred to as le jeune cinéma français (young French cinema), this group includes

women directors such as Breillat, as well as directors associated with cinéma beur, also known as cinema of the Mahgreb (such as Mehdi Charef [b. 1952] and Malik Chibane [b. 1964]), the cinéma de banlieu or neighborhood (such as Mathieu Kassovitz [b. 1964]), and regional cinema (Bruno Dumont [b. 1958]). This group also incorporated directors like Varda and Tavernier, whose more recent work, such as Varda's Jane B. par AgnèsV. (Jane B. for Agnes V., 1987) and Tavernier's L. 627 (1992), were influenced by this new sensibility. This mulidirectional development suggests the ways in which as the millenium approached and passed, the ideal of French culture as homogeneous and grounded in French language and French heritage no longer reflected the lived experience of the younger generations of French citizens.

Perhaps the most obvious testimony to the transformation of the French cultural landscape is found in the cinéma du look (cinema of the look), a film genre influenced by cartoons, advertising, and music videos. This genre is sometimes associated with the Forum des Halles, referring to the designer chic, ultra-modern shopping complex in central Paris that became a focal point for youth culture after its opening in 1979. The obsession of the cinéma du look with style, inaugurated by Diva by Jean-Jacques Beineix (b. 1964) in 1981, repeatedly threatened to run out of steam, but it nevertheless maintained its impetus through the mid-1990s and beyond—often in the form of Hollywood productions, as in the case of Luc Besson (b. 1959). Besson, who emerged as one of the Forum des Halles directors alongside Beineix and Leos Carax (b. 1960), remained through the turn of the twenty-first century one of France's most bankable directors, even though his later films were often made abroad. In addition to slick, stylized framing, composition, lighting, and editing imported from the world of advertising, the films had in common a rejection of society and its values, emphasizing instead the individual's pursuit of happiness. Although routinely rejected by established French critics, these films and their directors proved so successful, especially in an international context, that eventually scholars of French culture were forced to take them seriously. Both heritage films—which tended toward costume super-productions, such as La Reine Margot (Queen Marguerite, 1994) or LeHussard sur le toit (The Horseman on the Roof, 1995) and the cinéma du look—fall into a category often referred to as "the new spectacular cinema," which depended on big budgets, heavy marketing, and concept promotion for its success. Attempts to mobilize these strategies pepper the French cinema of the 1990s and early 2000s, achieving variable success. In fact, the big successes of the early 2000s were by and large, relatively low-budget productions by Hollywood standards, such as Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie, 2001) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (b. 1955), when French film outsold Hollywood film at the French box office for the first time in over a decade.

Equally significant were the number of French directors earlier in the decade, such as Jeunet and Jean-Jacques Annaud (b. 1943), who alternated between making Hollywood films for a global audience and French films for a French audience. Although heavily attacked for selling their "art," these directors maintained a profile as auteurs that can be identified as French. The consistency of their work depended upon an informal group of actors and actresses as well as crewmembers and even composers whose contributions were critical to reproducing a distinctive look and feel attributed to a given director.

While individual directors systematically represented French cinema abroad, typically the highest grossing French films at the French box office have been social comedies, such as Marriages (Catherine Martin, 2001). Comedies and romantic comedies, usually revolving around social mores and often featuring well-known actors and actresses, remained popular with French audiences; however, they were not formula-driven. These films were rarely attractive to foreign audiences, yet the increasing number of Hollywood remakes of French films since the early 1980s, usually comedies, such as Edouard Molinaro's La Cage aux folles (1978), remade by Mike Nichols as The Birdcage (1996), and Serreau's Trois hommes et un couffin (1985), remade by Leonard Nimoy as Three Men and a Baby (1987), indicate the sustained global interest in French cinema.

At the end of the twentieth century, French cinema appears to have revived. Its existence, though precarious, has been assured through vigorous state sponsorship. Films such as François Ozon's (b. 1967) Sous le sable (Under the Sand, 2000) and The Swimming Pool (2003) have pursued the intimiste subjects that characterized French cinema of the late twentieth century; however, the critical and intellectual hegemony spawned by the New Wave was displaced in the late 1990s and early 2000s by a more popular, less angst-ridden cinema with such films as Amélie (2001), Christophe Barratier's (b. 1963) Les Choristes (The Chorus, 2004), and Jeunet's Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement, 2004). This movement produced box-office successes that brought French cinema out of the slump that it had experienced in the early 1990s. The major challenge that faced the French cinema at the turn of the millenium was maintaining its position in a global market while preserving its identity as a French cinema for French audiences.

France successfully upheld the status of audiovisual productions as "cultural exceptions" in General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs (GATT through 1993) and subsequent World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. The results were favorable conditions for French film in France and in Europe through the imposition of protective tariffs as well as quotas. Because of these and other measures on the part of the State, such as cross-subsidization from the television industry, the French share of the French box office has stabilized at about one third, after a few difficult years at the beginning of the 1990s. In spite of this success within the French market, France's share of the foreign market has continued to decline, particularly in terms of television rights. French producers have countered by co-producing more English-language films, such as Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002).

The privileged status that French film has retained in the WTO negotiations might seem to be a victory for cultural purists. The French government, nonetheless, required the industry to be fiscally responsible and has directed its policies with a view to financial as well as cultural soundness. In the late 1990s, French film became more sensitive to box-office demand, producing, for example, a greater number of comedies geared toward a popular audience. Unfortunately, these films rarely did well abroad. Another strategy, more successful in terms of exportability, was the move toward higher-budget, more sophisticated films geared toward a younger audience, such as Kassovitz's Les Rivières pourpres (Crimson Rivers, 2000) and Les Rivières pourpres: Les anges de l'apocalypes (Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse, 2004).

The auteur directors traditionally associated with French films were forced to produce films on ever-diminishing budgets and often resorted to film shorts. Aesthetic and formal experimentation moved out of the cinema into the museum, often crossing over into video and other media, as in the case of Godard's series Histoire(s) du cinéma (1989–1998). Some critics feared that this more personal and intellectual filmmaking might permanently disappear, to be replaced by films the likes of the "Crimson Rivers" series, that is, sensationalist star vehicles. Similarly, these same critics expressed concerns about whether this commercially viable cinema was really French. The Pianist, for example, does not feature a French director, a French star, or the French language. The question remained: would a popular French cinema be able to retain its hold on the French imagination as the cultural exception, as a cinema that challenged the global dominance of Hollywood, not simply within an economic arena but as the arbitrator of taste and culture? This question was first raised in the aftermath of World War I, and it has continued to be the crucial question facing French cinema at the turn of the millenium.

SEE ALSO National Cinema;New Wave

FURTHER READING

Abel, Richard. French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915–1929. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Austin, Guy. Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1996.

Buchsbaum, Jonathan. Cinema engagé: Film in the Popular Front. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Crisp, Colin. The Classic French Cinema, 1930–1960. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French Cinema, expanded ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Hillier, Jim, ed. Cahiers du Cinéma, Volume 1: The 1950s—Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave. London: Routledge and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

——, ed. Cahiers du Cinéma, Volume 2: The 1960s—New Wave, New Cinema, Re-evaluating Hollywood. London: Routledge and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Hughes, Alex, and James S. Williams, eds. Gender and French Cinema. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2001.

Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. New York: Continuum, 2002.

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Powrie, Phil, and Keith Reader. French Cinema: A Student's Guide. London: Arnold, 2002.

Vincendeau, Ginette. The Companion to French Cinema. London: The British Film Institute, 1996.

——. Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. London: Continuum, 2000.

Hilary Ann Radner