March 4, 2003

In the United States, the time-honored sport of French bashing has recently reached what appears to be an all-time high. But politics aside, there are few cultures that can lay claim to the kind of celluloid past that this Gallic nation has produced since August and Louis Lumiere collected what may have been the first box office receipts.

French film is so extensive that a short article such as this can only begin to scratch the surface of the varied treasures contained within its history. As there already exists a large body of literature on the subject in book form (Remi Fournier Lanzoni's recent French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present is a good example), this brief overview is intended as more of a celebration of personally loved highlights than any serious assessment of its major figures or movements. So please don't choke on your croissant when I overlook your favorite Sacha Guitry or Claude Autant-Lara film; I have no intention of slighting any of the personalities of French cinema here, but there are simply far too many great films and filmmakers to cover in a few hundred words.

The earliest years of film undoubtedly had a distinctly French flavor, with the aforementioned Lumieres widely acknowledged as pioneers in the projection movies and figures like Georges Melies breaking new ground with narrative. Also in the first part of the twentieth century, the historic studio Pathe came to completely dominate the nickelodeon era--so much so that American producers tried to limit French access to the United States market for this foreign product. This fact is somewhat amusing in light of France's present-day attempts to put up their own barriers to retard the influence of Hollywood, which are of course met with much gnashing of teeth by the American studios that now sit in the position of control. As is often the case with big business, just exactly what is considered "unfair" can tend to have a lot more to do with where companies are positioned in the marketplace than with any truly concrete notion of human ethics.

But regardless of the historical machinations of the capitalist machine, there's no doubt that an examination of the beginnings of this fledgling medium reveals that from the very first France was a hotbed of innovation and quality work. In addition to the important figures already discussed, during the era of silents there emerged from the country such great filmmakers such as Abel Gance, Maurice L'Herbier and Louis Feuillade. The latter is one of the most fascinating figures to come out of the first wave of French cinema, a true giant whose effect on the development of movies should not be underestimated. Hewing to a decidedly populist philosophy that held that film should be entertainment for the masses and not merely an artistic plaything for elites, Feuillade would become one of the top directors for the country's second largest studio, Gaumont. Between 1905 and his untimely death in 1925 he would direct over 700 films that spanned a large swath of styles from the fantastic to the realist. But what the filmmaker was best known for was his famous serials: Fantomas, Les Vampires and Judex, three episodic projects that would presage the movie thriller. While these films certainly show their age when viewed today, their combination of complex plotting (often to the point of utter absurdity), character development, exterior location shooting and wild climactic chases are strikingly modern in outlook. But Feuillade was in general a good bit ahead of his time in his understanding of this new art; his desire to make films that appealed to a large demographic that stretched across class barriers remains a cornerstone of the blockbuster mentality many decades after his films have faded from the screen.

France's influence over the cinema world would begin to wane prior to the advent of sound, but when the technology for audio came to the fore its position of market power on the world stage would truly diminish. The marketplace for movies during the silent era was quite easily a global phenomenon as the translation of intertitles presents far less of a language barrier than spoken dialogue, and so it had previously been fairly easy for Gaumont and Pathe to internationalize their product. With the coming of sound that ease would vanish, but though this would lessen the country's global power in the film world it would in no way stop the country's ability to produce world-class filmmakers.

In the pre-war years, figures such as Julien Duvivier, Marcel Pagnol, Jean Cocteau, Rene Clair, Jean Gremillon and Jacques Feyder would all make many high quality films. The beginning of the 1930s would also see Luis Bunuel create a landmark film (L' Age d' Or) inside the French film industry, while the end of the decade would see two huge figures in French film history emerge. The first was Marcel Carne, whose late 1930s movies (such as Port of Shadows and Daybreak) would be prelude to his future masterpiece, Children of Paradise. The second is Jean Renoir, one of the most talented film directors to ever stand behind the camera. Though Renoir had gotten his start in silent film, his star truly ascended during this decade and he would close out the 1930s with two stunning films that show up on many a list of the ten best films ever: The Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion.

The Second World War would upset the film industry in France, though the Vichy regime did continue with production. But after the war would be a particularly interesting period, one in which many of the styles that became associated with film noir would coalesce. The postwar malaise would deeply affect directors like Jacques Becker and Henri-Georges Clouzot, the latter especially being of a particularly pessimistic bent. The dark outlook of this filmmaker was first seen in The Murderer Lives at No. 21, a black comedy disguised as a murder mystery. Clouzot would go on to make some of the greatest French films of all time in the 1950s, including the great thriller Diabolique and the peerless The Wages of Fear, a brilliant and sprawling tale of human dregs delivering nitroglycerin through a fetid South American jungle. Lastly, one other great emerged as a director in the years immediately following World War Two: Robert Bresson, a true original who would only make 12 movies between 1945 and 1983 but would number among them such successes as Pickpocket and Diary of A Country Priest. One of Bresson's most fascinating films wouldn't be created until 1973, when he made Lancelot du Lac, a telling of the Arthurian legend that reduced the tale to its starkest and most minimal; filmmaker John Waters has suggested that all low budget filmmakers should view this project for tips on cheap techniques as it manages to generate its historic setting mostly through implication.

Bresson is one of the few filmmakers who spans both the postwar period and the age that is often seen as the industry's apex, the famous French New Wave. Towards the end of the 1950s a movement sprung up in the country that would become one of the most influential film trends ever. Encompassing works by Jaques Rivette, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and others, the New Wave would inspire a shift towards a style of film wherein the director was seen as an "auteur" whose personality shaped the scope and tone of any film that bore their mark. Many in the movement were former film critics who decided to get behind the camera in reaction to what they saw on screen during the early 1950s in France. The two largest figures in this movement were Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard, the former a man who would direct many fine films, but whose most seminal film is likely the 1959 story of childhood The 400 Blows. On the other hand, Godard - who continues to work today - is now most renowned for a film (Breathless) that was radical at the time of its creation but when seen now may seem so tame that younger viewers will wonder what the fuss is about. This is because the jump cutting and editing style which was so shocking in the year the film was released has now been so completely assimilated by the mainstream that it is likely to go completely unnoticed by viewers who now accept such techniques as a matter of course.

The period of the French New Wave is today considered one of the golden ages of film that from time to time arise in regional industries when the conditions are exactly right. Luckily, many of the figures from that time continue to make films today, and Rivette especially shows no signs of losing his touch. This continued work helps to contribute to the relative health of French film in the present time, for though it is in no way what it was earlier in its history, there still continue to be plenty of good films coming from the country. Highbrow filmmakers such as Gaspar Noe, Laurent Cantet, Claire Denis, Oliver Assayas and Robert Guerdiguian are continuing to create top-notch product, as well as slightly more mainstream directors like Francois Ozon and Benoit Jacquot. France has also proven that they can create projects that can succeed internationally; Christophe Gans' Brotherhood of the Wolf was a fair art house success last year and previously Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie managed to take in over $30 million dollars in US box office receipts. While other projects such as The Crimson Rivers also show that France is not incapable of creating bland Hollywood derivative product, in the main the industry is still operating at a fairly high level of artistic creation.

Given the number of films and directors mentioned in the above blathering, one might imagine that at this point the well would have run dry for movies or personalities to mention. But what really strikes me is just how much has been omitted: there's no sign of Jacques Demy's succulent candy pop musicals, Jean-Pierre Melville's insanely great gangster films, the comic genius of Jacques Tati or Max Linder, Jules Dassin's expatriate work, Alain Resnais and Chris Marker's artsy pretentiousness, Claude Lanzmann's documentaries, Agnes Varda's personally unique projects or Jean Painleve's surrealist biology. What's painfully obvious here is that a couple thousand words is woefully inadequate in describing the history of the film of France; the subject is simply too deep and wide to do anything but hit a cornerstone or two. But hopefully this piece will give some indication just how great the cinematic output of this sometimes recalcitrant nation has been during the course of film history. While they are often subject to much reviling today due to their current geopolitical positions, the discerning film lover would be wise to separate their love for celluloid from wider considerations of global diplomatic wrangling. For when it comes to the art of the movies there's only one phrase that should fall from the lips of the aficionado when looking at this country's contribution: Vive la France!

View other columns by Chris Hyde