History of the French cinema - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

France exerts since more than one century a major influence on the European and even world cinema. Brothers Light with Amélie Foal, New wave with the avant-garde, of Georges Méliès with the National center of cinematography (CNC), Cannes festival with the cultural Exception, the French cinema is present on all fronts. Put aside India, it is currently the only alternate national cinema having managed to structure itself economically vis-a-vis the Hollywood cinema.

The invention

Louis Aimee Augustin the Prince, French expatriate in England, built and deposited on January 11th, 1888, in England, the patent of a cinematographic camera of projection having only one lens. Well before Jean Roy, it carried out tests concluents on the bridge of Leeds and in its property of Oakwood Grange, Roundhay, Leeds in England, on October 14th, 1888. In other words, this short film of a few seconds is the first film carried out in the world, taking into account the date of death (October 24th, 1888), of one of the characters who appear there. What makes of Louis Aimée Augustin the Prince, the inventor of the Cinema.

Brothers Light with the Children of the Paradise

The cinematograph Light

At the end of the 19th century, during the heroic years of the cinema, France provides several important pioneers. Initially the brothers Auguste and Louis Light, inventors of the Cinematograph. The February 13rd 1895, they deposit the patent of the Cinematograph before presenting, the March 22nd 1895, in projection deprived in Paris at the Company of encouragement to national industry, the Exit of the Lumière factory in Lyon . After a triumphal round in France in front of spectators chosen, the Brothers Light try the commercial experiment. The December 28th 1895, the first projection public and paying is held with Paris in the Indian Salon of the Large Coffee, 14 Boulevard des Capucines. With the program in particular the Sprinkler sprinkled , the Meal of baby , the Exit of the factory Light in Lyon . 35 paying spectators are listed the first day; 35 francs of receipt and 5 francs of benefit for a rent fixed at 30 francs, the business was still profitable. Following the eulogistic articles of the Parisian press, 2000 to 2500 spectators are had a presentiment of quickly the every day; the rent remains fixed to him at only 30 francs per day for one minimum duration one year, contract obliges. The business becomes very juicy. 1895 is well year 1 of the cinema.

The kind in vogue is clearly the documentary . The operators are generally satisfied to pose their camera to film the life such as it is at the end of the street or with the other end of the world.

The brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière allowed the delicate passage between the time of the researchers and that of the users. And the users are numerous to press themselves at the Light to launch out in cinematography.

Silent film

Of Charles Pathé with Leon Gaumont while passing by Georges Méliès, the vocations do not miss. Light, Pathé and Gaumont assemble the first empires of the cinema, flooding the world of their productions. The cinema is then exclusively dumb and the barrier of the language does not exist. The image is it universal. It is estimated that France produced then nearly 80% of films in the world. They are essentially short films and of serial S. the French provide the first current foundations of the majors with control of turnings and the rooms. The French drive out even on the American grounds, under the nose of Edison, insane of rage. This last requires, and obtains, the expulsion of the French teams of turning and in particular makes close in April 1897 the American subsidiary company of the Lumière company.

One of the first to consider the cinema either as a testimony but as an art is Georges Méliès. It uses the tricks and easy ways of use in the world of the illusionists and adapts them for the cinema. If the Brothers Light invented the cinematograph, Méliès put at the world the cinematographic art. It thus signs in 1902 first film of Science-fiction, the Voyage in the Moon . Méliès realizes more than 500 short films, often painted with the hand, between 1896 and 1913. In addition to Méliès, the other great names of the silent film are burlesque the max Linder which will be later the source of inspiration of Charles Chaplin, and Louis Feuillade realizer of the first serial S of the Gaumont: Fantômas and the Vampires with Musidora.

One preserves today well few films of this heroic period which was very prolific. The film was often scraped and re-used, sometimes several times, erasing many works forever. Méliès, itself, acted thus.

The problem of the sound mobilizes some spirits and one sets up in Paris several rooms wired for sound as of 1912, the Gaumont Palace in the highest degree. The companies are however hostile with this evolution and manage to block any evolution in this direction. The linguistic stake was determining because France, from now on nibbled by the American productions and Danish in particular, could not allow the luxury to be satisfied with the only French-speaking market. One will thus wait two decades to progress on this level, but the French companies then any more do not have the gauge of their counterparts of pre-war period. As of the release of the Great War, all turnings are prohibited because the film costs too expensive out of raw materials, all reserved for the effort of war. The Americans benefit from aubaine and as of 1919, 80% of the entries in France are carried out by American films! Moreover, the rules of the game cinematographic changed with the advent of the feature-length film. Sounded but not K. - O., the French cinema is raised and seen emerging an often forgotten movement, “the avant-garde” which represents a first school of cinematography of importance. It is posed, as it should be, in reaction to the former generation and car the essence of its substance of a final aversion against the war. Let us quote here the realizer Abel Gance who moves away then from the guns of “the avant-garde” to sign some masterpieces of the silent film like grandiloquent the Napoleon (1927). In addition, " The roue" that Gance realizes since 1923 is unanimously regarded as one of the most innovative works of the time, as well by the modernity of its assembly as by the establishment of a kind of semantics of film in measurement or it tends to even propose to impose a pallet of the various directions of same a " appear of style" (the iris and the overprinting in particular). The shortly after the first projection Cocteau even declared that there is the cinema of before and according to the wheel. Homage of a Master to a genius too often clabaudé.

Like reaction, the state Frenchwoman established in 1928 a film quota of 1:7 (a French film by seven films foreign must be shown with the cinemas Frenchwomen) to help French film.

List of French films left in the years 1910, and before
List of French films left in the years 1920

Beginnings of speaking

The arrival of the talking films is an earthquake which awakes Deadened. 20 wired for sound rooms are listed in France in 1929; they are already 1 000 in 1931 and 4 250 in 1937. A beautiful generation of realizers and a crowd of talented actors generally coming from the theater, allow the production of several masterpieces. The public follows, even if one remains very far from the English figures, typical of an urban civilization while France still counts half of its population in the countryside. 150 million spectators in 1929, 234 in 1931 then 453 in 1938, the progression is beautiful. It stops temporarily there, because a strike paralyzes during several months the French cinematographic world in first half of the year 1939. The war puts everyone of agreement… The period reveals the first speaking film stars. Let us quote here Arletty, Fernandel, Jean Gabin, Raimu, Danielle Darrieux and Michel Simon on the side of the actors, Sacha Guitry, Julien Duvivier, Jean Renoir, Rene Clair and Marcel Pagnol to quote only them, at the realizers.

List of French films left in the years 1930

1940-1945: the cinema under the occupation

Contrary to a spread legend, the French cinema never finds its levels of pre-war period during the conflict. Far from there even. The best year, 1943, one exceptionally reaches the bar of the 304 million spectators. The cake is reduced, but there remains important. the Children of the paradise , masterpiece turned during the conflict, was carried out with a good amount of resourcefulness in order to compensate for the financial deficiencies.

List of French films left in the years 1940

1945-1980: French quality , new wave, cinemas popular

Forced by the agreements Blum-Byrnes between France and the United States, the French rooms know a new American film tidal wave. It was necessary to catch up with four years of war, and the Dictator , realized in 1940, is at the head French boxoffice in 1945, a whole symbol. It is the same for Gone With The Wind . Moreover in the Years 1950 and 1960, the American cinema knows its golden age. Black films, musical comedies, Western S, sophisticated comedies interpreted by large the stars Hollywood breaks on France, with the great joy of an young generation of film enthusiasts and to the great displeasure of a French production which has evil to find its gloss of pre-war period. In 1946 is created the National center of cinematography (CNC) to organize and support the French cinema. It is placed under the authority of the ministry for the Culture. In 1948, a tax is taken on each ticket to help with the recovery of cinema industry. Later, André Malraux accentuates this financial aid. Until our days, the public authorities will help the French cinema financially to resist American competition. To compensate for their financial weakness, the French producers often turn worms of the coproductions with Italy whose cinema is in full rise. The many coproductions with Italy create a very strong interaction between two cinematographies: stars Frenchwomen like Alain Delon or Italian as Gina Lollobrigida alternate films in France and Italy.

In same time, the Cannes festival, whose launching was pushed back by the war (created in 1939, but first edition in 1946), quickly makes up for its lost time on its competitor Venetian and is affirmed, very quickly, like most prestigious of the cinematographic festivals. The Cannes festival as of many film clubs which are created a little everywhere in France as well in the cities, the schools, the companies and of many labellized rooms Art and Essai , make it possible the French cinema to keep a window open on the world.

In addition, the richness of the French cinematographic criticism, which is expressed in specialized magazines like the Revue cinema , the Cahiers of the cinema or Positif support the blossoming of a critical reflection on the cinema, incomparable in the world, which will give birth to and accompany the New wave.

In the Years 1950, the entries in room beat records, with an average of 400 million per annum during the decade. This popular passion benefits as well American films as French: it is one period of euphoria for the hexagonal cinema.

List of French films left in the years 1950
List French films left in the years 1960
List French films left in the years 1970
List French films left in the years 1980

The French quality or the cinema of dad

To attract a great number of spectators and to dissociate American cinema, the French producers are pressed on the stars of pre-war period like Jean Gabin, Gaby Morlay, Danielle Darrieux, Michele Morgan, Jean Marais. New the stars are rare: Gerard Philippe which will remain in top of the poster until its death, Simone Signoret, Martine Carol and 1956 should be awaited and the arrival of sulfurous and discussed the Brigitte Bardot with And God… created the woman so that emerges a large news star French.

In the immediate future post-war period, the French cinema pays homage to the resistant ones: the Battle of the rail of Rene Clément leaves in 1946 and Jean-Pierre Melville adapts in 1947 the novel of Vercors, the Silence of the sea .

But the French cinema of the Années 1950 is especially characterized by what François Truffaut calls in 1954 in its article a certain tendency of the French cinema : French quality.

This one is initially a cinema of studio and scenario writers. It is fond of delicacies literary adaptations and films in costumes. In this art of the studio and literary adaptation, max Ophuls excels. In the Pleasure , adaptation of news of Guy of Maupassant, it benefits the maximum of the possibilities that the studio offers to him. But for Truffaut and the young French critic, Ophuls is the scenario writer who confirms the rule. The French quality is characterized as well as possible by films often very well scenarized in particular by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, but realism lack (studio, literary dialogs): Devil with the body of Claude Autant-Lara, the pastoral Symphony of Jean Delannoy, prohibited Plays of Rene Clement. For Truffaut, the role of the realizer, simple guaranteeing technician of the quality of the image, is limited to put in image the scenario.

The New wave

See detailed article: New wave

First generation

With narrow within the framework of the studios, a school of scenario writers takes the key of the fields and founds the New wave. The eternal discusses who consists in knowing if the New wave is a revolution of directors or operators chiefs is obviously never distinct: it is a question for this generation of being freed from the constraints from the studio and French quality, at the moment when industry leaves the lighter cameras facilitating turning to the shoulder and in outside.

The specialized magazine the Books of the founded cinema in 1951 by André Bazin holds a paramount role in the emergence and the evolution of this movement. François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol is two of the most talented realizers of this school, while the place of egery returns from right to Bernadette Lafont. Among major films, let us quote the Four Hundred Blows (1959) of Truffaut or Breathless of Godard (1960) with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

Second generation

Popular cinemas

Of cape and sword

This kind knew in France its greater hours of glory lasting of the years 1950-60. Gerard Philippe opened the way with his famous incarnation of Fanfan the Tulip in 1952. It is then Georges Marchal who took plume with the Three Musketeers of Andre Hunebelle (1953), the Viscount of Bragelonne (It Visconte di Bragelonne) of Fernando Cerchio (1954), the Adventures of Gil Blas de Santillane (Una Aventura of Gil Blas) of Rene Jolivet and Ricardo Muñoz Suay (1956). It yielded the place, since 1957, in Jean Marais who was the hero of the Tower, take guard! of Georges Lampin and connected with the Uneven one and Capitan in 1960, the Captain Crashes to pieces and the Miracle of the wolves in 1961, the iron Mask in 1962. Then it is Gerard Barray who took the changing, mainly in achievements of Bernard Borderie: Three Musketeers (in two times, 1961), the Knight of Pardaillan (1962) and Bold! Pardaillan (1964). Barray was also Scaramouche (Máscara de Scaramouche) of Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi in 1963.

In the kind, one also finds variations humorous like Cadet Rousselle d' André Hunebelle (with François Perrier and Bourvil, 1954) or histories like Cartouche of Philippe de Broca and Mandrin, gangster gentleman of Jean-Paul Chanois in 1962. Without forgetting the sentimental saga Angelica Marchioness of the Angels of Bernard Borderie with Michele Draper (5 films between 1964 and 1968).

But it is in France which the kind will find a new breath thanks to the two adaptations carried out successfully by Jean-Paul Rappeneau (that it had already brilliantly approached in 1971 with the Grooms of year II): Cyrano of Bergerac with Gerard Depardieu (1990) and Hussard on the roof with Olivier Martinez (1995). A female version, the Girl of Artagnan with Sophie Marceau, realized by Bertrand Tavernier in 1994, reinforced this new dash. On the other hand, some comic attempts being connected vaguely with the kind did not attract much public: The Libertine of Gabriel Aghion (2000) or White of Bernie Bonvoisin (2002).

Comedies with the Frenchwoman

The French whodunnit of Audiard with Melville

The stardom of the French cinema

After the Arletty, Darrieux and Morgan, the Martine Carol and Brigitte Bardot, the leading bunch of the French high-speed motorboats is dominated by the names of Jeanne Moreau, of Annie Girardot and Romy Schneider, of Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye. They are also the stars " captive of their physique" : Dominique Sanda is always the enigmatic one, Anny Duperey his/her sister brown, Catherine Deneuve the cold blonde like her Belle of day , Miou-Miou the waltzer with the style of gavroche, Claude Jade the young girl that each one would like to invite to its table, Audrey Tautou is her heiress, fabulous Amélie…

The male high-speed motorboats are according to the symbols of the sex like Alain Delon or Jean-Paul Belmondo and men profiled like Jean-Louis Trintignant, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret and Michel Serrault. Gerard Depardieu is the heir to Jean Gabin, which is the grandfather film enthusiast of Samuel Bihan…

1980 - 2005: crisis and revival of the French cinema

List of French films left in the years 1980
List French films left in the years 1990
List French films left in the years 2000

Competition with television is posed as of this period. Gently but surely, the number of the households equipped with television set increases while that of the spectators in room decrease. In its misfortune, France suffers less than its English neighbor who records a true collapse passing of 1,7 billion spectators in 1947 to 193 million in 1970. In France, one passes at the same dates of 424 million to 184 million. Since then, the French receipts will be higher than those recorded in Great Britain. The British touch the bottom in 1984 with 53 million spectators. In France, the low point is to 116 million in 1992. Today, the figures on the two sides of the English Channel are comparable with a light advantage with France (174 compared with 167 million in 2003).

The rebound of the French cinema is explained by the renewal of the park of the rooms. Multiplex push like mushrooms pushing the traditional rooms, which try to make resistance, to follow this movement of restoration. The investments are high but with more 5 300 rooms, France is the country of Europe best equipped.

The CNC is also an explanatory element of the rebound of the French cinema while making it possible to ensure by bearing a system in advance on receipts which allows the realization of many films. One often vilified the French cinema for his organization, and a parliamentary commission of Inquiry even studied the file. The conclusions of this commission are edifying, because they break many legends. The principle of the CNC does not imply public funds and the French Parliament will take care to recommend a system which, for already a half-century, has proven its effectiveness. The government aid exists, but they do not reach the amounts recorded in particular in England where the results are disappointing. Today, many countries obtain structures comparable to the CNC. The first of the two pillars of the financing of the French cinema is the tax of solidarity taken on all the tickets sold in France. Second udder of the French cinema, television channels. The schedule of conditions of the chains includes/understands important obligations as regards production. Association Movies-TV is all the more logical, that Television consumes films with high amount. It is all the more true since the arrival of Canal+ in 1984 and the recent explosion of the number of chains specialized in the cinema, under all its aspects.

The talent of the artists, realizers or actors, technicians or Intermittent S, is obviously requested. After the wave of the Louis de Funès, Bourvil, Lino Ventura, Alain Delon and others Bernard Blier, and unforgettable the Uncles flingueurs which emphasizes scenario writers and dialogists at the same row as the actors and realizers, Patrick Dewaere, Gerard Depardieu or Isabelle Adjani take over. When Jean-Jacques Beineix carried out Diva in 1981, it initiated the beginning of the vagueness of the Eighties of the French cinema. In its wake, let us quote 37°2 the morning (1986) of Beineix, Great Blue (1988) of Luc Besson and the Lovers of the Pont-Neuf (1991) of Leos Carax. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Mathieu Kassovitz represents the last generation of the realizers to the recognized talent.

In order to clarify its high-speed motorboats, the French cinema obtains an institution copied on the model of the American Oscars, Césars (1976). This go annual of the profession does not allow to reconcile the various vaults of the French cinema: the cinema of author and its more commercial counterpart, the serious cinema and the comedy, clan X and clan Y. the cinema can be described in the form of families and more really of schools; the transfers are rare. One passes admittedly rather with difficulty from the universe of a Alain Chabat to that of a Jean-Luc Godard. This shape of bulk-heading of the French cinema has at least the advantage of allowing the exposure of very different artistic universes. This diversity is one of the forces of the French cinema.

The culture is not consumer goods like the others. It is the watchword of the French scenario writers revolted against the American attempts to break the dams still protecting what can the cultural matter being. For the liberals, the cinema is a means of making deals like another; in the other camp, one puts especially ahead the artistic character of cinematographic work. This debate goes far beyond the only sphere of the cinema, but it was to be mentioned here because the cinema world was particularly active in this combat: famous the cultural Exception. Beaten on this blow, the Americans counter-attack in 2004 while trying to infiltrate in the maze of the French productions through the Trojan horse Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Its film long Sunday of engagement , initially classified French and financially treated like such, is finally rejected by the commission at the time of its exit into the room (November 2004).

The small world of the French cinema was particularly touched by the reform of the statute of the Contract workers carried out in 2003. This single statute in the world allows the artists of second plan or in becoming of living under decent conditions. This system of professional solidarity was vampirisé by the world of the Télévision and the communication, generating manifest abuses. The cinema was concerned little with these abuses. In spite of these evolutions, the French cinema produces approximately 200 films of feature-length film per annum and a multitude of short films. The latter miss exposure cruelly because the tradition of the Short film in opening a length is not any more of setting today.

The Cannes festival forever left the top of the poster. Behind this historic building, other specialized festivals are assembled a little everywhere in the Hexagon. And there is really for all the tastes, of the Italian Cinéma with police film while passing by science fiction film, the comic cinema or films of women. These festivals instigate obviously the territory, because crushing it majority of them are localized in Province. Paris can be prided to be a large world capital of the cinema, but it does not have a great festival, except the Festival Paris Cinéma, which does not have the same approach as its Cannes-native counterpart. On the other hand, Paris is décisionnaire as regards production, attracts many turnings French or foreign and had the appearance of a world capital of the cinéphilie. With 376 rooms with Paris intramurally and more than 30 million spectators per annum, the City of Light has a strong foundation. The cinematographic offer is opened in the world with productions coming from the five continents. The Cineclub, installation by Henri Langlois, offers moreover one remarkable collection and programming of great interest.

Notable personalities of the French cinema

Outstanding actors

Outstanding realizers

Outstanding dialogists

Outstanding type-setters of film music

Vladimir Cosma
Bruno Coulais
Maurice Jarre
Michel Legrand
Eric Serra
Pierre Talon
Yann Tiersen
Georges Delerue

See too

History of the cinema, Culture in France

Sources

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