Cinema In France Film Studies Essay

Cinema In France photographic film Studies demonstrateSelect a national motion picture of your choice to examine its position in articulating a ethnic identity. Attempt to present your answer by a close reading of at least both engages. (2,000 words)Cinema in France has al shipway been a tombstone issue in society, the arts and culture in general. This can be understood with m whatever unlike facial expressions. The first creation the actually ruse of cinema in France by the Lumire brothers, with the first public projection in the world taking localize in genus Paris in 1895. But in like manner some(prenominal) a(prenominal) other key elements such as George Mlis organism considered as the first director and inventor of scenarios and especial(a) effects, until much recent features such as the Nouvelle Vague, the movement of rejection by young film-makers against more academic ways of film-making and acting, influencing cinema worldwide until this day. In other word s, cinema in France is sound and truly active, with production, exports, viewers, talented directors being steady. The number of Art Houses and Festivals are higher than anywhere else in the world, and France has the highest number of screens per million inhabitants, as well as the ceremony of the Csars, the resembling of the Oscars in France. This endows the cut movie industry third in the world, behind the USA and India, which makes it the strongest in Europe, with 22% of European films being produced and having the largest market-share of nationally-produced films in Europe. This is due to its long write up in the cinema industry, but alike to its more recent policies concerning French films, and what is known as lexception culturelle.This French concept, basically meaning the French heathenish exception, defends everything that is cultural, in opposition to a product and the market and protect from free enterprise and quotas. This is because French society, most cultura lly represented by its language, needs to protect itself against any competition that would harm the French culture and replace it by another one. Everything that refers to Culture in France writers, musicians, film-makers, and more are protected against market laws and this is the States role therefore there being a Minister of Culture. This is in conclusion a reaction against globalization, seen as dangerous in this sense, and a will to of importtain or honour a national identity. Before World War 1, Path and Gaumont dominated the industry and French cinema was first worldwide in terms of quality, quantity and diversity. But after the war, this cultural status was replaced by American cinema. This struggle of course concerns the USA more than any other, as they are the leading terra firma in the industry, and the American hegemony in the rest of the world is evident.Therefore, France came up with a unique financing agreement to fight against the primary(prenominal) threat fo r French cinema television and North American cinema. In the mid-eighties the French State put in place quotas in television in favor of audiovisual and cinematographic oeuvres. The chief(prenominal) television channels have to allocate 3.2% of their revenue to cinema, which includes 2.5%, minimum, to French films. A minimum of 50% of French films moldiness be broadcast. And this is when the now very favourite pay-channel, Canal+, helped a lot, as they must give 20% of their income to buy rights. And on each cinema ticket, a tax (11%) is billed to a support fund for foreign films, as long as they are co-produced with a French producer. In result, over 160 films per year are do, and France ranks third worldwide.Moreover, an important factor concerning television, is the amount of broadcast cultural programs on public channels, relating to the exception culturelle concept and that helps understand French cinema better, in the sense that, a movie in France is considered as a messa ge made by the director, on top of the merriment purview of it. Compared to most countries, French audiences are very aware of their audiovisual landscape, and experience more films in cinema and on all television channels, often at prime cartridge clip, giving them a very antithetic cinematic experience, closer to culture.In the 1980s, the Socialist government of the time, and more particularly the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, made many efforts to help and promote a more cultural cinema. A goal to marry popular and cultural cinema, and distribute French cinema domestically and abroad, as well as as a way to commencement exercise the Hollywood domination. Jack Lang wanted a cultural cinema for the masses, promoting films that were assimilated with French cultural heritage, but that could also provide popular entertainment for a wide public. These particular heritage films, or films de patrimoine, have play an important part in the French audiovisual landscape from the late 1 980s. It was successful as the key aspects put together worked very well, not being too frankly popular nor too extremely cultural. This genre, seems to dominate international perceptions of French cinema, although of course there is much more diversity.The first prominent compositors case of this kind, was Claude Berris movie, Jean de Florette, in 1986, a box office success, and the first high budget film in France, including French stars, such as Yves Montand and indicative of old-school French cinema, Grard Depardieu, often compared as the contemporary equivalent of Jean Gabin or Maurice Cheva liver, and the rising Daniel Auteuil, for which this movie pronounced the beginning of his career as a heartrending actor. It is drawn upon the very popular novels of French author, Marcel Pagnol, continuing and developing furthermore the tradition of literary adaptations. This combination of elements along with the natural locations in Provence, evoking nostalgia, and celebrating the la ndscape, the history and the culture of France, actually contemporizes the film as a whole.At the same time, Jean de Florette marks continuity in French cinema, with its central locations mainly being Paris and the South, often opposing them too. In this film the focus is on the ult bypast determine and past issues. But a past that is not so far away as it has and noneffervescent marks Frances national identity, and this film was made to reinforce this by a whole aesthetic of nostalgia, charge to idealize the past and the regions and the nations geography, taking part in the protectionist cultural imperatives.France re deceptions a lot on its past to vehicle its national identity, and that is why canonical source-texts, by the greatest French authors were and are often utilise as basis for films. The past, in Jean de Florette, is used as a spectacle, the nations territory, the landscape of Provence evokes the nations nostalgia, as it idealises its arcadian past, show the Fre nch industrys will to affirm itself through the representation of its past. This is because it offers a firm cultural point, mark in the nations history, in a time where notions of national identity were, and mute are, unstable, with the globalization and issues of immigration in the 1980s.These concerns can be found in the story itself, with questions of greed, materialism, identity, exclusion concerning the main characters Jean, the outsider, and Papet Soubeyran and Ugolin, the established peasants, and at the time it was suggested that the way Jean was treated by the locals, represented the anti-immigration movement, growing at the time.Now, it could be said that in the film, the past, represented by Provence itself, is the main character. Through a mix of panoramic and static tableau shots, Berri shows it as an idyllic place, providing visual sites for national identification, as not only is it one of the most symbolic regions in France, but it often speaks to the spectator wh o in many cases may have childhood recollections of the journeys down south, to cut family. This feeling can be experienced in the opening sequence, where a car journey is shown, without showing the character, which gives a feeling of intimacy. The spectator has a view from the window, and a feeling of return to the past, going stick out to nature, from urban to rural, with many elements that could be seen as stereotypical, such as the long winding roads, the crowing tilt in the morning, the magnificence of the mountains. Therefore the emphasis on the geographical setting is the most important aspect in the film, but also the somewhat stereotypical images of Provence. The characters, first of all, include a patriarch, and loud southerners, an outsider, farmer, an draw in peasant, and a bad guy of course. These characters all take on traditional rural activities, and the action takes place in the most emblematic Provenal and rural places the caf, the market, the fountain, the squ are, as well as the main spaces of the action in the film, being Jeans house and garden, the Soubeyrans property, the village and the mountain, which build up a sense of place and identity.Of course another main aspect of the region is very much reliant on dialogue, which reinforces the specificity of the film within the region. The accent of Provence is very marked, and clearly illustrates the difference between the locals and Jean, with his standard spoken french, who represents frenchness for many foreigners through Grard Depardieu, and marks the binary of Paris/province, meaning anywhere outside of Paris. Similarities to some of Paul Czannes paintings can be found in some of the bar scenes, reminding the Card players series and The Smoker, but also the mountain panoramas, recalling his famous paintings of Mont Ste Victoire. The background characters also provide a local color and credibility, with the game of boules and the pastis also being typical associations.In essence, Berr i used this film to emphasize Provence as a French, cultural, historical region, representing the past and everything the French can identify to the region. Right after Jean de Florette, the sequel, Manon des Sources, came out. They were filmed as a whole over the period of seven months. In the long term, they did much to promote tourism in the region, causing interest internationally, as the film was very successful, inspiring true authenticity of rural France.Of course, many successful films of the kind followed, most notably, Cyrano de Bergerac, with Depardieu, also a literary adaptation, which won Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1990, and contributed to expand and revive Frances historical national identity.Now, a binary opposition was mentioned above, and it comes with the notion of films in Paris. Paris, the capital, the city of love, arts, and of course of cinema. For many, Paris truly represents France, of course this is a more international perception, but it still maintains its position in Frances history and key elements in the nations culture.A film that recently played upon many key cultural elements, giving it a worldwide success in 2001, is Le Fabuleux Destin DAmlie Poulain, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Again it can be said that Amlie Poulain celebrates nostalgia. The nostalgia of typically French and Parisian aspects of life. The action is set in Montmartre, a quartier of Paris, well known for being where many artists established themselves invigoration la bohme, also a definitive setting seen in many films, such as Les four hundred coups (Truffaut, 1959), French Cancan (Jean Renoir, 1955), Lautrec (Roger Planchon, 1998) or Zazie dans le mtro (Louis Malle, 1960). The particular element of the film is that it is seen through the eyes of the main character Amlie, which gives it a romantic and idealized aspect, picturesque and clearly serving many stereotypes, a reason for its national and international success. Many key elements are present, the grocers, the caf, the metro station, the scooter, the old painter, and the different views of Paris in general. At different moments in the film, Amlie is watching Jules et Jim on television, a classic of Franois Truffaut, which is a testimony of the importance of French cinema and the influence of the New Wave on genuine film-makers. The photography of the film is very special, and contributes to this nostalgic feeling, mainly displaying two colors, red and green. The story is very simple, and could be considered as a modern fairytale, but it is the way it is told, and the backdrop and atmosphere of the whole that give an aspect to it that can be considered French, culturally.This very atmosphere is also majorly due to its magnificent music that accompanies Amlie everywhere she goes. The young composer, Yann Tiersen, used music from his earlier album, but also composed 19 songs and variants for the film. The main motive of the film appears in different variations, expressing different mood s. Tiersens music, mainly includes piano accordion and piano, and what more can the accordion refer to than frenchness a marker of the past, at the time of the guinguettes, open air dancing establishments outside the center. The accordion vehicles a known clich, but also nostalgia and marginality, and is practically the real center of the film.This retrospective to guinguettes, is reprised in different ways, with references to the Moulin de la Galette, a Montmartre guinguette, which was painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Van Gogh in the 1870s and 1880s. The reference to Renoir is also ingeminate with the character of Dufayel, the old painter neighbour, who repeats the same painting every year, by Renoir, The Luncheon of the Boating party (1881). This obsession and the repetition, aim to make what was in the past, present. This is also marked in the many repetitions of the accordion which fasten the film nostalgically in the period of the guinguettes, between 1880 and 1940. The accordion signifies a national identity, but that is very specific to Paris, and the imaginary this place evokes romanticism, and a touch of exoticism.At the time, the two presidential candidates for 2002, Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, publicly marked their appreciation of the film, and audiences were seen clapping eagerly at the end of the film in cinemas, a very disused happening in France, and which testifies the important role cinema has in French culture and society.France treats cinema very seriously,