France

Insight into the master’s working mind.

In this two-part interview, Eric Rohmer develops some of the ideas underlying how he sees and makes films. Surrounded by his precious notebooks, cassettes and screen tests, he answers the questions put by his attentive and amused interviewer, Jean Douchet. He emphasises the role of German philosophy and music in his films as well as the part played by his French New Wave contemporaries. Turning to the random nature of life, a central theme in his films, he presents his principles and delivers a delectable lesson on the theory and practice of filmmaking, his writing methods, how he works with sound and his actors…Read More »

It follows the life of Pagnol, a playwright, novelist, and filmmaker who grew up in a middle-class household in Marseille and became one of the world’s most inventive and prolific artists from the 1930’s to the 1950’s.Read More »

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Bay of the Angels (La Baie des anges) stars Jeanne Moreau as a middle-aged Parisian gambling addict who leaves her husband and children and heads for the roulette tables of Nice. There she meets young and handsome Claude Mann–a meeting which coincides with Moreau’s first winning streak. She latches onto Mann in the belief that he’s a good luck charm, and remains with him even when she starts losing heavily. Mann, emotionally drained, walks out of the relationship. The film ends with Mann entreating Moreau to return with him to the bourgeois existence that she’d escaped in the first scene. Bay of the Angels was directed by Jacques Demy, just before he achieved international fame with his musical films Young Girls of Rochefort and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.Read More »

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Jacque Dollion get’s it right with this small film about a good of pre-teens who become friends despite tough circumstances.Read More »

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Benjamin Déboisé, a hatter, his salesman and a young man want to kidnap an American millionaire, put him in a bag and hold him to ransom. But they make a mistake: the fellow they find in the bag is not the millionaire himself, but his son…!Read More »

Synopsis wrote:
Honoré Panisse is dying, cheerfully, with friends, wife, and son at his side. He confesses to the priest in front of his friends; he insists that the doctor be truthful. But, he cannot bring himself to tell his son Cesariot that his real father is Marius, the absent son of César, Cesariot’s godfather. Panisse leaves that to Fanny, the lad’s mother. Dissembling that he’s off to see a friend, Cesariot then seeks Marius, now a mechanic in Toulon. Posing as a journalist, Cesariot spends time with Marius and leaves believing tales he is a petty thief. Only after the truth comes out can Marius, Fanny, César, and Cesariot step beyond the falsehoods, benign though they may be.Read More »

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Les Contes Secrets ou les Rohmériens features interviews with 16 actors who have appeared in Rohmer’s films, and they talk on camera about his unusual working methods, his personality, and his spare but evocative signature style. Among the thespians who share their memories are Jean-Louis Trinitignant, Marie-Christine Barrault, Zouzou, Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand, Françoise Fabian, and Andre Dussolier; the film also includes rare footage of Rohmer himself at work on the set of his 1978 effort Perceval.Read More »

Synopsis wrote:
Picking up moments after the end of Marius, this film follows Fanny’s grief after Marius’s departure—and her realization that she’s pregnant. Panisse continues courting her and embraces the baby’s impending arrival as a gift, so long as its paternity remains a secret. Fanny and Panisse wed, but after her baby’s birth, Marius returns unexpectedly and demands what he believes is still his.Read More »

Fernand Gravey and Jacques Duby star as a pair of slick race track touts in need of some quick cash. Targetting rural rube Jean Richard as a patsy, the two sharpsters con him into putting up his hard-earned cash on a few sure things. Within what seems like seconds, Richard becomes wealthy by using his instincts, while the “clever” Gravey and Duby come a-cropper by playing the odds. If it’s possible for a French film to be Runyonesque, then Courte Tete is that film.Read More »