FRENCH CINEMA, THE FAMOUS AND THE UNDERVALUED, A JOURNEY DOWN MEMORY LANE…

When Le Festival Paris Cinema kindly invited me to present plus Q & A some of my cult movies for their audience on this coming July 3rd, I thought back to my early experience of French movies, and the influence they might have had on me as a film maker.  (Apologies to French readers: this software does not do accents or cedilla.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At age 9, I saw a 16mm print of Jacques Tati’s MONSIEUR HULOT’S HOLIDAY, projected on a wall of my prep school library, in which Tati, as the gauche and socially inept hero, stumbles through a disaster prone August holiday in Saint Marc-sur-Mer on the Atlantic coast. Though the social satire no doubt escaped us kids, the film was largely wordless and full of sight gags that kept us laughing and still work today.

Here’s a recent trailer:

Rowan Atkinson’s character, the idiot-curmudgeon Mr. Bean,  owes a lot to Tati, perhaps acknowledged in his 2007 MR. BEAN’S HOLIDAY. But Tati goes deeper. And smarter. He keeps Hulot benign, and through him holds up a gently mocking mirror to class conflict, consumerism and bourgeois pretensions. Tati had a singular vision and stuck to it throughout his career. It brought him two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Foreign Film with Mon Oncle. It also brought him bankruptcy when his big budget PLAYTIME failed. But he never gave up, never lost sight of his dream. All Hail, Jacques Tati, comedic genius.

The next French film I saw, aged 16, was LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD, screened to the Wellington College film society, who watched in respectful but perplexed silence.

Later I read that a British provincial cinema had run the movie with 2 reels out of order for most of the season, but  audiences were none the wiser till a London critic stopped by for a second viewing. Many critics regard MARIENBAD as a work of genius, others agree with its listing in Michael Medved’s book The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time. This recent trailer for the DVD release does its best to chart a path for the audience in advance, but my school film society had no such help.

Despite being more mystification than mystery, MARIENBAD has influenced many film makers. It certainly left me with a taste for tracking shots and baroque angles.

In 1994, British band Blur made this wry music video homage for their song To The End.

Perhaps re-screening MARIENBAD on my laptop in an Amsterdam hash bar would provide clarity. Or perhaps not.

I saw my next French movie because it was raining… But it was the title that reeled me in. OF FLESH AND BLOOD. Two time honored movie ingredients for late adolescents.   Literal translation of the French title LES GRAND CHEMINS might not have done the trick. I took my seat as a man pursued a woman home and with scarcely a word they started making passionate love.

The woman was Anouk Aimee.  She exuded an earthy yet brainy sexiness, and she immediately became my goddess. In her subsequent work I always enjoyed how emotions played across her unique visage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I happened by sheer accident to speak to her on the phone of one of her friends in 2005, I think I reverted to 18 year old fanboy. The male lead was Robert Hossein. He projected a raw masculinity that was less present in British leading men of the early sixties. As a director, Hossein is also one of France’s undervalued auteurs, who infused standard genre vehicles like LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF, and J’AI TUE RASPUTIN, with deep themes and imaginative staging. I would love to find his spaghetti western UNE CORDE, UN COLT.

OF FLESH AND BLOOD, directed by fellow actor Christian Marquand, was described by a derisive reviewer as Dostoyevsky meets Roger Corman . Works for me. This was a dish of Gallic Noir, in vibrant color, and I liked the flavor.  French films were a new world for me, clearly more daring than English language films. I was hooked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My next French experience was  AIMEZ-VOUS LES FEMMES? ( US title: A TASTE FOR WOMEN), a dark comedy set in a vegetarian restaurant about a gourmet cannibal sect that eat women in celebration of their beauty. I went in not knowing anything about it and was entranced by the wacky idea, the wit of the subtitles, and the glittering black and white Franscope photography, courtesy of Sacha Vierny, who co-incidentally shot LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The director Jean Leon was also the 1st Assistant director on MARIENBAD. (Strangely, this is the only film he ever directed. A pity, based on this work.) The names of the writers held no significance for me at the time: Gerard Brach and Roman Polanski. With hindsight, I recognize a similar impish sense of humor in Polanski’s THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, OR EXCUSE ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK. All I can find is a tiny poster and a still. Where is this forgotten gem now?

Soon after, I went hitchhiking through France from Le Havre to Eze-sur-Mer and back. Whenever possible, each night I would find a cheap pension near a cinema. Being a child of World War Two, WEEKEND A ZUYDCOOTE was a must see.

This French perspective on the evacuation of Dunkirk was the first time I experienced Jean Paul Belmondo’s casual rugged charm. Here’s a TV spot.

And the staging by director Henri Verneuil was spectacular. I have admired many of his  films, particularly CENT MILLE DOLLARS AU SOLEIL,  GUNS FOR SAN SEBASTIAN,  THE BURGLARS (LE CASSE) also starring Belmondo, with whom he did 5 pictures. And THE SICILIAN CLAN with Alain Delon. I would eventually see Delon and Belmondo together in BORSALINO, where, rumor hath it, their respective contracts required they would get equal close up coverage in their scenes together. Verneuil was not a critics darling in France, but his work was always solidly commercial, and easily the equal of many Hollywood directors of the period. Here are 3 trailers that show he was the master of any genre cocktail.

Mafia drama:

Belmondo does his own stunts:

Buddy comedy for truckers:

In Grenoble I met up with a friend studying there, Julian Beaumont, ( funny how you can remember 45 years later where and with whom you saw a film that made an impact) and we saw LE GENTLEMAN DE COCODY (IVORY COAST ADVENTURE), starring the great Jean Marais, directed by Christian-Jaque, another undervalued genre director (pictured below).

Despite my one-in-every-five-words comprehension of rapid fire French, ( Ah, by dint of repetition, I guess la bagnole means the beat-up old vehicle) I remember being swept along by the fast paced action comedy. The audience around me clearly loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COCODY became one of the 15 top grossing films of 1965 with over 2 million admissions, yet this poster is all I can find of it. Nothing on UTube. Love to get hold of a subtitled copy. Christian-Jaque made a number of handsomely staged costume dramas, which I subsequently sought out. Here’s an extract from the Italian dubbed version of MADAME SANS-GENE, in which he gives Sophia Loren’s comedic talent and abundant charm(s) full rein.

Christian-Jaque also made FANFAN LA TULIPE twice, first in 1952, then in 1964 in 70mm no less, as THE BLACK TULIP with Alain Delon playing twin brothers, for which this is the original trailer.

If there is one thing I share with Christian-Jaque it’s his fondness for viewing genre with a satirist’s eye. I’d love  to see his first film L’ASSASSINAT DE PERE NOEL, made with difficulty during the Nazi occupation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Nice I saw  L’HOMME DE RIO  and immediately became a Philippe De Broca fan. His subsequent ROI DE COEUR (KING OF HEARTS) starring Alan Bates, is hard to find, but a brilliant anti-war comedy.   33 years later he showed he had not lost his touch with LE BOSSU, great romantic fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE MAN FROM RIO was stunning in its day. Here’s a 6 minute extract of a masterful chase sequence, in a deserted Brazillian city under construction, with Belmondo once again doing all his own stunts. Today such a scene would be hyped with music, but I found the suspense is all the more riveting with sound effects alone.

The girl being kidnapped at the end of the clip was the enchanting Francoise Dorleac, sister of Catherine Deneuve.

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They both had become major European stars at the time of Francoise Dorleac’s tragic death in a car accident in 1967. What better way to end my trip down memory lane, (which I hope you have been enjoying on company time) than a joyous song and dance number from the only film the sisters played in together, Jacques Demy’s homage to the great Hollywood musicals - LES DEMIMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT.

After Paris, I will be hosting screenings of some of my early work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, so next I’ll share some recollections about Czech cinema.