French films are shit. Porquoi?

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French film noir from the 60's produced some very entertaining flicks, though not necessarily highly intellectual. I recommend 'Bob le Flambeur' highly; it is a gangster film following American tradition but with much better character development, and more interesting. I've seen several others which are ace as well, though I'm sure the majority are probably derivative crap.

― webcrack (music=crack), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:59 (twenty years ago) link

Mrm, well, I suppose, yeah. I mean [Flambeur director] Melville's stuff is all very consciously modelled on US noir of the 40s, but with interesting differences. Early Godard even more so. It's all genre work, so I don't know if 'derivative' is a fair term to use.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 16:02 (twenty years ago) link

Clouzot's Les Diaboliques is pretty unbeatable for French noir.

Any talk of French movies being all about people sitting about talking in cafés or dinner parties is about 30 years out of date. Actually, one of the interesting things about the French film industry today is that one actually exists, unlike anywhere else in Europe. The British, Italians, Germans etc. make movies but they don't really have a dedicated industry any more because the number of movies they make are so small.

There are an awful lot of crappy, middlebrow movies made in France which are never shown internationally, but no more so than there are crappy American movies. I can think of several French movies I've seen recently which I thought were pretty good - Irreversible, Harry L'ami qui vous veut du bien, L'Adversaire...

― Jonathan Z., Tuesday, 6 January 2004 16:10 (twenty years ago) link

i thought meville actually sort of got rid of character development--his heroes are often much more opaque and impenetrable than their american counterparts...

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 17:59 (twenty years ago) link

yes I second 'Bob le Flambeur': the ending of that one is superb.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:02 (twenty years ago) link

I actually meant the secondary characters; I find them to be far less one-dimensional than those in American films. Bob does come off as rather opaque, but I viewed that as part of his lack of understanding as to his own motives which resulted in seemingly contradictory behavior.

― webcrack (music=crack), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:02 (twenty years ago) link

i was thinking mostly about his stuff with alain delon, where delon is distant and impenetrable

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:03 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, 'Bob' is a character film, but the Delon stuff not very. I like both modes, but prolly 'Bob' more.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:04 (twenty years ago) link

that lack of character actually sort of bugs me about melville, it can't exactly be considered a fault but it keeps me from loving his films and the films that he inspired.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:06 (twenty years ago) link

I saw one with delon (whose name I forget): found it really absorbing despite the lack of character development.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:07 (twenty years ago) link

it's not so much a matter of character development as simply character--you know, readily identifiable features and idiosyncrasies and so on

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:09 (twenty years ago) link

Well, it's okay for one filmmaker to do it, but I wouldn't want it for all films. He's very minimal in films like 'Samourai', and some other which I have seen but really weren't as good. Minimal in every sense. I like his war films!

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:09 (twenty years ago) link

i want to see l'armée des ombres

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:10 (twenty years ago) link

It's bitchin'. I think the BFI is going to do some DVDs of his stuff this year.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:12 (twenty years ago) link

(julio: le cercle rouge?)

― david. (Cozen), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 18:15 (twenty years ago) link

Porquoi? To BLURRED!

Good night everybody.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:51 (twenty years ago) link

too blurred.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:00 (twenty years ago) link

I really can't recall right now david.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 21:36 (twenty years ago) link

I got fro Xmas E. Rohmer's "Contes Moraux" DVD boxset - excellent stuff..

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Monday, 12 January 2004 09:24 (twenty years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Despite myself I rep Gilbery Adair, if only for his old IoS reviews. The film he's written for Bertolucci is fanfuckingtastic too. Here is his list of the ten best French films ever:

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/story.jsp?story=483695

The last of these, 'Bob Le Flambeur,' was released in 1956! It's either the last film in the pre-war spirit or the first new wave film. I haven't seen all of these by any means, but he's dead-on about the Renoir -- it's an absolute corker.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:59 (twenty years ago) link

seven months pass...

I wish there was a rivette thread and that I had seen all of his films. as part of the cordiale classics series 'celine & julie go boating' will be showing in some UK cinemas during october. you shd probably go see it.

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:38 (nineteen years ago) link

hi cozen!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:42 (nineteen years ago) link

I know who you even are.

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:47 (nineteen years ago) link

do you like rivette, adam?

there's a long, not brilliant essay on him in the current sight & sound by david thomson.

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:49 (nineteen years ago) link

I have only seen "Va Savoir" and "L'Amour Fou". I would like to see more, though.

Sight and Sound is so expensive here!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link

it's a shame really tht the essay isn't up to thomson's usual v. high standard. it doesn't seem like writers I love often get to let loose on subjects I love (he devotes most of his critique to 'celine & julie...') and tht this is a disappointment.

however it does have a wonderful quote by rivette on the abnormality of the film-making process: 'it is normal not to make films.'

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Haha! That is gold.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:56 (nineteen years ago) link

The onl Rivette I've seen is La Belle Noiseuse, I think. Loved it, though. And it IS a great exploration of artistic process; Mark M completely wrong upthread.

― Reed Moore (diamond), Saturday, 25 September 2004 20:27 (nineteen years ago) link

that's showing too, I think. is it from 1991?

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 20:28 (nineteen years ago) link

www.imdb.com

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 20:28 (nineteen years ago) link

Yeah, it's around 4 hrs long. Lots of long takes of nothing but actual sketching, paint being applied to canvas, etc. But really quite mesmerizing for that, I thought.

― Reed Moore (diamond), Saturday, 25 September 2004 20:33 (nineteen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

revive!

just seen my first rivette film (and his new film) 'histoire de marie et julien', and, at just over two hours, guess its more of a 'normal' length for him - its all about the clock people!

anyone else see it?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 17 October 2004 21:43 (nineteen years ago) link

Three Truffaut films on BBC2 over the next week:

Tuesday Night:
400 Blows - BBC2 Wed 20 Oct, 12:15 am

Wednesday Night:
Shoot The Pianist - BBC2 Thu 21 Oct, 12:10 am

Thursday Night:
The Woman Next Door - BBC2 Fri 22 Oct, 12:15 am

― koogs (koogs), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:24 (nineteen years ago) link

um, is 400 blows the one with the snowball fight that is later referenced in another of his films? or was that cocteau?

― koogs (koogs), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:27 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

Yesterday I went to see L'Atalante. I love the part when Juliette is looking into the shop window and you can see the reflection of the moving dolls around her. It brought to mind the opening scenes with the wedding procession and the special happiness and nostalgia captured by hand-held cameras and crackly sped-up film, especially the part when the couple moves across the space and you can see the fabric of her dress up close as she moves down left out of the camera's range. I think the film is what William Gass would call blue.

― youn, Saturday, 25 March 2006 18:37 (eighteen years ago) link

"The onl Rivette I've seen is La Belle Noiseuse, I think. Loved it, though. And it IS a great exploration of artistic process; Mark M completely wrong upthread.
-- Reed Moore (electrifyingmoj...), September 25th, 2004.

wtf?it's a great movie mainly because emmanuelle bear (or how ever you spell it)one of the all time goregeous women, is naked for almost the entire movie.how can u forgot?!

― Made for maddam, Saturday, 25 March 2006 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link

goregeous

― Jena (JenaP), Saturday, 25 March 2006 23:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Thanx Jena, what would i do without you.

― Made for maddam, Saturday, 25 March 2006 23:46 (eighteen years ago) link

This man would shake his head sadly upon reading the thread title:

http://www.weltchronik.de/ws/bio/r/renoirJ/rj01979a-RenoirJean-18940915b-19790212d.jpg

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 26 March 2006 00:00 (eighteen years ago) link

The special part was the connection between the moving dolls and the couple themselves - the dreamlife - and Paris - in a shop window! Oh, and the dreams of severed couples!

― youn, Sunday, 26 March 2006 00:08 (eighteen years ago) link

I just watched L'Atalante recently - wonderful film.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Sunday, 26 March 2006 00:12 (eighteen years ago) link

The dream sequence always scared the shit out of me.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 26 March 2006 00:26 (eighteen years ago) link

"I just watched L'Atalante recently - wonderful film"

Try and catch "EspÃritu de la colmena, El " or - The spirit of the beehive, by Victor Erice - a spanish masterpiece from the 70's that takes a lot of influence from Jean Vigo, also by Tereence Mallick - (Erice also made 3 films in 30 years or so like mallick), it's a gothic tale about life,death and nature from the innocent eyes of 2 kids, beatifully shot and very delicate in direction, it's a unique masterpiece.

― Made for maddame, Sunday, 26 March 2006 00:30 (eighteen years ago) link

four months pass...

http://www.bam.org/film/series.aspx?id=90

Which ones? I'm thinking Hotel du Nord, Boudu Saved From Drowning, Les COusins, and Pierrot Le Fou - if I'm lucky.

― youn (youn), Saturday, 29 July 2006 01:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Will we ever see R1 DVDs of Celine et Julie vont en bateau and La Maman et la putain? Those are my favorite French films.
Thanks to this thread for reminding me I still need to see La Belle noiseuse.

― Marmot 4-Tay: Hold these goddamn chickens! (marmotwolof), Saturday, 29 July 2006 02:18 (seventeen years ago) link

(RE:The BAM series) Loulou is terrific. Depardieu and Huppert made a good team.

― Picnics and Pixie Stix (Charles McCain), Saturday, 29 July 2006 17:04 (seventeen years ago) link

OK i should move to NYC..
I haven't seen a lot of these, Pierrot le Fou and Grand Illusion are 100% classic. I don't think I would like Eustache at all.

The Clockmaker of St. Paul
I recommend seeing this, Tavernier is great at working with actors and I think he's often overlooked here in the US. Also Série Noire.

― dar1a g (daria g), Saturday, 29 July 2006 18:55 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think I would like Eustache at all.

Why not? Too talky?

― Marmot 4-Tay: I'll sip from his well without hesitation. (marmotwolof), Saturday, 29 July 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

A Bout de Souffle is undoubtedly the best. The most ahead of its time film ever. People counting how many people they have had sex with on their fingers is not something usually seen in films in 1959. Plus Jean Seberg's accent provides loads of vocal hooks... actually most of the time it just makes me laugh, its really comedic and naive. I'll probably be in her situation one day when I have a year abroad.

― JTS (JTS), Saturday, 29 July 2006 23:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Eustache - Too angsty? Probably that. too talky.

― dar1a g (daria g), Sunday, 30 July 2006 17:18 (seventeen years ago) link

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