Journeys Through French Cinema
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My Journey Through French Cinema (2017), Bertrand Tavernier’s César-nominated three-and-a-half-hour tour through French film history, was too short to introduce audiences to all that he wanted to share. In this new eight-part series (8x55min), the acclaimed director of such films as Coup de Torchon and ‘Round Midnight guides us through a roster of filmmakers both influential and forgotten, explores how his country’s cinema was shaped by the German occupation and changed again through the New Wave, spotlights little-known female filmmakers, and more. Subjects include: René Clément, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Julien Duvivier, Henri Decoin, Claude Autant-Lara, as well as composers who made movie music an art in and of itself, far from the Hollywood spotlight.
In part two of his discussion of influential filmmakers, Tavernier explores the formal and thematic approaches of Sacha Guitry, Marcel Pagnol, Jacques Tati, and Robert Bresson. The first two directors were introduced to Tavernier through the writings of Francois Truffaut, who championed their style as modernist despite the naysaying of the majority of critics at the time. Tavernier notes the ways in which Guitry’s playful self-reflexivity in particular paved the way for the New Wave. Despite their differences in style and tone, Tavernier is a great admirer of both Bresson and Tati. Using clips from THE DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, A MAN ESCAPED, MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY, PLAYTIME and more, he draws parallels between the ways the two filmmakers utilize space in the frame, and manage to balance realism and fable.
