Select a nationwide cinema of your choice to examine its position in articulating a ethnical identity. Attempt to present your answer by a close reading of at least two films. (2, 000 words)"
Cinema in France is definitely a key concern in population, the arts and culture generally. This is realized through many different aspects. The first being the invention of cinema in France by the Lumière brothers, with the first open public projection on earth taking place in Paris in 1895. But also a great many other important elements such as George Méliès being regarded as the first director and inventor of cases and special results, until more recent features including the 'Nouvelle Vague', the motion of rejection by young film-makers against more academics ways of film-making and acting, influencing cinema worldwide until today. In other words, movie theater in France is well and incredibly active, with development, exports, viewers, talented directors being regular. The number of Art Properties and Festivals are greater than anywhere else on the planet, and France gets the highest range of displays per million inhabitants, as well as the service of the Césars, the equivalent of the Oscars in France. This places the French movie industry third on the planet, behind the united states and India, rendering it the most powerful in European countries, with 22% of European motion pictures being produced and having the major market-share of nationally-produced movies in Europe. This is due to its long background in the movie theater industry, but also to its newer policies relating to French movies, and what's known as 'l'exception culturelle'.
This French idea, basically indicating the French ethnical exception, defends exactly what is "cultural", towards a "product" and the "market" and guarded from free business and quotas. It is because French society, most culturally represented by its words, must protect itself against any competition that could harm the French culture and replace it by a different one. Everything that identifies Culture in France; authors, musicians, film-makers, and much more are protected against market laws and this is the State's role; therefore there being truly a Minister of Culture. This is ultimately a effect against globalization, seen as dangerous in this sense, and a will to maintain or strengthen a national identification. Before World Battle 1, Courseé and Gaumont dominated the industry and French theatre was initially worldwide in conditions of quality, quantity and diversity. But following the war, this social status was substituted by American theatre. This 'struggle' of course concerns the united states more than another, as they are the key country on the market, and the American hegemony in all of those other world is apparent.
Therefore, France developed a unique funding system to 'deal with' against the key menace for French movie theater; television and North American cinema. Inside the 1980's the French State set up quotas in tv in favor of audiovisual and cinematographic oeuvres. The primary television channels have to allocate 3. 2% with their revenue to cinema, which includes 2. 5%, minimum amount, to French films. At the least 50% of French movies must be broadcast. And this is when the now extremely popular pay-channel, Canal+, helped a lot, as they must give 20% with their income to buy protection under the law. And on each movie theater ticket, a duty (11%) is billed to a support fund for foreign motion pictures, so long as they are co-produced with a French company. In consequence, over 160 motion pictures per year are created, and France rates third worldwide.
Moreover, an important factor concerning tv set, is the quantity of broadcast ethnic programs on general population channels, relating to the 'exception culturelle' concept and this helps understand French movie theater better, in the sense that, a movie in France is considered as a message created by the director, on top of the entertainment facet of it. In comparison to most countries, French audiences are very aware of their audiovisual scenery, and experience more videos in theatre and on all tv stations, often at primetime, providing them with a very different cinematic experience, closer to culture.
In the 1980's, the Socialist authorities of that time period, and more particularly the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, made many efforts to help and promote a more 'social' cinema. An objective to marry popular and cultural cinema, and disperse French theatre domestically and abroad, also in an effort to offset the Hollywood domination. Jack Lang wished a 'ethnical movie theater for the people', promoting videos which were assimilated with French ethnic history, but that may possibly also provide popular entertainment for a broad public. These particular 'history' films, or videos de 'patrimoine', have enjoyed an important part in the French audiovisual landscape from the later 1980's. It was successful as the key aspects come up with worked perfectly, not being too frankly popular nor too highly cultural. This genre, seems to dominate international perceptions of French cinema, although of course there is much more variety.
The first prominent example of this kind, was Claude Berri's movie, Jean de Florette, in 1986, a package office success, and the first high budget film in France, including French 'stars', such as Yves Montand and indicative of old-school French cinema, Gérard Depardieu, often compared as the contemporary equivalent of Jean Gabin or Maurice Chevalier, and the growing Daniel Auteuil, for which this movie marked the beginning of his profession as a serious actor. It really is drawn upon the very popular novels of French publisher, Marcel Pagnol, carrying on and growing furthermore the traditions of literary adaptations. This mixture of elements combined with the natural locations in Provence, evoking nostalgia, and celebrating the panorama, the history and the culture of France, actually contemporizes the film all together.
At the same time, Jean de Florette marks continuity in French movie theater, with its central locations mainly being Paris and the South, often opposing them too. Within this film the target is on the past; past beliefs and recent issues. But a past that is not so far away as it includes and still represents France's national identity, which film was made to strengthen this by a complete aesthetic of nostalgia, maintaining idealize the past and the region's and the country's geography, taking part in the protectionist ethnical imperatives.
France relies a lot on its previous to vehicle its countrywide identity, and that's the reason canonical source-texts, by the greatest French writers were and tend to be used as basis for films. The past, in Jean de Florette, can be used as a spectacle, the country's territory, the scenery of Provence evokes the nation's nostalgia, as it idealises its rural former, exhibiting the French industry's will to affirm itself through the representation of its recent. This is because it offers a firm cultural point, proclaimed in the nation's history, in a period where notions of nationwide identity were, but still are, unstable, with the globalization and issues of immigration in the 1980's. These concerns can be found in the storyplot itself, with questions of greed, materialism, identification, exclusion concerning the main character's Jean, the outsider, and Papet Soubeyran and Ugolin, the founded 'peasants', and at that time it was recommended that just how Jean was cared for by the locals, displayed the anti-immigration movement, growing at the time.
Now, it could be said that in the film, the past, displayed by Provence itself, is the primary character. Through a variety of breathtaking and static 'tableau injections', Berri shows it as an idyllic place, providing aesthetic sites for national identification, as not only is it one of the most symbolic parts in France, but it often talks to the spectator who oftentimes may have youth recollections of the journeys down south, to go to family. This sense can be experienced in the starting sequence, where a car quest is shown, without showing the character, which gives a feeling of intimacy. The spectator has a view from the windowpane, and a feeling of go back to the past, heading back to character, from urban to rural, with many elements that might be seen as stereotypical, like the long winding highways, the crowing dick in the morning, the magnificence of the mountains. Therefore the focus on the geographical setting is the most important aspect in the film, but also the somewhat stereotypical images of Provence. The character types, to begin with, include a patriarch, and noisy southerners, an outsider, farmer, an introverted peasant, and a theif of course. These characters all undertake traditional rural activities, and the action occurs in the most emblematic Provençal and rural places: the café, the market, the fountain, the square, as well as the primary areas of the action in the film, being Jean's house and garden, the Soubeyran's property, the town and the hill, which build up a sense of place and identification.
Of course another main aspect of the region is very much reliant on dialogue, which reinforces the specificity of the film within the spot. The accent of Provence is very proclaimed, and evidently illustrates the difference between your local people and Jean, along with his 'standard spoken french', who represents 'frenchness' for most foreigners through Gérard Depardieu, and marks the binary of Paris/province, meaning anywhere beyond Paris. Similarities to some of Paul Cézanne's paintings are available in some of the bar displays, reminding the 'Credit 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 trustworthiness, with the game of 'boules' and the pastis also being typical organizations.
In fact, Berri used this film to focus on Provence as a French, cultural, historical region, representing days gone by and everything the People from france can identify to the region. Immediately after Jean de Florette, the sequel, Manon des Options, came out. These were filmed all together over the time of seven weeks. In the long term, they have much to market tourism in your community, triggering interest internationally, as the film was very successful, inspiring true authenticity of rural France.
Of course, many successful motion pictures of the kind followed, most notably, Cyrano de Bergerac, with Depardieu, also a literary version, which acquired Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1990, and contributed to extend and revive France's historical countrywide identity.
Now, a binary opposition was mentioned above, and it includes the notion of videos in Paris. Paris, the administrative centre, the location of love, arts, and of course of cinema. For most, Paris truly signifies France, of course this is a far more international conception, but it still retains its position in France's background and key elements in the country's culture.
A film that recently played after many key cultural elements, providing it an internationally success in 2001, is Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Again it can be said that Amérest Poulain celebrates nostalgia. The nostalgia of typically French and Parisian areas of life. The action is defined in Montmartre, a 'quartier' of Paris, well known for being where many designers set up themselves living la 'bohème', also a common setting seen in many movies, such as Les 400 coups (Truffaut, 1959), French Cancan (Jean Renoir, 1955), Lautrec (Roger Planchon, 1998) or Zazie dans le métro (Louis Malle, 1960). The particular component of the film is that it is seen through the sight of the key character Amérest, gives it a romantic and idealized aspect, picturesque and clearly offering many stereotypes, grounds for its countrywide and international success. Many important elements are present, the grocers, the café, the metro place, the mobility scooter, the old painter, and the various views of Paris generally. At different occasions in the film, Amérest is seeing 'Jules et Jim' on television set, a classic of François Truffaut, which is a testimony of the value of French cinema and the affect of the New Wave on current film-makers. The photography of the film is very special, and contributes to this nostalgic sense, mainly displaying two colors, red and inexperienced. The story is 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 element to it that can be considered French, culturally.
This very atmosphere is also majorly because of its wonderful music that accompanies Amélie all over the place she runs. The young composer, Yann Tiersen, used music from his earlier recording, but also made up 19 music and variants for the film. The primary motive of the film shows up in different versions, expressing different moods. Tiersen's music, mainly includes accordion and piano, and what more can the accordion make reference to than 'frenchness'; a marker of the past, during the 'guinguettes', open up air dancing institutions outside the center. The accordion vehicles a known cliché, but also nostalgia and marginality, which is practically the true center of the film.
This retrospective to 'guinguettes', is reprised in different ways, with personal references to the 'Moulin de la Galette', a Montmartre guinguette, which was colored by Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Vehicle Gogh in the 1870's and 1880's. The reference to Renoir is also repeated with the type of Dufayel, the old painter neighbour, who repeats the same painting each year, by Renoir, 'The Luncheon of the Boating Get together' (1881). This obsession and the repetition, try to make what was before, present. This is also proclaimed in the many repetitions of the accordion which anchor the film nostalgically in the period of the guinguettes, between 1880 and 1940. The accordion indicates a national personal information, but that is very specific to Paris, and the imaginary this place evokes; romanticism, and a touch of exoticism.
At enough time, the two presidential individuals for 2002, Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, publicly proclaimed their gratitude of the film, and followers were seen clapping eagerly by the end of the film in cinemas, a very rare going on in France, and which testifies the important role theatre has in French culture and population.
France treats theatre very very seriously,
