25 Great French Films

Начало книги

The three great cinemas of the world, it is generally agreed, are those of Hollywood, France, and Japan. Generalizations are dangerous, but in recent years, France seems to be in the lead. That may be because most new French films are made for adults, about adults. Upon the shoulders of Hollywood falls the weight of supplying the global market for action and violence. Hollywood also satisfies that market for France itself, leaving the field for grown-up films to the French.

France has a claim to have coinvented the cinema with some of the earliest filmmakers in the world. Scorsese’s Hugo (2011) introduced a new audience to the magic of Georges Méliès, whose works such as A Trip to the Moon (1902) showed a man delighted by the tricks he could play with special effects.

France also claims to have discovered Hollywood cinema, doing us a favor. The auteur theory, created by the critics and directors around the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, celebrated well-made genre works that were dismissed as “B movies” by American critics, but praised by the French as masterworks. Such directors as Hawks, Sturges, Ford, and Minnelli joined a new pantheon.

Читать дальше →