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French films Drama
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Having failed to make much of a mark in cinema’s silent era, Jean Renoir made the transition to sound films which much greater success than many of his contemporaries. La Chienne, whilst not an exceptional film in its own right, is significant in that it marks the turning point in Renoir’s career. The experience and public awareness that Renoir gained through this film would enable...
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Mariusis the first film in arguably the most well known and best trilogy in cinema history (followed by Fanny and César). All three films were written and produced by Marcel Pagnol, one of France’s most celebrated playwrights of the Twentieth Century. Although Pagnol officially directly only the third film in the series...
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Coeur de lilas is an impressive early example of the French policier and was based on a stage-play by Bernard and Hirsch. It is one of the earliest films to be directed by the Russian émigré Anatole Litvak who later went on to make a successful career as a film director in the United States. The film cost $120...
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The second film in Pagnol’s celebrated Marius-Fanny-César trilogy follows on directly from the first film. Now it is the turn of Orane Demazis to take centre-stage in an emotionally charged and moving portrayal of a pregnant woman who has to choose between fidelity to the man she loves and the obligations of social propriety...
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Although considerably less polished and memorable than some of Pabst’s other works, L’Atlantide is a compelling film with a strong visual style throughout. The film is a remake of Jacques Feyder’s 1921 adaptation of Pierre Benoît’s novel, with some striking differences, particularly in the portrayal of the queen Antinea...
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Jean Renoir is not normally associated with the crime thriller genre, but in La Nuit du carrefour he manages to turn out a more than satisfactory adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel. Whilst it is apparent that the director is still experimenting with his technique, he shows a surprising maturity and in this film he appears to be defining the ground rules for what would become one of the...
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Les Croix de bois is one of the most harrowing and most realistic war films to have been made in France, and bears a favourable comparison with Lewis Milestone’s legendary American equivalent, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Based on a well-known novel by Roland Dorgelès (first published in 1919), the film shows the horror of the Great War through the eyes of an ordinary...
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Drawing heavily on the poignant novel by Jules Renard on which it is based, Poil de carotte is a modest yet appealing film which has stood the test of time mainly because of the quality of its acting performances and its inherent humanity. It is more memorable than Julien Duvivier’s earlier silent version of 1925...
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Cette vieille canaille was one of half a dozen films that Russian director Anatole Litvak made in France before taking up residence in the United States, where he directed several Hollywood classics including Anastasia (1956). Litvak’s 1930s European films are striking in their sombre cinematographic style which uses light and shade to create mood and tension...
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With its starkly realist portrayal of juvenile delinquency and deprivation between the wars, Dans les rues is a poignant social drama which bears some similarity with William A. Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road, released the same year. What is immediately striking about this film is its trenchant realism, achieved through the use of natural locations and various inserts depicting everyday...
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Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, regarded by many as the most important literary work from France, has provided the source for numerous film, television and theatrical adaptations. Arguably the greatest, most ambitious of these was Raymond Bernard 1933 film, a monumental work which conveys not just the scale of Hugo’s epic novel...
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Although not as well known and as celebrated as Jean Renoir’s subsequent films, Madame Bovary occupies an important part in the director’s film-making career. It is certainly am ambitious film for Renoir to attempt at this stage in his career and his film is faithful to Flaubert’s novel in content and spirit (although the film was far less controversial than the novel when...
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This is the first of Marcel Pagnol’s three ambitious film adaptations of novels by Jean Giono (followed by Regain and La Femme du boulanger). Like many of Pagnol’s films, Angèle presents a romanticised view of life in Provence, reflecting Pagnol’s love for the region perhaps better than the austere reality of the situation...
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At first sight, this would appear to be a pretty run-of-the-mill kind of love story. However, the end result is anything but ordinary, and the film is now almost universally regarded as one of the greatest and most influential French films ever made. This is all the more surprising given the troubled history of the film...
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Le Bonheur is pretty typical of Marcel L’Herbier’s output in the 1930s, a conventional piece of melodrama intended to showcase the stars of the day, in this case Gaby Morlay and Charles Boyer. The latter was on the verge of a huge film career in Hollywood and so this was to be one of his few significant roles for French cinema...
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With its atmospheric chiaroscuro photography, impressive cast and meticulous attention to period detail (not to mention some stunning montage WWI battle sequences), Les Nuits moscovites has a lot to recommend it. The film was directed by Alexis Granowsky, one of a number of Russian exile filmmakers who worked in France in the 1930s; he is perhaps best known for his 1936 film...
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Volga en flames is a fairly respectable adaptation of one of the greatest works in Russian literature, Aleksandr Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter”, a poetic novel which recounts Pugachev’s Cossack insurrection of 1773/4. The film was directed by Viktor Tourjansky, a Russian cineaste who escaped the Bolshevik Revolution to pursue a very successful filmmaking...
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One of Julien Duvivier’s most ambitious and controversial films is this character-based adaption of the Gospels of the New Testament, which relates the last few days of Jesus Christ. Lacking the excessive grandeur and pretensions of subsequent productions (particularly those originating from Hollywood), Duvivier’s Golgotha has a quiet understated humility which serves its subject...
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La Bandera is one of Julien Duvivier’s most memorable films, providing a satisfying and early example of poetic realism, albeit in a setting far removed from contemporary France. Although not nearly as ambitious or daring as the religious epic, Golgotha, which Duvivier made immediately before this film, La Bandera is a worthy film which presages many of the director’s subsequent...
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Jean Renoir’s bold experiment with neo-realism is only partially successful (marred mainly by wooden acting), but it provides an interesting diversion from the artificial studio-based cinema of the time. Filmed largely on location, without background music, and using locals for extras, Toni makes quite a contrast to other films of its period...
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