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Prix Méliès
The French Syndicate of Cinema Critics () has, each year since 1946, awarded a prize ("Prix de la critique", English: "Critics Prize"), the Prix Méliès, to the best French film of the preceding year. More awards have been added over time: the Prix Léon Moussinac for the best foreign film, added in 1967; the Prix Novaïs-Texeira for the best short film, added in 1999; prizes for the best first French and best first foreign films, added in 2001 and 2014, respectively; etc. Each year, the Syndicate also organizes the Critics' Week, which is the oldest parallel competitive section of the Cannes Film Festival. Best French Film 1940s *1946: ''La Bataille du rail'' by René Clément *1947: '' Le Silence est d'or'' by René Clair *1948: '' Paris 1900'' by Nicole Védrès *1949: ''Manon'' by Henri-Georges Clouzot 1950s *1950: '' Rendezvous in July'' (''Rendez-vous de juillet'') by Jacques Becker *1951: '' Diary of a Country Priest'' (''Journal d'un curé de campagne'') by Rob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Belles De Nuit
''Beauties of the Night'' (French: ''Les Belles de nuit'') is a 1952 French-Italian fantasy comedy film directed and written by René Clair who co-produced with Angelo Rizzoli. The film stars Gérard Philipe, Martine Carol, Gina Lollobrigida and Magali Vendeuil. It was nominated the Venice Film Festival for Golden Lion (René Clair). It was shot at Boulogne Studios in Paris. Plot Impoverished piano teacher and composer Claude (Gérard Philipe) fantasizes about seducing beautiful rich women. One night a promising dream turns into a nightmare in which he's chased by the violent husbands and brothers of his lovers. He gets up and tries to stay awake for fear of feeling haunted again. Then he meets his neighbour Suzanne ( Magali Vendeuil) who resembles a woman from his dream. Cast *Gérard Philipe as Claude * Martine Carol as Edmee *Gina Lollobrigida as Leila / Cashier * Magali Vendeuil as Suzanne * Marilyn Buferd as Madame Bonacieux / Postal clerk * Raymond Bussières as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiroshima Mon Amour
(, lit. , ) is a 1959 romantic drama film directed by French director Alain Resnais and written by French author Marguerite Duras. Resnais' first feature-length work, it was a co-production between France and Japan, and documents a series of intensely personal conversations (or one long conversation) over slightly more than a 24-hour period between an unnamed French actress and a Japanese architect. The film is notable for Resnais' innovative use of brief flashbacks to suggest flashes of memory, which create a nonlinear storyline. Along with films such as '' Breathless'' (1960) and '' The 400 Blows'' (1959), brought international attention to the new movement in French cinema and is widely considered to be one of the most influential films of the French New Wave. In particular, it was a major catalyst for Left Bank Cinema. Plot A series of closeups of the backs and arms of a man and woman embracing, amidst falling ash and then covered in sweat. In voiceover, the woman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Tati
Jacques Tati (; born Jacques Tatischeff, ; 9 October 1907 – 5 November 1982) was a French mime, filmmaker, actor and screenwriter. In an ''Entertainment Weekly'' poll of the Greatest Movie Directors, he was voted 46th (a list of the top 50 was published), though he had directed only six feature-length films. Tati is perhaps best known for his character Monsieur Hulot, featured in ''Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot'' (1953), ''Mon Oncle'' (1958), ''Playtime'' (1967) and ''Trafic'' (1971). ''Playtime'' ranked 23rd in the 2022 ''Sight and Sound'' critics' poll of the greatest films ever made. As David Bellos puts it, "Tati, from ''l'École des facteurs'' to ''Playtime'', is the epitome of what an ''auteur'' is (in film theory) supposed to be: the controlling mind behind a vision of the world on film." Family origins Tati was of Russian, Dutch, and Italian ancestry. His father, Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff (1875-1957), was born in Paris, the son of Dmitry Tatischeff (Дмитрий ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mon Oncle
''Mon Oncle'' (; ) is a 1958 comedy film directed by Jacques Tati. The first of Tati's films to be released in colour, ''Mon Oncle'' won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film, receiving more honours than any of Tati's other cinematic works. The film centers on the socially awkward yet lovable character of Monsieur Hulot and his quixotic struggle with postwar France's infatuation with modern architecture, mechanical efficiency and consumerism. Like most Tati films, ''Mon Oncle'' is largely a visual comedy: colour and lighting are employed to help tell the story. The dialogue in ''Mon Oncle'' is barely audible, and largely subordinated to the role of a sound effect. The drifting noises of heated arguments and idle banter complement other sounds and the physical movements of the characters, intensifying comedic effect. The complex soundtrack a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Man Escaped
''A Man Escaped'', also known as ''A Man Escaped or The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth'' (), is a 1956 French prison film directed by Robert Bresson. The film is loosely based on the memoir of André Devigny, a member of the French Resistance who was imprisoned by the occupying German forces at Montluc prison during World War II. Although the protagonist's name is altered in the film, it is inspired by Devigny's real-life escape. ''A Man Escaped'' was screened in competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and remains one of Bresson's most acclaimed and influential works. Plot In Lyon, in 1943, Fontaine, a member of the French Resistance, jumps out of the car that is taking him to Montluc prison. He is immediately apprehended, and his German captors handcuff him, beat him, and lock him up. Throughout his time in prison, Fontaine regularly hears gunfire as other inmates are executed. At first, Fontaine is placed in a cell on the ground floor of Montluc. He communicates with h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Traversée De Paris (film)
''La Traversée de Paris'' ("The trip across Paris") is a 1956 French comedy-drama directed by Claude Autant-Lara, starring Jean Gabin, Bourvil and Louis de Funès. It is set in occupied Paris in 1942 and tells the story of two men who defy the curfew to deliver pork for the black market. The film is very loosely based on the short story "La traversée de Paris" by Marcel Aymé. The film competed at the 17th Venice International Film Festival, where Bourvil won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. The cynical portrayal of the occupation era was unconventional and made the film controversial upon the original release. Plot In Paris in 1942, under German occupation, unemployed taxi-driver Marcel Martin makes his living delivering parcels by night for the black market. One evening he must carry by foot, to the other side of the capital, four suitcases containing pork meat. He goes to the basement of a grocer named Jambier and plays the accordion to mask the noise while the animal is slaug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Grandes Manœuvres
''The Grand Maneuver'' () is a 1955 French comedy-drama romance film written and directed by René Clair, and starring Michèle Morgan and Gérard Philipe. It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland as ''Summer Manoeuvres'', and in the United States under the title ''The Grand Maneuver''. It is a romantic comedy-drama set in a French provincial town just before World War I, and it was René Clair's first film to be made in colour. Plot Armand de la Verne, a lieutenant in the French cavalry and a notorious seducer, undertakes a bet that he will "obtain the favours" of a woman selected secretly by lot, before his company departs for its summer manoeuvres in a month's time. His target turns out to be Marie-Louise Rivière, a Parisian divorcée who runs a milliner's shop, and who is also being courted by the serious and respectable Victor Duverger. Marie Louise's growing attraction towards Armand is tempered by her discoveries about his reputation, while Armand's calculated st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the Aqua-Lung, which assisted him in producing some of the first underwater documentary, documentaries. Cousteau wrote many books describing his undersea explorations. In his first book, ''The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure'', Cousteau surmised the existence of the Animal echolocation, echolocation abilities of porpoises. The book was adapted into an underwater documentary called ''The Silent World''. Co-directed by Cousteau and Louis Malle, it was one of the first films to use underwater photography, underwater cinematography to document the ocean depths color photography, in color. The film won the 1956 at the Cannes Film Festival and remained the only documentary to do so until 2004 (when ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' recei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Silent World
''The Silent World'' () is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle. One of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color, its title derives from Cousteau's 1953 book '' The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure''. Film The film was shot aboard the ship '' Calypso''. Cousteau and his team of divers shot 25 kilometers of film over two years in the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, of which 2.5 kilometers were included in the finished documentary. The film later faced criticism for environmental damage done during the filmmaking. In one scene, the crew of the ''Calypso'' massacre a school of sharks that were drawn to the carcass of a baby whale for some reason, which itself had been mortally injured by the crew, albeit accidentally (Cousteau had the ship driven into a pod of whales to get a close-up view, striking one whale in the process before t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin ( ; December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, where he continued his career. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Directors' Guild. Dassin received a Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his film ''Du rififi chez les hommes''. He was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen for his film '' Never on Sunday'', and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for his Broadway production of '' Illya Darling''. Biography Early life Julius Dassin was born in Middletown, Connecticut, on December 18, 1911, to Bertha () and Samuel Dassin, a barber. His parents were both Jewish immigrants from Odesa, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). Julius h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rififi
''Rififi'' () is a 1955 French crime film adaptation of Auguste Le Breton's novel of the same name. Directed by American blacklisted filmmaker Jules Dassin, the film stars Jean Servais as the aging gangster Tony "le Stéphanois", Carl Möhner as Jo "le Suédois", Robert Manuel as Mario Farrati, and Jules Dassin as César "le Milanais". The foursome band together to commit an almost impossible theft, the burglary of an exclusive jewelry shop in the Rue de la Paix. The centerpiece of the film is an intricate half-hour heist scene depicting the crime in detail, shot in near silence, without dialogue or music. The fictional burglary has been mimicked by criminals in actual crimes around the world. After he was blacklisted from Hollywood, Dassin found work in France where he was asked to direct ''Rififi''. Despite his distaste for parts of the original novel, Dassin agreed to direct the film. He shot ''Rififi'' while working with a low budget, without a star cast, and with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
