Bertrand Tavernier
Filmmaker Jean Achache shot extensively on the set of ’Round Midnight. This documentary presents that material for the first time, including footage of director Bertrand Tavernier, production designer Alexandre Trauner, and other members of the cast and crew.
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.
This documentary recounts the life of the late composer Michel Legrand, known for his works on Les Parapluies de Cherbourg or Les Demoiselles De Rochefort with the famous director Jacques Demy.
Famous French director Tavernier tells us about his fantastic voyage through the cinema of his country.
Alexandre Taillard de Vorms is a force to be reckoned with. With his silver mane and tanned, athletic body, he stalks the world stage as Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, waging his own war backed up by the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity, and efficacy. Enter Arthur Vlaminck. Hired to write the minister's speeches, Arthur must contend with the sensibilities of his boss and the dirty dealings within the Quai d'Orsay, the ministry's home.
Set in the high courts of 16th Century France, where the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants are raging. Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, is in love with Henri de Guise, but her hand in marriage is promised to the Prince of Montpensier.
Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before.
Mixing interviews, rare archival footage and film extracts, the film shows how Melville's works were impacted by what he experienced in his youth during WWII, and how it structured his whole approach to cinema, not only in its thematic but also in its aesthetics.
Filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier is interviewed about his friend director Michael Powell and his stories about the making of BLACK NARCISSUS (1947).
What is the state of cinema and what being a filmmaker means? What are the measures taken to protect authors' copyright? What is their legal status in different countries? (Sequel to “Filmmakers vs. Tycoons.”)
The story of a young couple, Pierre and Geraldine, and their desire for a child, which leads them on a journey of initiation to Cambodia. On their difficult and transformative adventure, they must contend with obstructive authorities and the jealousies and mistrust of a small community of would-be adoptive parents.
Interview with Bertrand Tavernier, Charles Drazin and Olivier Bouvet about Michael Powell's Peeping Tom.
In this documentary, produced by Philippe Quinconneau for StudioCanal, editor Françoise Bonnot, actor Jean-Pierre Cassel, composer Éric Demarsan, writer and filmmaker Philippe Labro, cinematographer Pierre Lhomme, and filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier share insights and anecdotes about Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 film ARMY OF SHADOWS.
The film is about the French film industry from 1942 to 1944 during the Nazi occupation. The film focuses on assistant director and resistance fighter Jean Devaivre and screenwriter Jean Aurenche. Aurenche is on the move so that he doesn't have to write anything collaborationist. Devaivre is in dangerous political activity. Devaivre also works for the German production company Continental where he is respected. On the other hand, Aurenche's scriptwriting doesn't help how he lives and he is a womanizer which causes him to procrastinate.
Hollywood careers are full of make-or-break moments. For Clint Eastwood, one such moment came when studio powers agreed to let him make his directing debut. That story and others comprise this portrait of the famed Hollywood icon. His career is explored via an array of film clips, interviews and more.
Set in a forlorn mining town near Valencienne in the north of France, the story is about one man's struggle to bring life to his once prosperous village and its inhabitants. Philippe Torreton, who won a César for Best Actor with his title role in Capitaine Conan, plays Daniel, the head teacher of a nursery school in a town demoralized by unemployment. Daniel is determined against all odds to bring life to the community. When a parent who has come to pick up her children collapses at the school grounds due to alcohol abuse, and social services turns a deaf ear to all pleas for help, Daniel decides to take the law into his own hands. Despite resistance from the townspeople, in the long run his efforts are not fruitless.
"It must schwing!" was the motto of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, two German Jewish immigrants who in 1939 set up Blue Note Records, the jazz label that was home to such greats as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. Blue Note, the most successful movie ever made about jazz, is a testimony to the passion and vision of these two men and certainly swings like the propulsive sounds that made their label so famous.
The first part of a documentary made by Bertrand and Nils Tavernier, following a letter judged provocative by the Minister of Integration at the time, who spent several months in the Grands Pêchers housing estate in Montreuil, giving voice to its inhabitants. The problems of unemployment, racism, integration and delinquency are addressed.
A collection of short films made by the Lumiere brothers, a team of pioneering filmmakers in turn-of-the-century France, narrated by Bertrand Tavernier.
The last days of World War I, Eastern front. Captain Conan, a lone wolf, a true warrior, leads a band of ruthless French fighters who love hand-to-hand combat; they are not fit for peacetime, they only feel really alive in the chaos of the battlefield.
With the ambition to start a boutique overseas but without the means to do so, Nathalie finds herself in a desperate situation, where she would do anything to acquire what she needs. Along with her boyfriend, Eric, and his friend Bruno, she concocts a plan where she seduces clueless men and accompanies them to their places, then allows Eric and Bruno to break in. But the three soon encounter trouble after one of their schemes ends in murder.
Agnès Varda's documentary portrait of her late husband, Jacques Demy. A companion piece to her Jacquot de Nantes.
It is 1654, in the South of France. When horsemen follow a runaway slave into the convent where he's taken sanctuary and kill both the fugitive and the Mother Superior, they little realise that one of the novices is the spirited daughter of retired musketeer D'Artagnan.
Agnes Varda's documentary of the celebrations arising from the 25th anniversary of her husband Jacques Demy's film Les demoiselles de Rochefort.
Documentary overview of the life of French filmmaker François Truffaut.
In Paris, Lulu, a passionate policeman, works with the faith of a rookie, despite the sclerotic bureaucracy and the incompetence or negligence of some of his colleagues. In his new position as a narcotics inspector, he tries to keep his sanity as he witnesses the worst of the human condition.
Documentary on the French-Algerian conflict 1954-1962 which was never officially called a "war", including interviews with some of the survivors.
Contre l'Oubli (Against Oblivion) is a compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
A half-French, half-British writer (Jane Birkin) learns her father (Dirk Bogarde), who neglected her when she was young, has been taken seriously ill and goes to visit him and her mother (Odette Laure).
January, 1920. 350,000 French soldiers remain missing in action. Major Dellaplane tirelessly matches the dead and the wounded with families' descriptions. Honor and ethics drive him; he hates the idea of "the unknown soldier." Into his sector, looking for her husband, comes a haughty, politically connected Parisian, Madame Irène de Courtil. Brusquely, Dellaplane offers her 1/350,000th of his time, but as their paths cross and she sees his courage and resolve, feelings change. After he finds a surprising connection between her missing husband and a local teacher, Irène makes Dellaplane an offer. This man of action hesitates: has he missed his only chance?
Winner of a Best Documentary Academy Award, Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape--with U.S. help--to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.
Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.
In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so often... An intimist chronicle in which what is not shown, what is guessed, is more important than how it looks, dealing with what each character expects of life.
In 1938 in the french West Africa, Lucien Cordier is a weak and corrupted policeman despised by the local bad boys. His wife is openly cheating on him and he hasn't got any self-respect anymore. But when comes the occasion, his revenge will be terrible.
Laurence, a young schoolteacher from Lyons, takes a week's leave. During the break, she reflects on her career and her personal life.
In a future world where the disease has been finally defeated and everything can be sold, even the crude spectacle of death, the rare case of a dying woman becomes the morbid theme of a revolutionary reality show, broadcast through the curious eyes of a peculiar camera.
Account of a film director's brief affair with a young neighbour, and his involvement in the social and political ramifications of a tenancy dispute in an apartment block. Filmmaker Bernard (Michel Piccoli), who is suffering a creative block, enters into an affair with the much-younger Anne (Christine Pascal).
France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier attempts to shoot his love who refused to marry him and to commit suicide. Upon release from the filthy asylum where he was placed, with bullets still remaining in his head, he wanders the country roads and rapes and murders many teenagers over years. The judge Rousseau captures him, but to serve his ambition seeks to avoid that Bouvier is simply declared insane.
France, 1719. Louis 14th died four years ago, Philippe d'Orleans is the regent. He is a liberal and a libertine. His right-hand man, Dubois, an atheistic and cupid priest, as libertine as Philippe, tries to take advantage of a little rebellion lead by a Breton squire (Pontallec) and of the famine to become archbishop... Description of the life of the court in this period of transition where the French Revolution smoulders.
Lyons, France. Michel Descombes is a watchmaker who lives alone with his teenage son Bernard. When the police visits and informs him that Bernard killed a man and is on the run with a girl, Michel realizes that he knew far less about his son than he thought .
Early new wave effort from Rohmer which was the first of his six moral tales. It concerns a young man who approaches a girl in the street, but after several days without seeing her again, he becomes involved with the girl in the local bakery. Eventually he has to choose between them when he arranges dates with them on the same day.
In World War II, the widow Barny sees the Italian soldiers arriving in occupied Saint Bernard while walking to her job. Barny lives with her daughter and works correcting tests and feels a great attraction toward her boss Sabine. When the Germans arrive, Barny sends her half-Jewish daughter to live in a farm in the countryside and finds that Sabine's brother has been arrested and sent to a concentration camp. The atheist Barny decides to baptize her daughter to protect her and chooses priest Léon Morin to discuss with him themes related to religion and Catholicism and Léon lends books to her. Barny converts to the Catholicism and becomes closer to Léon, feeling an unrequited desire for him.
In the Shadow of Hollywood examines this assault on our senses through interviews with directors, producers, writers and other experts in the film industry.
