Claude Autant-Lara
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.
Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.
Two ten-year-old children, Gloria and Jacques, meet at the former's birthday party. It is love at first sight and they vow eternal love. Unfortunately, the First World War breaks out and they are separated. The people around them do not understand the deep feelings that link them to each other. When they meet again after the war, Gloria has become a cabaret dancer whereas Jacques has married in the USA. Nothing seems possible between them any longer...
In a village in the Ardennes, during the German occupation, finding rations is becoming almost impossible. Clovis, an ordinary labourer, decides to cross the occupied zone to bring back enough potatoes to feed his family. His plan is a success but Clovis rapidly becomes obsessed with storing the precious tubers.
A collection of sketches on prostitution through the ages. 1) "The Prehistoric Era": A caveman discovers that a cavewoman is more attractive when cave paint is applied to her face. And she can earn more seashells that way. 2) "Roman Nights": The Emperor goes out seeking a little nocturnal amusement, only to find that the high-priced, Oriental courtesan he hires is his wife, the Empress. 3) "Mademoiselle Mimi": In revolutionary France, Mimi finds that her client, the nephew of a marquis, is more interested in watching the guillotinings out her window than he is in going to bed. 4) "The Gay Nineties": When Nini discovers by accident that her antiquated customer is a banker, she pretends to be an honest woman who has fallen in love with him. She even pays him, just like a gigolo! 5) "Paris Today": Two girls pick up clients by driving around in a car...
Claude Sauvage, a tenacious young gynecologist takes a months long internship in a Paris hospital. Between her private life and medical career, she set her doubts and desires in a society where the square and the plight of women remain at that time a secondary issue. The film follows Claude and the staff through the case of some patients while the crucial debate on women's professional ambition, contraception and abortion rights.
Edmund Dantes is falsely accused by those jealous of his good fortune, and is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the notorious island prison, Chateau d'If. While imprisoned, he meets the Abbe Faria, a fellow prisoner whom everyone believes to be mad. The Abbe tells Edmund of a fantastic treasure hidden away on a tiny island, that only he knows the location of. After many years in prison, the old Abbe dies, and Edmund escapes disguised as the dead body. Now free, Edmund must find the treasure the Abbe told him of, so he can use the new-found wealth to exact revenge on those who have wronged him.
At the end of World War II, a French pacifist is arrested for refusing to fight. In prison, he befriends a German priest arrested for murder of a French Resistance fighter. They discuss morality, obedience, and religion.
A teenager who suffers from his mother's escapades imagines the life of his father in San Francisco.
Married French lawyer Andre defends succesfully the case of Yvette, who committed a robbery. He falls in love with her, but she isn't true to him.
Two unlikely companions must smuggle four suitcases filled with contraband pork across Nazi-occupied Paris.
It tells the story of an older pedant who buys adolescence from Satan.
It's no holds barred for Julian in pursuit of upward mobility. Although expected to channel career aspirations into the Church of the post-Napoleonic era, his intensely romantic liaisons propel him forward at a pace he cannot control.
Le Bon Dieu Sans Confession is one of the lesser-known works of prolific French filmmaker Autant-Lara. Stuck in a loveless marriage, bourgeois industrialist Francois (Henri Vilbert) falls in love with Janine (Danielle Darrieux), another man's wife. Francois sets up Janine as his mistress, and she, mercenary soul that she is, likes the set-up so much that she continues the relationship even when her own husband returns from WW II. In the long run, however, Janine is the loser in the situation. Based on a novel by Paul Vialar, Le Bon Dieu Sans Confession is one of a handful of films in which nobody is sympathetic enough to elicit audience identification.
A French/Italian motion picture drama covering the seven deadly sins in seven separate sections.
A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard.
Young Amélie is currently enjoying life as the kept woman of her reasonably well off boyfriend Étienne. But when Étienne is called off for military duty, he enlists his playboy friend Marcel to keep an eye on her....something of a problem seeing that he is currently looking for a woman with which to create a sham marriage so he can quickly inherit a large sum of money from his father. Then suddenly the Prince of Palestra enters into the picture and boldly asks for Étienne's romantic favors to assess whether or not he would consider taking her as his bride. What's a free-spirited girl to do?
In France during World War I, Marthe waits for her husband, Jacques, while he fights on the front lines. Marthe then begins a tempestuous affair with 17-year-old François, with whom she had a dalliance before marrying Jacques. Jealous François struggles with the fact that Marthe is married, while she tries to prove her devotion to her young, hotheaded lover. Things become even more complex when Marthe becomes pregnant with Jacques' baby.
A teenager becomes fixated on the handsome suitor who died in a duel for her grandmother's love. On her sixteenth birthday, her uncle oversees three men who pretend to be the ghost of the suitor to entertain her - but little do they know, the ghost of the suitor himself is roaming the castle halls......
In Paris in 1887, Irène works as a governess to Douce, the grand-daughter of the dowager Countess de Bonafé. Douce believes she is in love with Fabien, the handsome manager of the estate. However she cannot hope to marry him because of their class difference. Douce's widowed father, the Count de Bonafé, has a wooden leg, and is infatuated with Irène. Douce discovers that Fabien is planning to flee to Quebec with Irène, and also finds out that the Count has asked Irène to marry him. So Douce tells Fabien this and convinces him to run away with her, causing consternation in the family.
A plucky businesswoman agrees to receive love letters to a prefect’s wife from a young official, and soon finds herself embroiled in a scandal that inflames a town’s class tensions.
Odette Joyeux plays an eccentric young aristocrat called "Chiffon", who is struggling to comply with the social conventions of the community. A widow, her mother (Suzanne Dantes) would like to remarry a rich noble. Without realizing it, Chiffon is in love with her uncle, a ruined pioneer of aviation ...
When Paul, an officer, discovers Denise, a young orphan escaped from her orphanage, he takes advantage of his naivete to seduce her before changing her mind and sending her to live with her mother while sailing.
Duparquet is the controller of Les Halles, and plays matchmaker between the young farm-girl Ciboulette and Antonin, a young spoiled aristocrat.
Mr. and Mrs. Boul go separately to the spa town of Vittel to experience the waters. Without knowing it they are lodged next door to one another in the hotel. They each have a grand time enjoying the sights of the town. One morning Boul hears a woman's laughter from the hotel room next door, but can only see a pair of legs through the keyhole. He is determined to meet the pretty stranger!
"To Build a Fire" is a short story by American author Jack London, published in two different versions of in 1902 and 1908. It was made into a film in 1928 by Claude Autant-Lara.
A government official, Count Muffat, falls under the spell of Nana, a young actress. She becomes his mistress, living in the sumptuous apartment which he provides for her. Instead of elevating herself to Muffat's level, however, Nana drags the poor man down to hers - in the end, both lives have been utterly destroyed.
A night watchman on the Eiffel Tower wakes up to find the entire population of the city frozen in place.
An experimental short from 1923 France which offers silent narrative in diverse, optical multi-exposures and severe close-ups offering dense montages which create psychological constructs that unfold a Parisian love affair which turns into a threesome of great emotion and consequences. Also notable for using Antonin Artaud as the male lead.
Comtesse Della Gentia and her lover Paul attempt to seduce and blackmail a rich neighbour Juan, who is in love with a naïve young friend of theirs, Clarisse. Their plot fails; the Comtesse kills herself at a ball, and her lover re-covers her face with its mask.
A hermit who lives along a rugged coast under a vow of silence reflects on the events that lead him to this fate.
