Claude Lelouch
Remake of the famous short film C'etait un rendez-vous (1976), where Claude Lelouch shows us a Mercedes 450SEL, to the sound of a Ferrari 275 GTB, V-12 engine, which runs through the streets of Paris until the driver finds and gives a kiss on the beloved woman. This first feat without authorization from the city hall of Paris and yielded up to a few hours at the Police Station. This time everything was done within the law. A Ferrari SF90 Stradale, driven by Charles Leclerc, racing through the Monaco Grand Prix circuit, closed to traffic and pedestrians from 6:45 am to 9:00 am.
Reflection of the society and vector of the occidental culture, American cinema influences the entire world since its debuts.
They knew each other long ago: a man and a woman whose dazzling and unexpected romance captured in the now-iconic film, revolutionized our understanding of love. Today, the former race car driver seems lost in the pathways of his memory. In order to help him, his son seeks out the woman his father wasn’t able to cherish but whom he constantly revisits in his thoughts and dreams. Anne reunites with Jean-Louis and their story picks up where they left it…
Before being judges, attorneys, or jury members, they are first of all men and women at a crossroads in their lives, with their dreams and their secrets, their hopes and their limitations, all beneath the same sun, each with their own dark side. In a lovely provincial town, during a jazz festival, life will juggle with their destinies.
A war photographer and absent father, who spends more time taking care of his camera than his four daughters, enjoys a happy life in the Alps with his new girlfriend. But his life is turned upside down the day that his best friend tries to reconcile him with his family by telling them a big lie.
On April 13, 2011, Les Films 13 production company turned 50. How can one celebrate an anniversary of this sort ? By simply making "another" film that would sum up all the earlier ones. D'un film à l'autre is hence a kind of anthology of the films produced Les Films 13 since the 1960s (short and feature films written and directed for the main part by Claude Lelouch), a best-of of half a century of cinema, going from Le Propre de l'homme to What Love May Bring. A biography in images of a filmmaker as admired as he is criticized. In reality, D'un film à l'autre is more than a series of film excerpts, interviews, and making-of documents (some of which possess an undeniable historical value, like that from A Man and A Woman, or the final performances of Patrick Dewaere).
A theater projectionist's daughter is involved in the Resistance in WWII, but she doesn’t share his political involvement & only believes in passion. She follows the men she loves unconditionally, suffering betrayal and hardship.
The successful novelist Judith Ralitzer is interrogated in the police station about the disappearance of her ghost-writer. A serial-killer escapes from a prison in Paris. A missing school teacher leaves his wife and children. In the road, the annoying and stressed hairdresser Hughette is left in a gas station by her fiancé Paul while driving to the poor farm of her family in the country. A mysterious man offers a ride to her and she invites him to assume the identity of Paul during 24 hours to not disappoint her mother. Who might be the unknown man and what is real and what is fiction?
What on earth would extraterrestrials think if they could observe us? This is the movie they made.
A memoir of how the movie Top Hat impacted the director’s family throughout the years.
A collective film of 33 shorts directed by different directors about their feeling about cinema.
The career of revered Russian filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov is explored in this documentary film comprised of rare behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with French director Claude Lelouch, and conversations with some of the biggest names in contemporary Russian cinema. Kalatozov's grandson Mikhail Kalatozishvili pays tribute to the director of such timeless classics as I Am Cuba, Salt for Svanetia, and The Cranes are Flying as such notable fans as Andrei Konchalovsky, Sergei Solovyov, and Alexei Batalov discuss the remarkable influence Kalatozov had on their own film careers.
A picture of humankind in Paris: singers, shows, social gatherings, businessmen, nightclub barmen, bums, shoppers.
11 directors show their view on the terrorist attacks on the world trade center in New York.
A jazz singer and a British jewel thief are brought together by their mutual desire to forget the past.
This documentary tells two stories simultaneously: it's a profile of Bernard Tapie, a wealthy man who rises and falls spectacularly in French society and may be on the rise again; and, it's a look at Marina Zenovich's fascination with Tapie, behaving oddly in spite of her awareness that she's being irrational. Politicians, athletes, friends, companions, and journalists comment on Bernard's charm, his rise to prominence in sports and politics, and his subsequent trouble with the law. Zenovich becomes fixated on her need to interview Tapie, becoming virtually a stalker in her quest.
Olivia, Irina and Masha are improving their acting skills. They no longer believe in Prince Charming, and their career is waning. Olivia works at the front desk at the airport and offers a wonderful plan: he would do so that friends will be aboard the Paris - New York plane and will sit next to wealthy men. Their task is to seduce the rich and pull them out of money. But the fraudsters do not suspect that Comissaire Bayard and his young assistant are closely watching them...
Once a successful dancer, Miriam has abandoned her career to bring up her son, Serge, after her boyfriend walked out of her.
Benoit Blanc loves living, he loves women, he loves daring. He is a famous businessman who suffers from stomach-ache. Fabiolini, a would-be actor, is a policeman and he too suffers from the same sickness. The two man face suffering in opposite ways: Benoit Blanc is optimistic while Fabiolini, always unsure of himself, is persuaded he is seriously ill. The two men meet by chance while doing a gastroscopy and become friends. After having known their real different conditions, they will change and will understand better their lives. Around them, other people, women and men, will see their lives changed, by chance, by love or solely by the life stream.
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou's convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch's bizarre miniature epic.
In France during World War II, a poor and illiterate man, Henri Fortin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), is introduced to Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.
The plot is about a trial against three men who tried to earn loads of money by illegal methods to get to Canada and about the lawyers and the judge who get on with the trial and who are being unfaithful to their couples.
A film with emphasis on visuals and music, the plot concerns characters who meet in present time, mainly the male gypsy Jesus, and the female thief and con-artist Odona, who share parallel experiences from lives 2000 years in the past. These stories are juxtaposed.
A collection of European T.V. commercials directed by a variety of well-known directors from across Europe and the U.S. Compiled and produced by Jean-Marie Boursicot.
How can moon and time affect human mood and fate? In the manner of a Greek tragedy , this movie shows how the chaos of life ineluctably propels its characters towards violence and alienation.
A foundling, raised in the circus, Sam Lion becomes a businessman after a trapeze accident. However, when he reaches fifty and becomes tired of his responsibilities and of his son Jean-Philippe, he decides to disappear at sea. However, he runs into Albert Duvivier, one of his former employees. He comes to realise that he has ignored the important things in his life.
On the day Jean Gabin dies, a kidnaper who also takes a fortune in jewels heisted from Cartiers murders Simon Verini's wife. (Simon was fencing the jewels for a youthful gang who robbed Cartiers; he suspects them of the murder.) He's framed for the theft and spends ten years in prison, writing to his daughter, Marie-Sophie, who's 11 when he's sent away. Released, he reconnects to Marie-Sophie and to the young thieves, seeks revenge, and is quickly arrested again. She doesn't know what to make of her father, retreats to her Swiss fiancé, and is flummoxed when one of the young thieves falls for her. Is resolution possible when crime cuts across families and romance?
Jean-Louis and Anne have had their fling and separated. Now 20 years have passed. He is still dating various women. She is now a big time director who's most recent film was a very expensive bomb. She comes up with the idea of making a romance based upon her fling with Jean-Louis. She contacts him to gain his permission. Jean-Louis is still in racing and goes away for a desert rally while she begins filming. She finds the mood of their romance difficult to recapture in her film.
The movie starts with an interview with director Claude Lelouch. He pleads viewers not to disclose the plot of the movie after leaving the projection room. Even the movie's trailer shows only a long sequence of faces gazing speechlessly in space. "Like all my movies, this one is about a man and a woman", says Lelouch in the interview.
This tragic musical drama chronicles the star-crossed love between beloved French singer Edith Piaf and World Middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan who died in a plane crash. The tumultuous affair is paralleled by the love affair of a French POW and his young pen pal who get engaged after writing to each other for four years and having never met. Their romances are framed by the sad, torchy songs of Piaf.
The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.
Françoise has gone into business seducing men whose wives want to divorce them, and who need incriminating evidence against them. In addition, she has a little blackmail operation going on on the side with politicians who can't afford a scandal. She got started on this business after she was raped, and hasn't looked back since. Now the police are on her trail, and she avails herself of the services of a couple who make a profession of hiding wanted criminals. At the hideout, she meets Simon, a second-generation mobster. As the police close in, Françoise and Simon go on the run together, pulling off occasional heists for operating money. Before long, they have also fallen in love.
Robert #1 is played by Charles Denner, while Robert #2 is played by Jacques Villeret. Beyond their common name, the two Roberts are as different as night and day. Oh, there is one more resemblance: both Roberts are lonely, and both hope to meet suitable mates through a computer dating service. As they await the arrival of their new dates, Robert et Robert become fast friends. Of the three favorite film subjects of writer/director Claude Lelouch--romance, crime, and politics--Robert et Robert falls firmly into the first category.
Claude Lelouch's Another Man, Another Chance begins in France in 1870. Napoleon III has just lost the war against Prussia and left the country in poverty. Young Jeanne (Genevieve Bujold) falls in love with photographer Francis (Francis Huster), who soon takes her with him when he emigrates to America. In a small town in the still wild west, they build up a small photo shop. Meanwhile animal doctor David (James Caan) lives on his lonesome farm together with his unlucky wife. It takes years and two tragic accidents until Jeanne and David meet. She has already decided to return to France as soon as possible, but love, and fate, have other plans.
From 1935 to 1945, the happiness of a couple turns to sadness when their Traction Avant auto is used by the gang des Tractions Avant.
Imprisoned as an accessory to murder, Catherine gives birth to a son she conceived in prison. Eighteen years later, her sentence served, she is reunited with the boy, Simon, who has remained in an orphanage the entire time. She is accompanied by toothsome prison buddy Sarah, and gradually these people whose lives have been frozen in time "thaw" and get on with the business of living.
A jaded and charming police inspector is assigned along with his cheerful partner to a case involving the mysterious death and/or suicide of a wealthy entrepreneur. The chief suspect is his enchanting wife who was aware that her husband had a mistress. It is also possible that the dead man may be the victim of a radical terrorist group.
The movie follows the lives of a woman and a man starting from several generations earlier. The story spans a whole century and several continents.
Gangster (Lino Ventura) with his accomplice (Charles Gérard), prepares to take part in the "first psychological hold-up in the history of crime". Next door to the jewellers of Van Cleef & Arpels, on the Croisette, in Cannes, the find the shop of a beautiful antiques dealer (Françoise Fabian) who befriends the group. The driver and the antiques dealer fall in love. He is friendly but unrefined, she is cultivated and independent, but discovers that talking with Simon shows up her vanity, and she desires a simple and clean love. The hold-up which had been planned for a long time by the driver is shown to be more sophisticated than his methods of seduction.
This Belgian/French tale chronicles the efforts of Jacques (Jacques Brel) to find the Old West in modern America. Dressed as cowboy, he travels throughout western American cities and towns and finds others similarly dressed. These idealists gather together and build an old-western-style town in the middle of an abandoned factory, battling local bureaucracies in the process.
Eight acclaimed filmmakers bring their unique and differing perspectives to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games held in Munich. The segments include Lelouch's take on Olympic losers and their struggle to remain dignified even in the face of bitter disappointment and defeat; Zetterling's dramatic exploration of the world of weightlifting; and Pfleghar's piece on young Russian gymnast Ludmilla Tourischev's majestic performance on the uneven bars.
When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to personality abductions.
This film is best understood after watching Albert Lamorisse's Baadeh Sabah, an ostentatious propaganda film of the same commission that was originally rejected for it's inadequate portrayal of Iran's nouveau-modernism (urban youth, industrial marvels) and it's overly-lyrical style. In LeLouche's rendition, there are no such inadequacies. The focus is on culture - heritage, modernity and (what soon would be named) Westernization. Past and present meet - veils and miniskirts, camels and helicopters, remains of ancient Persia, the highlights of Islamic art, caviar and the oil fields and gas pumps.
Catherine and Marcello are secluded in their house, living under the candlelight. Unable to accept the injustice behind the loss of their nine-month-old baby, they face a slow but definite self-destruction.
An apocalyptic vision of man after a cosmic catastrophe, this film is a terrifying metaphor of a dehumanized future. The Brazilian Cinema Novo, German expressionism of the twenties, and the ideologically motivated ‘cruelty’ of a Buñuel come together in this ferocious work of a French theatre collective – an ambitious, almost completely successful example of visual cinema at its best.
Charles, Jean and Amidou are workmen at the La Ciotat shipyards and live in the same construction facility. One day, Amidou leaves them to marry Catherine, a salesgirl. The trouble for Charles and Jean is that going to their friend's wedding means buying new clothes, which is problematic given their low income Moreover, they are determined to make this day an unforgettable one, despite their lack of money. Will they be able achieve their aim?
Pierre Brumeu, a twenty-year-old young man, leads a drab life in Paris with his father, a man he does not understand very well, and his friends Michel and Sophie. Father and son live in the memory of Pierre's mother, who died too early. One day, Pierre decides to go to Tunisia, the sunny country where he was born...
François Toledo, married businessman and father, falls head-over-heels in love with Janine, a work colleague. However, he is soon found out: after three dates, he strangles some prostitutes, when, the victim of blackmail, he becomes dishonored. He is taken to court, and sentenced to be killed by a guillotine.
Filming in the USA, Henri and Françoise meet and fall in love with each other.
The harsh life of a troubled young man provides the basis of this grim French tragedy that begins when the fellow stops into a shop to buy a pack of the title cigarettes. There he meets a pretty shop girl with whom he falls in love and eventually marries. It was a foolish choice, for the two cannot get along and constantly fight. Things get worse when the husband resumes his criminal activities and gets caught. The two are about to divorce when the woman gets pregnant. The time comes for their baby to be born and while sitting in the waiting room, the husband reflects upon his past activities, which are revealed via flashback.
This colorful documentary chronicles the events of the 1968 Winter Olympics in France. The events made international celebrities of skater Peggy Fleming and skier Jean-Claude Killy for their gold-medal performances. The camera accurately catches the speed of bobsleds and downhill racers and ski jumpers as they race for the gold. President Charles DeGaulle is shown observing the action over 13 days, which saw France earn the best performance to date in the winter games.
In seven different parts, Godard, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamees army during the Vietnam-war.
Famous TV newscaster Robert Colomb is married to Catherine, but is continually unfaithful to her. Then he meets, and becomes fascinated with Candice.
Four prisoners are gathered in the same cell. Each tells the others how he got there.
A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that each is a widow.
Four young people, tired of working life, decide that they can earn money from crime than they can from work. The film follows their training at the first "crime school", as well as their work.
The film is a road movie that follows a middle aged man who gives a young woman a lift. On the car radio, news bulletins warn the population against a recently escaped sadist who is known to prey on young women and children. Lelouch often cuts away from the main story, if only briefly, to parallel events that are not necessarily crucial to the story but illustrate what is suggested by the radio.
