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History of Cinema 2
Prewar Hollywood
Prewar Hollywood
Film Production dropped during the 1930s
1929: 52
1930: 94
1931: 139
1932: 157
1933: 158
1934: 126
1935: 115
1936: 116
1937: 111
1938: 122
1939: 91
Film Production was Unstable
285 small firms made one film
dozens more made more than one
Pathé-Natan broken up after its Bernard Natan was jailed for embezzling money
Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert almost went bankrupt
Coming of Sound
sparked French film production
more than half of domestic market was French films
film attendance began to rise
Rene Clair
Sous les toits de Paris (1930)
À nous, la liberté (1931)
Le Million (1931)
Jean Vigo
À propos de Nice (1930)
Taris (1931)
Zero for Conduct (1933)
L’Atalante (1934)
Foreign Filmmakers in France
German and French filmmakers moved between each country
Many French films were reshot in German versions, and vice versa
romantic plots
polished technical style
featured film and stage stars
G.W. Pabst
Don Quixote (1933)
Shanghai Drama (1938)
Max Ophüls
The Romance of Werther (1938)
based on a Goethe’s novel
Anatole Livtak
fled Nazis in German
made Mayerling (1936) in France
La Maternelle (1933)
Jean Benoît-Lévy and Marie Epstein
deals sympathetically with children
neglected and abused children
filmed at an actual kindergarten with non-professional actors
Poetic Realism
not a movement but a thematic motif across films
characters on the margins of society
unemployed
criminal
last chance at an ideal love
doom, disappointment, and disillusion
many starred Jean Gabin
Julian Duvivier
Pépe le Moko (1936)
Marcel Carné
Quai des brumes
Port of Shadows
Le Jour se lève
Daybreak
Jean Renoir
son of painter Auguste Renoir
La Chienne (1931)
Boudu sauvé des eaux
Boudu Saved from Drowning
Toni (1935)
Une Partie de campagne (1936)
Grand Illusion (1937)
Rules of the Game (1939)
Popular Front
coalition united against fascism
Parti Communuist Français (PCF)
Socialists
Radical Socialists
Ciné-Liberté
formed by the Popular Front, 1936
made films
published a magazine
Ciné-Liberté Members
Jean Renoir
Marc Allégret
Jacques Feyder
Germanie Dulac
Ciné-Liberté Films
La Vie est à nous (1936)
La Marseillaise (1938)
Popular Front Political Films
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1935)
La Belle équipe (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
Vichy France
1138px-France_map_Lambert–93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/France_map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg/1138px-France_map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg.png
Germany invaded France, June 1940
Germany occupied north of France, including Paris
Right-wing French government established in Vichy
Filmmaking in Vichy France
Comité d’Organisation de l’Industrie Cinématrographique (COIC) controlled film industry
application process to obtain permission
harsh censorship under the Vichy regime
Jews were barred from film industry
Occupied France
no French film production allows
ban on American and British imports
Vichy French and German films were permitted
French film production resumed in May 1941
Ufa subsidiary Continental established in France
End of Occupation
German retreat, summer 1944
French filmmaking continued
competition with imported American films
decentralized structures of film continued in the postwar era