French Movie Research Articles

Political backlash and consumer boycotts: Evidence from the NFB relocation and movie demand in Canada

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate the impact of the announcement in 1952 of a change in Canadian cultural policy, namely the reorganization of the National Film Board (NFB) and the move of its headquarters from Ottawa to Montréal, on movie demand. Using weekly box office revenue data for a subsample of movie theatres in Toronto and Montréal from 1945 to 1955, we estimate the impact of this policy change with a triple difference estimator and find that the NFB headquarters move in Canada was followed by a decrease in movie attendance for movies produced in anglophone countries and an increase in movie attendance for French movies in Montréal. We complement our analysis with Odesi public poll Canadian data from 1949 to 1959 and find that poll respondents from Quebec held a more negative opinion about the decisions of the Canadian government and the tide of Americanization, relative to respondents elsewhere, and that their opinion deteriorated further after the relocation announcement and the relocation itself took place. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that the relocation of NFB headquarters caused political backlash and triggered a boycott against anglophone, especially American, movies in Quebec.

Féminité hybride, féminité dansée : performances de genres et oralité dans Bande de Filles et Divines

ABSTRACT The Parisian banlieue is often represented in cinema (in movies such as La Haine) and considered by academic literature (Austin, Fredette) as a space of hypermasculinity. However, in her analysis of the evolution of the banlieue film over the past 20 years, Lauren Reeck identifies a ongoing process of feminization of the banlieue. Willing to contribute to the conversation about the role, function and consideration of female bodies in this marginalized space, I offer a comparison of two French movies, Bande de Filles (Girlhood, and Divines , in order to study two attempts to rehabilitate the female body in the banlieue. Focusing on the access to orality, this contribution aims at analysing the different performances of femininity, whether they be hybrid or corporal performances, which the female characters resort to in both movies to reclaim a voice of their own, as well as their feminine identity. Sciamma and Benyamina thus try to shed light onto various systems oppressing female bodies in the banlieue, situating their works in a growing cinematographic corpus, at the intersection of gender studies, post-colonial studies and political sociology.

The evolution of European stunt art (50–70s of the twentieth century)

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the formation and development of stunt art in French cinema of the 1950-1970s; analyze the contribution to the process of formation in the European film industry stunt as a profession of French actors and performers of film stunts. Methodology. The scientific provisions of the article are reasoned at the level of the totality of general scientific methods of cognition and approaches of modern art history. The historical, analytical and typological methods were applied, which contributed to determining the specifics of the professionalization process of stunt art in the French film industry in the 1950-1970s, as well as the typological features of cinema stunts of the leading French stuntmen; a method of comparative analysis (to identify the characteristic signs of stunt activities before and after professionalization) and other. Scientific novelty. For the first time in Russian art criticism, the process of development and professionalization of stunt art in European cinema of the 1950-1970s has been studied. on the example of the evolution of French historical stunt scenes (films “cloak and sword”), adventure and detective films; reviewed and analyzed the professional activities of C. Carlier, R. Julien, J. Delamard and other French stuntmen of this period; revealed the influence of American stunt performers, the specifics of the development of French stunt art, as well as characterized the evolution of stunt techniques, the use of existing ones and the development of new safety methods for their implementation. Conclusions. The content and nature of professional stunt activities in the context of cinematic art are non-static, since its dynamism is determined by the stunt status in the continuous qualification system. The stunt man is the stunt developer, stunt coordinator (stunt director), and the head of the stunt troupe. In the 50–70s. XX century in French cinema, a complex process of professionalization of stunt art took place, the motivation of which was the need to assimilate professional knowledge, skills, abilities, and expand the experience of professional activity. The specifics of the French movie stunts by C. Carlier, R. Julien, J. Delamard, and I. Cipher are manifested in originality, exposure to the viewer with a degree of risk, and a specially refined aesthetics.

The Tragic Consequences of the Capitalist Imagery

Overproduction, consumerism and commodity fetishism — it seems like these tendencies are omnipotent and omnipresent in the modern world. The difference between the society criticized by Marx and the reality encompassing us is that in the postmodern societies, it is the information and images that serve as an object of consumption and consequently commodity fetishism. In other words, the service sector produces images that become the means of mediation. In the article, the author looks into the work of Stanislaw Lem Futurological Congress and contemporary French movie The Congress following the same plot. The analysis being founded on the theories of Guy Debord, Slavoj Žižek and Karl Marx, as well as the recent investigations of a journalist Naomi Klein, the author uncovers implicit consequences of the consumerist way of life, imposed on us by the capitalist system as well as media and transnational companies. Arguing, after Žižek, that the criticism of late-capitalism is directly linked to the understanding of the human psyche’s recesses, the article attempts to explain the consumer turning into a marionette of large businesses. This position is further strengthened by the natural necessity for an individual to embrace the system’s core impositions, in particular, to recognize the non-existing authenticity behind a brand. The tendency further leads to the alienation from real merit and overconfidence in the fairness inherent in the existing system. Overproduction and the ubiquitous loss of Walter Benjamin’s Aura result in actual poverty behind the mask of abundance, nature of the art and authenticity becoming extinct. This leads to the natural drive to substitute the lost identity for the (re-) invented one and manifest individualities, sometimes aggressively and vigorously. As Lem’s characters balance on the verge between reality and hallucinations, modern-day consumers lose the established coordinate system, distracted by the absolute and seemingly non-restricted liberty of choice, the virtual reality permitting to act out any repressed impulses and instincts fully and with impunity. Citing Debord, ‘the poverty unites everyone involved in the spectacle and its controversies’. The author is of the opinion that Lem’s Futurological Congress aims at forewarning the reader from the possibility of the imaginary system progressing irreversibly, the idea further reflected in the movie. There is no hope for a society abandoning the boundaries of reality and moral guidelines for good. The analysis could possibly describe the broadening sphere of influence of the multinational corporations and contribute to the lively discussions on the digital divide and the social networks’ actual/ impact on society.

Analýza slovenskej a českej dabingovej verzie audiovizuálneho diela Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au Bon Dieu?

The paper deals with a comparative analysis of Slovak and Czech language versions of the contemporary French movie Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au Bon Dieu? (in Slovak: Čo sme komu urobili?, in Czech: Co jsme komu udělali?). The analysis focuses on the expressive level of the given audiovisual work. The aim is to examine the adequacy and functionality of information transfer when translating expressive lexical units, colloquial vocabulary and culturally conditioned units. The process of analysis is based on our own experience as a viewer (the knowledge of both the original and translated versions of the audiovisual work) and subsequent interpretation of the adopted translation solutions. These are categorized from the viewpoint of changes at the expressive level that necessarily occur in the translation process, and in case of a negative transfer, we present our own translation solutions.

The Unintended Consequences of Antipiracy Laws on Markets with Asymmetric Piracy: The Case of the French Movie Industry

In many markets of the digital economy, some products are more prone to online piracy than some of their substitutes. These situations of asymmetric online piracy distort the competition between products. Using the French antipiracy law known as HADOPI (Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits d'auteur sur internet) as a natural experiment, we study the asymmetric effects of online piracy on cinema admissions. Applying four estimation strategies at different levels of observation (town, movie, country, and consumer), we find that introduction of the law is associated with a 9% increase in the market share of American movies but that this increase occurs at the expense of other movies. These findings primarily originate from a high initial level of asymmetric piracy between American and other movies. This asymmetry was attenuated by the antipiracy law, resulting in a fiercer competition between movies and, as a side effect, in a decrease in the legal consumption of less-pirated products. These results have important implications for firms whose profits may be affected by legislation fighting piracy as well as for governments for the design of their policy.

The Unintended Consequences of Anti-Piracy Laws on Markets with Asymmetric Piracy: The Case of the French Movie Industry

Using the French anti-piracy law known as HADOPI as a natural experiment, we study the asymmetric effects of online piracy on cinema admissions. Applying four estimation strategies at different levels of observation (town, movie, country, and consumer), we find that the introduction of the law is associated with a 9% increase in the market share of American movies. This increase occurs at the expense of other movies. Although we find an increase in overall admissions, this effect is not statistically significant. These findings primarily originate from a high initial level of asymmetric piracy between American and other movies, which was attenuated by the anti-piracy law, resulting in a fiercer competition between movies. The results can also be explained by the behavior of younger consumers, and might be caused by consumers' budget or time constraints. We exclude positive shocks on the relative quality of American movies, the advent of 3D movies, supply side reactions by firms, and word of mouth effects of illegal downloads as explanations for this redistributive effect.

Análise do filme Un film comme les autres, do grupo Dziga Vertov

During the events of May 1968, Jean-Luc Godard (born in Paris on December 3, 1930), an important name of the French movie movement “Nouvelle Vague” (New Wave), began to devote himself to the collective production. Together with the student Jean-Pierre Gorin, he founded the Dziga Vertov group (1968-1972). In this new proposal, the director produces nine essentially political films. Breaking up with the traditional cinema, production companies and movie theaters, from 1968 onwards Godard began to understand this new public, politicized by the conjuncture, no longer just as simple viewers. This paper aims to analyze the practice of the Dziga Vertov group in the film “Un film comme les autres” (A movie like any other – 1968), the first collective creation film made by the Dziga Vertov group.

Le Grand Voyage: A Great Journey to Liberate Islamic Accounting Education from Utilitarianism and Secularism

The aim of this study is to release students of Islamic accounting course from secularism and capitalism. This research uses dialogic approach to raise the awareness of criticalmuslim students. The philosophical values of the French movie entitled “Le Grand Voyage” were taken as method of analysis. The reality of Islamic accounting students who are secularist and capitalist was then metaphorized into this film. The results of this study showed that the students could find not only material values, but also emotional values and spiritual values in accounting. There are several values that can be seen from the students’ story telling: material value , altruism value, love value, and spiritual value. It is hoped that this article could give an overview to Islamic accounting educators to provide accounting course accompanied by Islamic substance of tawheed.

Translating the North–South imagological feature in a movie: Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis and its Italian versions

ABSTRACTThis article uses an imagological perspective to compare the French movie Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis with its Italian adaptations, including the remake Benvenuti al Sud. Since the Italian relocalised version is centred around the North–South opposition of the original French film, this paper first describes the features of the North–South constant in imagology, and subsequently provides an overview of the historical background of the stereotypes about northern France and southern Italy. The analysis of the films focuses in more detail on the film titles, the posters, the trailers as well as the main imagological features used and translated in the different versions. It shows the power of translational discourse in the transfer of ethnotypes, as well as the way in which translation studies and imagology mutually enrich each other.

Applying Multimodal Transcription to Persian Subtitling

Reduction in subtitling to improve the ease watching foreign movies is always a challenge. Recently multimodal transcription has been recommended as a useful guide (Taylor, 2003, 2013), but its application has been barely empirically tested. This study, therefore, investigated if the framework could serve useful in Persian subtitling of the French language movie Amelie (2001) as a case study. Initially, a reduced version of the available full Persian subtitle based on the results of the multimodal transcription of the film was created. Later, the comprehension of a control group of Iranian viewers of the full subtitle and that of an experimental group of viewers of the reduced version was compared. Although the control group scored slightly higher on the comprehension test, no evidence was revealed for a statistically significant difference. Finally, the reception of the reduced subtitle was qualitatively investigated using retrospective interviews with selected participants from the experiment.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.32.0.19212

European Cinema and Intercomprehension: Metaphors and Instances of Mutual Intelligibility

The European Union is multilingual in its daily reality as well as in its legislation. The use of only one language as a communicative means among different peoples in Europe would greatly impact upon Europe’s capacity to federate diverse cultures and languages, not to mention the economic and cultural benefits enjoyed by the country whose language would become an inter-European language. With Intercomprehension (IC), the European citizens could overcome the risk of diminishing communicative exchanges: it promotes a direct, multilingual dialog tailoring the mindset and language specificity of each and every interlocutor. As such, IC bears the sign of a concrete action in favor of the cultural and language diversity. Two French movies – Euro-Mix (“L’auberge espagnole”) and its sequel Russian Dolls (“Les poupées russes”) – have been precisely selected as proof of this communication skill that avoids using a third language between two people speaking related languages.

Decadence and the Reinvention of Modernismthe Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley

Decadence and the Reinvention of Modernismthe Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley

The Company You Keep: Effects of Leader and Teams Network Position on Performance

In this paper we argue that leaders positively influence team performance through their positions in a collaboration network. We propose also that the leader’s effect on team performance is moderated by the position of the team in the larger collaboration network. We distinguish between brokerage and cohesion as the extreme positions that a leader or team can occupy in a collaboration network. To test our hypotheses, we study a network of French movie teams (comprising directors, producers, art directors, editors, and cinematographers) between 1996 and 2010. We find that the network position of the team leader - the movie director - has a U-shaped effect on team performance. Leaders with either a brokerage or a cohesive network position contribute most to team performance. We show further that the benefits the leader can reap from his or her network position depend significantly on the team’s position in a collaboration network. Specifically, for high levels of team cohesion, the U-shaped effect of the team leader cohesion on performance flattens. We explore the implications of these results for scholars and practitioners.

L’indulgence du soleil et de l’automne par by Patrick Besson

Reviews 261 is apparent in the glee both men take in anagrams. To the question,“que devient Estella Ribstone?” (73), the answer is “Bret Easton Ellis” (74). Given this delight, American readers will wonder at the name“Vlad Eisinger,”since for most of us the only Vlad we are familiar with is Vlad the Impaler. This curiosity is only piqued by the novel’s last sentence, an exchange between Dan and Vlad: “tu as des nouvelles de Vlad Eisinger?” (287), demonstrating that at times a good con is an intriguing pleasure. Florida State University William Cloonan Besson, Patrick. L’indulgence du soleil et de l’automne. Paris: Fayard, 2015. ISBN 9782 -213-62965-0. Pp. 112. 13 a. Besson is an author who does not take the logistics of our existence too seriously. Human history serves as a draft that can be deconstructed and reassembled, and that goes also for our everyday life. The result is often funny, at least noteworthy, as can be read in Besson’s new collection of nine short stories. The title of the small volume is a quotation from a letter by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who—as we learn from Besson—had a son with a French woman from Perpignan.Why not? There is nothing wrong with rewriting history as long as this revision provides us with some matière à rire (to quote the title of a book by Raymond Devos). The following seven texts serve as good examples of Besson’s sense of humor: the comical effect is often reached with the help of the bizarre, grotesque, and eerie. However, like in a classical comedy, the stories tend toward a certain moral or a lesson of the human condition. “La traductrice sikh” describes the vanity of a less than mediocre author and his strange metamorphosis.“Jean-Paul et Rihanna” presents a philosophy professor with a famous first name and the singer Rihanna. The story conveys the following idea: when two people have the same dream, the dream becomes reality. The author creates a play with two realities: dream reality and the reality experienced by the mind when one is awake. Dreams can become real—in this case a wishful dream of erotic content dreamt by two people at the same time. Comparable to a professional stand-up comedian, the author is in“La joueuse russe”constantly working to deliver the comic effect, as can be evidenced in the quick, yet solid construction of facts and action, i.e., in his choice of style, play on words, and provocative fantasy including the grotesque. “Tous ses amants s’appelaient Patrick” presents the case of Sarah Wittgenstein (obviously named after another philosopher) and her harsh revenge for an act of rape she suffered many years before. “Singto” is basically a joke about gender identity. “Le voyage des comédiens”makes reference to a historic event which took place in March 1943 when a delegation of French movie stars accepted the invitation of the Nazi regime to come to Berlin.“La nuit de Cancún”is a fascinating work of magical realism about the Mexican death cult Santa Muerte. The last and longest contribution to this collection describes the unusually twisted and complicated identity crisis of a man who eventually finds out who his real parents are and what he had done many years ago to a playmate his age (“Le marché des enfants-rouges”). It seems that the author wanted to outdo himself in the closing story in regard to his presentation of the unusual and unforeseen. Besson’s volume offers a fine collection of reading material, to enjoy not just in the sunshine or in the fall. Ocean County College, NJ (emeritus) Gert Niers Blais, Marie-Claire. Aux jardins des Acacias. Paris: Seuil, 2014. ISBN 978-2-02116642 -2. Pp. 272. 18,50 a. This author astounded the literary world when she won the Médicis at the age of twenty-seven for Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel. Now living in Key West, and in her seventies, she focuses on a story of redemption. In a forty-two page interview at the end of the novel, this French Canadian explains: “Je me...

The Team And Its Leader: Multilevel Effects Of Network Embeddedness On Performance

The literature on team performance has largely ignored the embeddedness of a team in a larger network of peers over time. In this paper, we argue that team performance can be explained by the network position of the team leader, but also by the aggregate network position of other team members. Furthermore, we propose that the team leader’s influence on team performance is moderated by the embeddedness of the team in a larger collaboration network. To test our hypotheses, we study the network of French movie teams (comprising directors, producers, art directors, editors, and cinematographers) between 1996 and 2010. We find that the network position of the team leader – the movie director – has a U-shaped effect on team performance. Specifically, directors with either very cohesive or very sparse collaboration networks contribute most to team performance. Surprisingly, the effect is the opposite for teams. Teams embedded in collaboration networks that are neither very cohesive nor sparse have a positive effect on team performance. Finally, we find that the benefits of a network position of the team leader and the team reinforce each other. We conclude with implications for scholars and practitioners.

The Effect of Screen Quotas and Subsidy Regime on Cultural Industry: A Case Study of French and Korean Film Industries

There are voices in France advocating for a Korean-type screen quota system, seen as a key ingredient in the success of the Korean film industry. At the same time, there are calls in Korea for a French-type subsidy regime to be implented as a way to achieve a further take-off. This paper shows that the Korean screen quota has little correlation with Korea’s success. For the French case, its huge subsidies have had no impact on improving the attractiveness of French movies domestically. The paper concludes by suggesting that an in-depth analysis of the policies pursued by the two countries is crucial toward avoiding a too costly trial-and-error process when designing policies related to cultural industries and culture.

IMMIGRATION AND MEMORY IN POPULAR CONTEMPORARY FRENCH CINEMA: THE FILM AS �LIEU D�ENTRE-MEMOIRE�

In this article, I would like to develop the idea that cinema could be thought as a “lieu d’entre-memoire”. My aim will be to show how some films take part in a “global space of remembrance” (Hirsch, 2012) by interconnecting different memories from different times and events. To support this idea, I will mainly work on recent French movies devoted to the question of the immigration as Le Nom des gens (Leclerc, 2010) or Le Havre (Kaurismaki, 2011). These films are interesting insofar as they connect the current question of the (undocumented) migrants with the memory of Shoah or with the memory of the victims of the war in Algeria. In this way, these movies open on a memory of the other in a French society which, under the Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, is increasingly obsessed by the national memory. My purpose will be to study these films of a social and aesthetic point of view to define the conditions of possibility of a “lieu d’entre-memoire”. In this perspective, I shall show in particular how these movies call into question the family as classical model of memory transmission. In the films discussed, it’s certainly not a coincidence that the “entre-memoire” happens in blended families in which the question of the filiation is replaced by relationships that aren’t necessarily relations of descent or heredity. It is within the framework of recomposed family that we will also observe the passage of a ‘self’ memory to a memory of the otherness.

Feeling the Screen: The Changing Textures of the 1950s French Movie Theatre

Feeling the Screen: The Changing Textures of the 1950s French Movie Theatre

영화 <테이큰>의 상업적 흥행성과 가능성에 관한 연구

최근 프랑스 영화는 국내 수입과 개봉이 꾸준히 증가하고 있다. 하지만 국내에 개봉하는 모든 프랑스 영화가 흥행에 성공하는 것은 아니다. 국내 영화시장과 관객들에게 프랑스영화는 여전히 '다양성영화' 혹은 '예술영화'라는 인식이 일반적 통념이다. 따라서 국내에 소개되는 프랑스 영화는 관객들에게 할리우드영화나 국내영화와는 또 다른 문화적 의미를 부여하는 문화상품이며, 다양성 영화 이해라는 중요한 문화적 가치를 제공하고 있다. 하지만 국내에 개봉되는 프랑스영화도 할리우드 영화와 마찬가지로, 결국 많은 관객들을 통한 소비가 영화제작이나 수입목적에 부합한다고 말할 수 있다. 이러한 측면에서 본 연구자들은 프랑스에서 제작된 영화 <테이큰>을 통해 국내 관객의 수용방식과 흥행요인을 살펴보고자 한다. 특히 수용방식과 흥행요인의 분석은 문화다양성 개념을 넘어서서 국내 개봉시 고려해야할 사항들을 직시하게 해줄 것이다. 이를 위해 본 연구는 다양성 예술영화로 일반적으로 인식되는 프랑스 영화가 <테이큰>을 통해 영화 소비적 측면에서 어떤 흥행방식에 초점을 두고 있는지, SWOT 분석을 통해 흥행 가능성과 요인들을 천착하고자 한다. 따라서 본 연구는 우선 국내 영화관객의 소비태도나 양상들을 살펴보며, 영화 관람시 고려하는 사항들이 무엇인지 검토하고자 한다. 그런 다음, <테이큰>의 흥행요인을 SWOT 분석하여, 프랑스 영화임에도 불구하고 국내에서 흥행에 성공한 이유를 살펴볼 것이다. 마지막으로 SWOT 분석을 토대로 <테이큰>의 흥행전략을 도출하고, 향후 외화영화를 국내 수입시 고려할만한 전제조건들을 재조명하고자 한다. 또한 국내 수입업자들에게는 상업적 측면에서 흥행적 코드로서 어떤 점에 주안점을 두고 수입 개봉해야하는지 검토할 수 있는 좋은 계기가 될 것이다. The number of French movies imported to and released in S. Korea is constantly increasing. All French movies released in Korean theatres, however, are not a great success. For the domestic film market and audiences, the idea French cinema is generally equivalent to 'diversity cinema' or 'arthouse films' is common notion. In this respect, French movies introduced throughout the country would be culture product into which one can read other cultural significances different from that of domestic cinema, and also serve significant cultural value to understand diversity in cinema, for domestic audiences. However, it could be said that French movies, in common with Hollywood films, obey rules in the film industry and needs for audience trends. In this content, what the researchers want to do is to analysis the tendency of the domestic audience reception and main causes of commercial success in the domestic film market, analysing Taken produced in France. The analysis, most of all, suggests the consideration for the film industry beside the notion of cultural diversity in cinema, as imported films are released in the domestic theatre. For this, the study examines the promotional strategy the french cinema perceived generally as the arthouse film applies extensively, analysing on Taken, and inquires into factors of commercial success, using SWOT Analysis. This study, the first of all, (briefly) examines what audiences consider when they choose a film to watch, articulating (generally) the choice-and-consume modality of the domestic audience. And then, it examines dominant factors Taken was a commercial success in domestic film market, even though the film is a french film, using SWOT Analysis. On the basis of SWOT Analysis, finally, this study draws up promotional plan for Taken, and shed new light on dominant preconditions, when the foreign cinema would be imported from the now on.