French Television Research Articles

Scarlet, No Empress

Alongside the wonders of the film itself, Criterion’s edition of the restored Lola Montes (1955) offers unusually rewarding extras. They include the 1965 edition of Cineastes de notre temps from French television, in which Martine Carol is one of the many technicians and actors to pay tribute to Ophuls, who died in 1957. She recalls a director whose brilliance and charm had helped her out in the starring role which was “not really a part for me” and who had enabled her to extend herself beyond anything she had previously attempted. Her warmth, ten years after the event, is all the more remarkable because the film’s reception had been just as disastrous for her as it was for its creator. Fifty years on, the reassessment of Lola Montes as a manifest of the genius of Ophuls has not been, and I think could not be, echoed in acclaim for a performance that seldom rises much above—and does not consistently reach—adequacy. The critical question is how far its character and shortcomings are absorbed into the themes and textures of the movie, how far they contribute to or detract from its achievement.

The French connection: Digital television in France

This article analyses key aspects of the digital switchover process in French television, especially with regard to the nationwide roll-out of the terrestrial platform that was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2011. The article examines the central role of state authorities within the national media policy community in managing switchover and accommodating the interests of both public and private sector providers. It also evaluates the impact of the digital terrestrial platform for both long-established and new television channels. The article argues that the reconciliation of commercial, political and regulatory interests has been at the very heart of the transition from analogue to digital in France.

Sports Media Decision Making in France: How They Choose What We Get to See and Read

This qualitative exploratory case study redresses the deficit of sports media research in France by undertaking a study of those responsible for the production of sports media content. The central question was, What role do sports media producers play in perpetuating dominant ideologies in sport? Participants were experienced male and female sports content decision makers from major French national television and print media. Data were collected through 9 individual semistructured interviews. The findings highlight how sports are selected for coverage, why women’s sport receives less coverage, and who is responsible. There is an indication that women’s sport is subject to much harsher editorial selection criteria than men’s. The similarities and differences between France and other countries are also discussed. Conclusions were drawn on what role the makers of sports media content have in reproducing this hegemonic masculinity so inherent in sports coverage.

The Effect of French Television Sexual Program Content on the Recall of Sexual and Nonsexual Advertisements

This study examined the impact of television program sexual content and explicit sexual advertisement content on memory for advertisements. Eighty-two French participants, aged 18 to 48 years, watched either a sexual program (Sex and the City) or a nonsexual program (Friends), with three sexual and three nonsexual adverts embedded within it. They then completed free- and cued-recall questionnaires testing their memory of the advertisements, as well as a gender identity scale. Overall, sexual advertisements were recalled (in free recall) better than nonsexual advertisements. Participants were found to recall adverts significantly better within the nonsexual program than within the sexual program. No interaction was found between program type and advertisement type: Sexual adverts were recalled better than nonsexual adverts within both programs. Males and females recalled sexual adverts equally, with no mediating effect of gender identity. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Jamming civilizational discourse: Nadia El Fani's Bedwin Hacker

This essay analyzes how El Fani's 2003 feature-length film engages and counters Tunisian cultural politics. For international film audiences, Tunisian film is characterized by often visually stunning, feature-length films focusing on social struggles, particularly those of Tunisian women, in the pre- and post-independence eras. After exploring how these films have been co-opted by a state-sponsored civilizational discourse that allies Tunisia with western modernity, my essay examines how Bedwin Hacker resists similar recuperation on both visual and narrative levels. Adapting the popular genre of the hacker film, El Fani offers viewers a glimpse of innovative Tunisian self-fashioning to re-engage Tunisian audiences at home and reach out to international spectators beyond the festival circuit. Her border-crossing heroine, who hacks the airwaves to insert playful, cartoonish messages about the existence of alternate realities on French television, elaborates a feminist activism that exceeds the roles assigned to Tunisian women by the state. At the same time, the film challenges the limited roles available to women from the South even within an allegedly globalizing world. Thematically, El Fani's film draws upon only to unsettle the tropes of otherness on which the popular, global media in both the West and the East depend, while visually it represents the formerly taboo in ways that break with the conventional techniques of representing women and men in Tunisian cinema and beyond. Thereby removing the veils that condition northern views of the Arab South, Bedwin Hacker also re-envisions contemporary Tunisia.

Narraciones televisivas en tiempos de crisis: Irak 1998

Despite the extensive and discontinuous nature of the media coverage on wars involving Iraq since 1990 to present, it is possible to concieve this coverage like an articulated narration based on “episodes” that centered events. By Ricoeur’s and Dewey’s theses, the paper studied the “Desert Fox” operation (1998), wich collects discursives fr ames of the Gulf War as well as anticipated elements of the media coverage of American invasion of 2003. We study how the narratives points are created fr om the information fl ows and how through this news events, the French television media judges -and produce meaning- about the involve participants, their relationships and the general meaning of the conflict.

Comparing Russian, French and British Television News Commemorations of 9/11: Terror, Everyday Nation Building and the Struggle for the Universal

This article broaches the need of television-led nation building projects to frame the traumatic with the everyday, and to map that process onto the ongoing renegotiation of the relationship between the particular and national on one hand, and the transnational and universal on the other. Nowhere is this mapping more vividly revealed than in national mediations of 9/11 anniversaries. In their approach to 9/11 anniversaries, broadcasters convey this sense of the threat of an unprecedented, and continuing, danger to the “universal” human values embodied in the nation they represent, whilst “normalising” the situation as part of the fabric of that nation’s everyday life, differentiating “our” capacity to cope with, and properly contextualise it, from “their” tendency to ignore, or hyperbolise, its true meaning. The article compares Russia with Britain and France, concluding that all three engage in distinctive instrumentalisations of 9/11 for national purposes. But it is Russian Channel 1 whose abstraction of a universalised, post 9/11 terrorist “evil” renders it most transferable to other contexts, and most significant in terms of its potential for the nation building strategy.

France 3, a state institution: the French model of regional television

French regional television gradually developed since the 1960s, not from the regions themselves, but from the capital, Paris. Television appeared in France with only one channel RTF (Radiodiffusion...

Representações do mundo da moda na mídia: do luxo ao lixo

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo refletir sobre o papel do discurso da mídia na construção de representações contraditórias e excludentes que dizem respeito a esferas culturais que fazem parte da mesma sociedade moderna brasileira: neste caso, a pobreza e o mundo da moda. Um Estudo de Caso sobre Gisele Guimarães, moradora da Cidade de Deus e modelo de moda, e a análise de matérias publicadas em revistas e jornais brasileiros, além de um programa da TV francesa, servem de objeto de estudo para esta discussão.

DVD Reviews

DVD Reviews

DVD Reviews

The French Old Wave: Claude Sautet's Classe tous risques Classe tous risques (1960) France Director Claude Sautet Screenplay Claude Sautet, Jos Giovanni and Pascal Jardin Original Novel Jos Giovanni Producer Jean Darvey Director of Photography Ghislain Cloquet Music Georges Delerue With Lino Ventura (Abel Davos), Sandra Milo (Liliane), Jean-Paul Belmondo (Eric Stark), Marcel Dalio (Arthur Gibelin), Michel Ardan (Henri Vintran), Claude Cerval (Raoul Fargier), Jacques Dacqmine (Blot), Simone France (Thrse Davos) Runtime 108 minutes DVD, 2008, USA Produced and Distributed by The Criterion Collection (region 1) Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Sound Mix Mono 1.0 Extras New restored high-definition transfer. Excerpts from Claude Sautet ou la magie invisible, a 2003 documentary on the director. Interview with Classe tous risques novelist and screenwriter Jos Giovanni. Archival footage interview with actor Lino Ventura. Original French and US trailers. New and improved English subtitle translation. Booklet with new essays by director Bertrand Tavernier and N. T. Binh, a reprinted interview with Claude Sautet, and a 1962 tribute by Jean-Pierre Melville. Shadows (1959) USA Director John Cassavetes Producer Maurice McEndree Cinematography Erich Kollmar Editing John Cassavetes and Maurice McEndree Associate Producer Seymour Cassel Saxophone solos Shafi Hadi Additional music Charles Mingus Lighting David Simon With Ben Carruthers (Ben), Lelia Goldoni (Leila), Hugh Hurd (Hugh), Anthony Ray (Tony), Dennis Sallas (Dennis), Tom Allen (Tom), David Pokitillow (David), Rupert Crosse (Rupert) Runtime 81 minutes DVD, 2009, USA Produced and Distributed by The Criterion Collection (region 1) Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Extras Restored high-definition digital transfer. Video interviews with actress Lelia Goldoni and associate producer Seymour Cassel. Rare silent 16mm footage of John Cassavetes and Burt Lane's acting workshop. Restoration demonstration. Stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos. Theatrical trailer. English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired. A booklet featuring an essay by critic Gary Giddins and a 1961 article by Cassavetes. Faces (1968) USA Director John Cassavetes Screenplay John Cassavetes Producer Maurice McEndree Cinematography Al Ruban Editing Maurice McEndree and Al Ruban Art direction Phedon Papamichael With John Marley (Richard Forst), Gena Rowlands (Jeannie Rapp), Lynn Carlin (Maria Forst), Seymour Cassel (Chet), Val Avery (Jim McCarthy), Fred Draper (Freddie) Runtime 130 minutes DVD, 2009, USA Produced and Distributed by The Criterion Collection (region 1) Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Extras Restored high-definition digital transfer. 17-minute alternative opening sequence, from an early edit of the film. Episode of the French television series Cinastes de notre temps, from 1968, dedicated to Cassavetes, featuring rare interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Making Faces, a 2004 documentary including interviews with actors Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands and director of photography Al Ruban. Lighting & Shooting the Film, a short documentary from 2004 in which Ruban explains how he and the crew achieved the distinct look of Faces. English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired. A booklet featuring an essay by Stuart Klawans. Bigger Than Life (1956) USA Director Nicholas Ray Story and Screenplay Cyril Hume, Richard Maibaum Based on an article in The New Yorker by Berton Rouech Producer James Mason Director of Photography Joe MacDonald Art Director Lyle R Wheeler, Jack Martin Smith Set Decorations Walter M. Scott, Stuart A. Reiss Editor Louis Loeffler Music David Raksin With James Mason (Ed Avery), Barbara Rush (Lou Avery), Walter Matthau (Wally Gibbs), Christopher Olsen (Richie Avery), Robert Simon (Dr Norton), Roland Winters (Dr Rune), Rusty Lane (Bob La Porte), Rachel Stephens (Nurse), Kipp Hamilton (Pat Wade), Betty Caulfield (Mrs La Porte), Gus Schilling (Pharmacist), Richard Collier (Milkman) Runtime 91 minutes DVD, 2007 United Kingdom Produced and Distributed by BFI (region 2) Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 (16x9) anamorphic Extras Full feature commentary by Edward Buscombe. New filmed conversation between Jim Jarmusch and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Extracts from 1969 interview with Nicholas Ray. Original theatrical trailer. Fully illustrated booklets with essays by Geoff Andrew, Jeanine Basinger, Susan Ray and biographies. Hopes in the past Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) Germany Director/Screenplay Rainer Werner Fassbinder Original Novel Alfred Doblin Producer Peter Marthesheimer Director of Photography Xaver Schwarzenberger Art Director/Costumes Barbara Baum With Gunter Lamprecht (Franz Biberkopf), Gottfried John (Reinhold Hoffman), Barbara Sukowa (Emilie Mieze Karsunke), Hannah Schygulla (Eva), Karin Baal (Minna), Annemarie Duringer (Cilly), Elisabeth Trissenaar (Lina), Franz Buchrieser (Gottfried Meck) Runtime 940 minutes DVD USA, 2007 Distributed by The Criterion Collection (region 1) Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Sound Mix Mono 1.0 Extras: New high-definition digital transfer. Documentaries include Hans-Dieter Hartl's Notes on the Making of Berlin Alexanderplatz (45 minutes); Julian Lorenz's Berlin Alexanderplatz Remastered: Notes on the Restoration (35 minutes) and Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz: A Mega Movie and its Story (60 minutes). Phil Jutzi's 1931 film of Berlin Alexanderplatz (90 minutes). 72-page book with essays by Tom Tykwer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Thomas Stenfeld.

La série télévisée "Kaamelott" ou la matière arthurienne revisitée

La légende du roi Arthur a profondément marqué la culture occidentale et semble aujourd’hui revenir en force, si on en juge par les nombreux avatars comiques ou pseudo-épiques qui surgissent sur les supports médiatiques les plus variés. En effet, la Matière arthurienne a connu de nombreuses réécritures depuis le Moyen Âge en passant par l’Angleterre victorienne (qui en orchestre la ‘’renaissance’’), jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine, séduite par les personnages et les aventures du royaume d’Arthur. Nous proposons d’aborder ces questions à la lumière de la série télévisée française ‘’Kaamelott’’ de Alexandre Astier et Yves Robin créée en 2006, série dite ‘’de fantaisie historique’’ qui s’inspire de la Matière arthurienne et qui connaît une popularité croissante, montrant que les inspirations médiévales et «celtiques» sont aujourd’hui très prégnantes.

Messages d’activité physique et d’alimentation: que nous offrent les médias québécois?

As social elements of our environment, mass media are regarded as determinants of individual and population beliefs, social norms and habits. Since it is recognized that they influence population health, this study aims to obtain a better portrait of Quebec media content regarding physical activity and nutrition messages on a public health level. First, we analyzed the content of fictional television shows (n = 1 3) and advertisements broadcast during those shows (n = 68). Second, we reviewed the content of La Presse newspaper and of French television Societe Radio-Canada from 1986 to 2005 with regard to physical activity and nutrition messages. Our results indicate a difference between how men and women are portrayed on French television, with women more often being shown as underweight and men as at or above healthy body weight. The results also show that during the 20-year period of the reviewed content, there were fewer messages about physical activity than about nutrition. To be successful in their goal of improving population health, mass media should address both subjects together in their messages.

Citéteens entextualizing French TV host register: Crossing, voicing, and participation frameworks

ABSTRACTThis article addresses data that reside at the confluence of three types of linguistic “crossing” (Rampton 1995) among working-class French teens of predominantly Algerian descent. Strategically using the microphone of the researcher to imitate an elite French television show host, performers create indirect reported speech and direct stylized voicing for present peers and thereby mock them as show “guests.” Through analysis of such data, this article contributes to scholarship that extends and refines Goffman’s notions of footing and participation frameworks, and the relationships imaginable between them. It is argued that the notions of noncongruent voicing effects and generalized footing can lead to a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between language crossing and participation frameworks. More specifically, analyzing language crossing in terms of the resultant voicing effects sheds light upon the nuanced ways that speakers manage participation frameworks. (Register, crossing, footing, participation frameworks, voicing)

Author Profile: Atiq Rahimi

March 09April notebook NEW BOOK RELEASES:Old City Hall byRobertRotenberg,ShadowandLight by Jonathan Rabb,Pieces for the Left Hand by J. RobertLennon MOREON PAGE6 44 Icame to understand my delusions,and the realization that Ihad been cutofffrom societybyexile and that Icould no longer be usefulto it and serve itto thebest ofmy abilities, aspirations, and talents. I know that I was condemned for my dreams,my ideas. ^ ?Fyodor Dostoevsky, SelectedLetters (1987) Have a comment or suggestion? Send a letter to the editor via the feedback link on our website or mail to: WLT Letters 630 Parrington Oval, Suite 110 University ofOklahoma Norman,OK 73019-4033 USA Author Profile Atiq Rahimi Born inKabul in1962,Atiq Rahimi livedin Afghanistanuntilhis early twenties. After the Soviet invasion, Rahimi fled to Pakistan, where he remained until receiving political asylum in France. After earning a doctorate in audiovisual communications at the Sorbonne, he directed documentaries and commercials for French television. Since 2000, he has publishedfournovels, including Earthand Ashes, which received several awards for its film adaptation in 2004. Rahimi received the Prix Goncourt last November for Stone of Patience?a novel that explores a woman's struggle to care for her husbandwho was paralyzedbya battle injury. Stone of Patience was written after his 2002 return to Afghanistan. Rahimi currently spends time in both Kabul and Paris. Compiled by Kate Long U Rahimi's Syngue Sabour (2008) isa magnificent novel about patience, love,and the crueltyof thewar in Afghanistan. His writing is limpid,straightforward,and poetic}} ?Tahar Benjeiioun March-April 2009 i5 ...

Un douteux rapport

A Dubious ReportIn 1966, The French version of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem : A Report on the Banality of Evil was published by Gallimard. Immediately upon its release, the book provoked very serious controversies around it which aroused the curiosity of Avner Lahav – then a young Israeli soldier – about how an author of the magnitude of Arendt, whose analyses of totalitarianism were authoritative, could be so widely criticized. Was it possible that her book contained to a great degree what could be defined as a counter-analysis ? Was there not some kind of dispute among scholars, personalities or about prestige ?It was from these issues that Lahav undertook a systematic reading of Arendt’s works. While doing so he became aware of the fact that what he held in his hands was a “report” that was more than dubious especially in terms of the methodology applied, and also on many points regarding the contents. He undertook the task of writing a critical, reasoned analysis of Arendt’s book along four well defined axis : the personality of Adolph Eichmann, the society (comprising Nazis versus Jews), the problematic jurisdiction over the issue of crime against humanity, and finally the work and personality of Arendt. In these four chapters it emerged that this book was not only one of the most highly criticized of Arend’ts works, but also one of the most criticisable.Over the years that followed Lahav progressively updated his text by means of in-depth reading, and viewing of documentary films broadcast on French and Israeli television. Each re-examination of Arendt’s book in light of the new information only confirmed to which extent she ultimately had been misled, too often mixing genres and not less often bending the historical facts (to the point of simply ignoring them) to suit the purposes of her case. No, it was decidedly not a simple “report”, but indeed a “thesis”, highly personal and definitely questionable.

The Sound of the First French Television Advertisements

This year in France, there has been a commemoration of the May 1968 rebellion. All of the media outlets in France - from the little local radio stations to the biggest magazines and television channels - have given a lot of time and space to this event. Yet no one has spoken about the first television advertisements that were aired a few weeks after Mai 68. In this position statement I will explore the link between the famous transformation movement in French society and the sound of the first French television commercials.The analysis of sound in television advertisements has barely been addressed since the beginning of television and film studies. If we want to understand the way brands try to attract people, we need to listen carefully to advertisements. Therefore I want to foreground the importance of studying sound in television commercials. What are the meanings of these sounds? For the purpose of this essay I will give three brief examples.Though they seem to be a caricature of la vie a la francaise, France's first television commercials were aired on 1st October 1968, for the most part promoting cheese and milk.1 The first such ad was for Boursin, a cheese with garlic and herbs. The ad shows a man who, in the middle of the night, is seen running into his apartment shouting, 'Du Boursin! Du Boursin!' Stopping in front of his refrigerator he eats a considerably largesized wedge of Boursin (on a baguette, of course). Following this we hear a powerful musical chord, presumably played on a church organ; the man seems to be in ecstasy. The sound conveys a cathedral-like atmosphere, indicating that the cheese is a gift from God, as the sounds emanating from the organ have no link with the kitchen where the action takes place. It shows that in French television advertisements the emphasis is on the use of sound that works like an audiovisual counterpoint. Had the 1968 French ad filmmakers been influenced by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Alexandrov's 1928 manifesto?The second commercial to be shown on French television in 1968 was an advertisement promoting a powdered milk called Regilait. In it we see a brand new HLM (habitation a loyer modere), a council housing block typical of those built throughout France during the 1960s, and the sound we hear is of trucks and construction-site equipment. It is exactly the same sound that can be heard at the beginning of Henri Verneuil's 1963 film, Melodie en sous-sol, when the main character, a gangster played by Jean Gabin, is unable to recognise his neighborhood upon returning there after a long spell in gaol. It is also the noise that accompanies M. Hulot when he makes his way from his old neighbourhood to the rich, modern villas at the beginning of Jacques Tati's film Mon Oncle (1958). This is the sound of the 1960s in France, the development of concrete buildings, the sounds of modernity. The commercials, like feature films, depicted this frenetic urban development, but from totally opposite points of view. The sounds of these television advertisements tell us about the way society sees itself, and they need to be analysed for what they tell us about our social history.In the next shot we find ourselves in a modern kitchen. An executive is having his breakfast, when suddenly we hear the bells of Big Ben! The solemnity of the hour is clear, Regilait powdered milk is depicted as a similar 'monument', standing upright on the breakfast table of every decent French, middle-class family; as the images unfold, the spectator absorbs the sound of the bells. When the executive drinks his milk - dissolved in water - he smiles, blissfully content, as the sounds of construction have been silenced. But suddenly the man hears a powerful 'moo'; gazing quickly out of his window, he is thoroughly disappointed not to find a cow grazing on the brand new public housing parking lot. Indeed, the 'moo' he hears is coming from the milk box. Regilait milk is so close to the real thing that you can actually hear the cows speaking to you every morning. …

Sixties

Sixties

‘ONE STATE, ONE TELEVISION, ONE PUBLIC’

This article seeks to reappraise two popular yet neglected examples of variety programming, which appeared on French television during the 1960s: Discorama and Age tendre et tête de bois. While the former has been situated within a realist televisual aesthetic and regarded as a launch-pad for French singer-songwriters, the latter has been represented as a youth-oriented vehicle for rock ‘n’ roll and yé-yé pop music. Although such interpretations are to a large extent valid, this article will argue that both programmes should also be viewed as symptomatic of Charles de Gaulle's statist broadcasting strategy, which placed great emphasis on creating social cohesion via programmes designed to appeal to the widest possible audience.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet (review)

Elizabeth Ezra. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Jean-Pierre Jeunet by Elizabeth Ezra is the first full book published on the contemporary French film director. Part of the reputable Contemporary Film Directors series, the book proposes engaging commentaries of Jeunet's short and full-length films. Thematic chapters follow a brief introduction, and the book closes with a translation and transcription of a 2005 French television interview with Jeunet. A complete bibliography of secondary sources in both French and English finishes the book; Isabelle Vandershelden's French Film Guide: Amelie (U. of Illinois Press, 2007) just missed inclusion. Images from the director's features and the 1981 short, Le Bunker de la derniere rafale, parcel the book; the rare film images, from L'Evasion and Le Manege, the ones aficionados hanker to see, are disappointingly absent. To compensate, the author puts forth full descriptions and partial analyses of these early shorts. The author studies numerous threads woven through Jeunet's cinema over the years while supplying enough film detail for those who have yet to see the films. Her brief synopses are clear and well situated in developed analyses. The strong point of this project is the in-depth cultural content and context which the author provides. For example, situating into French History Jeunet's earlier films, Delicatessen and La Cite des enfants perdus, allows Ezra to present some convincing correlations between film narratives and their contemporaneous contexts, evoking the Klaus Barbie trial, the French colonial project, and the conflict in Algeria. She takes risks which lead to original thought-provoking readings; at times, however, her analyses stop short which is the case when discussing Jeunet's earlier works alongside cinema du look directors, without delving into the director's career in commercial filmmaking. Uncovering Jeunet's approach to cinema as a director of music clips and television advertisements would have brought about an interesting discussion of his passion for mise-en-scene, pre-production methods and post-production techniques. Rather than providing full monographs, chapters focus around one feature film while reactivating inquiry into themes such as prosthe sis and corporeal mutation, codes, reproduction and cloning, collect ing, the transnational as well as French idiosyncrasies. Commentaries are rich in film and national literary history: Montaigne, Hugo, Perec, Gance, Came, Kassovitz have all found a proper place. …