Film French Vintage

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Film French Vintage
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Russianmovie (2007) | Drama/Romance | Nymphet Lolita | VintageMovies
Classic French Vintage Movie 1974 | French Comedy Movie | VintageMovies
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Ivan Mosjoukine and Nathalie Lissenko in 'Le Brasier ardent'
For nearly a month now, the Cinémathèque française, which has a rich archive of films, has been curating films on their new streaming platform called Henri. Due to the lockdown in France, the Cinémathèque has been closed since March 13. Every evening a new movie appears free to view. 
This new platform is named after the Cinemathèque’s founder, Heni Langlois. If you’d like to know who he was, the site has films about Henri Langlois, two of which have English subtitles. He was one of the first to actively preserve and archive films, so that future generations may see them too. The films chosen for viewing on their new platform have all been restored by the Cinémathèque. Some of the films, unfortunately, have no subtitles in English as of yet. None are needed for films such as Albert Pierru’s fantastic short animation Surprise Boogie , and you can easily do without for the silent films.
The site began with films from Jean Epstein, one of the pioneering film directors of the 1920s in France who both theorized this new medium and experimented with its varied techniques to create the most poetic movies of the silent era. La Chute de la maison Usher and La Glace à trois faces are such films. Both daring and avant-gardist in their innovative use of the different cinematic tricks that could be created with a camera. As the documentary on Jean Epstein says, it is thanks to Henri Langlois, who hid these films from the Nazis during the Second World War, that we are now able to view them. James June Schneider’s documentary, Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema has English subtitles.
Epstein’s La Chute de la maison Usher (1928) is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s tale, although the story is slightly changed. Epstein’s film combines a few of Poe’s short stories, following the structure of The Fall of the House of Usher , but mixing it with The Oval Portrait , and also, I would argue, Ligea . Whereas in Poe’s short story, the Lady is Usher’s sister, in the film she is his wife. She here embodies Poe’s adoring description of Lady Ligeia.
Lord Roderick Usher has invited an old friend to stay at his house. Upon his arrival, however, the friend finds Usher and his wife in a strange mood. Usher is painting the portrait of his wife. As he advances with his portrait, Lady Usher becomes increasingly ill. To watch Epstein’s film, and especially this one, is a lesson in editing. Every cut, slow motion, superimposition has a meaningful effect. As Roderick Usher paints his wife, the film frames Madeline Usher. Three or four other images of her are superimposed on top of each other suggesting, literally, her duplication. As the story implies, her life is transferred into the painting. The duplication of herself implies the demise of her own body. There is also an incredible use of slow motion to suggest the eeriness of Usher's house. Never have I seen the slow motion of curtains undulating by the force of the wind as beautiful as it is in this film.
If you’re looking for a more playful film, then have a look at Le Brasier ardent , directed by Ivan Mosjoukine (silent film heartthrob) who also stars in it. This movie will show you that silent films were not all just black and white. The opening sequence uses a red filter, for example, to suggest the intensity of fire. Mosjoukine plays a detective hired by a husband, anxious after his wife has an intense dream about a mysterious man she clearly desires. Unbeknownst to the husband, the mysterious man is the detective himself.
There are some amazing shots of Paris in the 1920s, as the husband chases after his wife by car up the Champs-Elysées. He ends up losing her trail as he enters a mysterious building, which turns out to be a detective agency, named Agence “Trouve-tout” (Agency “finds-all”). Inside the "Return of missing wives" room, the husband must choose from an array of strange-looking detectives the one he will employ. This is a film that is both fun and incredibly inventive. Apparently, it was after seeing this film that the French filmmaker Jean Renoir ( Grand Illusion , The Rules of the Game ) decided to become a film director.
The selection of silent films chosen for the platform is pretty outstanding. If you enjoyed watching The Lighthouse , there is a good chance you’ll like these movies, made by masters of the silent era in France. You’ll see how Robert Eggers’ film cleverly borrows from the language and aesthetic of silent cinema. La Chute de la maison Usher , La Glace à Trois Faces , Le Brasier ardent , Feu Mathias Pascal all experiment with their medium finding innovative ways to create special effects with images in order to tell a story cinematically. The platform does not only show silent films of course. There are, for example, three rare films by Chilean director Raoul Ruiz.
The Cinémathèque Française, Paris, France. (Photo by Bruno DE HOGUES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

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From New Wave classics like Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt to modern favorites like Amélie , here are the most essential French movies to watch now.
Hollywood may be the undisputed king of global film industries, but modern cinema owes its entire existence to the French. In 1895, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière invented a motion-picture camera called the cinematograph and made their first feature, the 46-second long La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon , which they screened for a private audience that March, making it the first presentation of projected film. In the 126 years since, the French movie industry has grown into one of the most highly regarded in the world, credited with giving rise to influential movements like the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) in the late '50s, and with creating generations of talent, from Brigitte Bardot to Léa Seydoux , Alain Delon to Omar Sy, Jean Renoir to Olivier Dahan.
Lately, French TV has been having a moment (see: the brilliantly meta Call My Agent! and the slick caper Lupin ) , reaching a wider American audience thanks in part to Netflix's commitment to produce more content in the country. The best movies, on the other hand, have long been accessible, if only for a small rental fee on Amazon. So whether you are a diehard Francophile, need to brush up on your French, or just want an excuse daydream about—and plot—your next trip to Paris, we've curated a list of 27 French masterpieces to consider for your next movie night.
France's troubled history of racism and its continued, fraught relationship with immigrant populations are given a blistering critique in this film about three friends who struggle and clash with police while living in Paris's low-income banlieues .
This 1962 romantic drama by François Truffaut, one of the founders of the New Wave, is set during World War I and tells the tragic story of two friends, Jules and Jim, and the unpredictable woman, Catherine, who comes between them.
In this whimsical tale, Audrey Tautou plays a shy waitress who combats her own loneliness by resolving to better the lives of those around her. Not only is Amélie endlessly charming and sweet, it's also a veritable love letter to Paris, and especially Montmartre.
Considered one of the greatest films ever made—Orson Welles once said if he could save just two films for posterity, this would be one—Jean Renoir's 1937 magnum opus is about a group of soldiers plotting their escape from a German prison camp during the Great War.
What could have been a clichéd premise is actually an endearing anthology of 18 stories of love and loss (directed by the likes of Alfonso Cuarón, Olivier Assayas, and the Coen brothers, and featuring an ensemble cast including Natalie Portman, Juliette Binoche, and Willem Dafoe), set in Paris's various arrondissements.
Before he captured our hearts in Lupin this year, Omar Sy became a household name thanks to this 2011 hit, which is based on a true story about a wealthy quadriplegic (François Cluzet), his live-in caretaker (Sy), and the unlikely bond that forms between them.
In this 1967 neo-noir thriller, which influenced later works like The Driver (1978) , heartthrob Alain Delon is an icy contract killer on a mission to come up with an alibi for a recent job before the police—or worse, his dangerous employers—catch up.
Painter Julian Schnabel's most successful (and Oscar-nominated) cinematic work was adapted from the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, about his life following a massive stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to speak—Bauby wrote the book by dictating each letter through blinking his eyes.
François Truffaut's acclaimed directorial debut about a rebellious boy in 1950s Paris is a defining film of the New Wave, a work that embodies the movement's signature traits, from the long tracking shots to its existential theme. 
If Truffaut was the father of the New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard was its most prolific auteur —his feature debut Breathless is the first of his many contributions to the movement. Its immense success also catapulted actor Jean-Paul Belmondo to international stardom. 
Jean-Luc Godard creates a portrait of youth culture, love, revolution, and politics in 1960s Paris through Masculin Féminin 's quartet of twenty-somethings: also referred to as "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola."
Marion Cotillard won the Best Actress Oscar (plus a BAFTA, Golden Globe, and César) for her portrayal of the legendary singer Edith Piaf in this biographical musical, becoming the first and only actor to win the award for a French-language performance. 
This New Wave classic directed by Alain Resnais, with a screenplay by the novelist Marguerite Duras, is about a couple, a French actress and a Japanese architect, and the conversations they share about life, love, and war in the aftermath of the devastating Hiroshima bombing.
Isabelle Huppert was nominated for an Academy Award for her turn as a successful video game company CEO on the hunt for the man who raped her in her own home. The 2016 thriller was directed by Paul Verhoeven, aka the man behind the cult Sharon Stone classic Basic Instinct . 
In this coming-of-age tale by Abdellatif Kechiche, a teenage girl (Adèle Exarchopoulos) discovers her sexuality and experiences her first love—and first heartbreak—after meeting a mysterious artist (Léa Seydoux). 
This beautiful tribute to the silent film era of 1920s Hollywood swept the awards circuit in 2011, winning 3 Golden Globes, 7 BAFTAs, 6 Césars, and 5 Academy Awards, including for Best Actor for Jean Dujardin, making him the first French actor ever to win in this category.
This 1958 Jacques Tati classic is an ingenious satire of postwar society's obsession with ultra-modern architecture (the absurdly geometric Villa Arpel is an icon), consumerism, upward mobility, and achieving status through shiny new things.
Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Paul Belmondo's final collaboration is about a disenchanted man who abandons his family and cushy lifestyle to cavort around the Mediterranean with his ex-lover. Complications arise when he learns that she is on the run from Algerian gangsters. 
This drama, depicting the professional and personal lives of the members of a police squad who deal with crimes against children, is thrilling, heartbreaking, and, as The Hollywood Reporter put it, "like a whole season of The Wire packed into a single two-hour-plus film ."
In Catherine Deneuve's most iconic role, she plays a young housewife whose more carnal and masochistic desires can't be fulfilled by her husband. So she turns to a brothel instead to work, by day, as a high-class prostitute. 
Brigitte Bardot, the irresistible settings of Rome and Capri, a disintegrating marriage, clashing egos on a movie set (with Fritz Lang playing himself)—all add up to a perfect recipe for another explosive Jean-Luc Godard film. 
In this twisty thriller, Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil are a couple whose perfectly bourgeois lives are upended when creepy videos showing them under surveillance begin appearing at their doorstep, forcing them to reckon with their not-so-perfect past.
Marion Cotillard plays a killer whale trainer who loses both of her legs in a horrible accident. Matthias Schoenaerts is an unemployed single father. Through their complicated, on/off relationship, the two begin to heal their wounds.
"Seinfeld of France" Gad Elmaleh is the titular valet in this 2006 comedy, in which a wealthy tycoon gets caught with his mistress in a paparazzi photo and enlists the valet to pose as said mistress's boyfriend to hide the affair from his wife. 
Young love and the devastating separation wrought by war is at the heart of this 1964 musical, made all the more enchanting by the technicolor world Catherine Deneuve's Geneviève inhabits, while selling umbrellas from a tiny shop in Cherbourg. 
Emmanuelle Riva ( Hiroshima Mon Amour ) and Jean-Louis Trintignant star in this heart-wrenching film by Michael Haneke about an octogenarian couple and their fight to remain together, at all costs, despite debilitating illness and old age. 
The first of the Three Colors trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski based on the French national motto of liberty, equality, and fraternity, this film explores the idea of liberty through the story of a woman (Juliette Binoche) grieving the deaths of her husband and child, and finding meaning in her life through it all.

Written by Phil de Semlyen Written by Tom Huddleston Wednesday 20 July 2022
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Got a few months to spare? These are the 100 best French movies ever released – ranked by our global critics
For many budding cinephiles, French movies are the final boss of film fandom. In the popular mind, it’s the most highfalutin of movie cultures, laden with philosophy, avant-garde structures and impenetrable characters. In other words, for most mainstream audiences, ‘French’ is a code for ‘pretentious.’ But the truth is, few countries can claim to have exerted as strong and consistent an influence over global moviemaking as France. And sure, a lot of it can be hard for non-scholars to grasp – pioneering New Wavers like Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda prided themselves on it. Once you start digging into the history of French film, though, you’ll discover pleasures unlike those found anywhere else in world cinema.
Jumping in, however, can be difficult – and ranking the greatest French films is no easy task. But whether you’re a Nouvelle Vague obsessive whose Criterion Collection has overtaken your living room or just a big fan of Amélie , you’re sure to discover something new in this countdown of the best French films released between 1902 and 2022.
Written by Tom Huddleston, Geoff Andrew, Dave Calhoun, Cath Clarke, Trevor Johnston, Joshua Rothkopf, Keith Uhlich and Matthew Singer 
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In Marcel Carné’s rich, literary romance from 1945 (‘France’s answer to “Gone with the Wind”!’), four men tussle for the affections of one woman, the conflicted, sphinx-like Garence (Carné regular Arletty), an ice maiden in the league of Marlene Dietrich who, in nearly every shot, has her eyes masked by a beam of light. Such ethereal, delicately cinematic touches add to a film which is content to let a dazzling, witty script (by Jacques Prévert), sumptuous set design and exceptional performers lend the fiction its lifeblood. DJ
Banned on its original release as ‘too demoralising’, and only made available again in its original form in 1956, Renoir’s brilliant social comedy is epitomised by the phrase ‘everyone has their reasons’. Centreing on a lavish country house party given by the Marquis de la Chesnaye and his wife (Dalio, Gregor), the film effects audacious slides from melodrama into farce, from realism into fantasy, and from comedy into tragedy. Romantic intrigues, social rivalries, and human foibles are all observed with an unblinking eye that nevertheless refuses to judge. The carnage of the rabbit shoot, the intimations of mortality introduced by the after-dinner entertainment, and Renoir’s own performance are all unforgettable. Embracing every level of French society, from the aristocratic hosts to a poacher-turned-servant, the film presents a hilarious yet melancholy picture of a nation riven by petty class distinctions. NF 
Dreyer’s most universally acclaimed masterpiece remains one of the most staggeringly intense films ever made. It deals only with the final stages of Joan’s trial and her execution and is composed almost exclusively of close-ups: hands, robes, crosses, metal bars, and (most of all) faces. The face we see most is, nat
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