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Thierry Ardisson, a staple of the French television landscape for nearly four decades who ruffled feathers as an iconoclastic journalist, host and producer of often explosive talk shows, died on Tuesday from liver cancer. He was 76.

His wife, Audrey Crespo Mara, who is also a TV host and journalist, confirmed the news to French news agency Afp. “Thierry passed away as he lived: a courageous and free man,” she said in a statement. “His children and mine were united around him until his last breath.”

Nicknamed “the man in black” because of his invariable black outfits, Ardisson broke ground in France with his first major talk show, “Tout le monde en parle,” which would air late every Saturday night on France Télévisions Channel France 2 and became a hit in the late 1990s. Unlike many other TV hosts who often seemed complacent, Ardisson was known for doing in-depth research on his guests to find blind spots,...

Restored movies by Pedro Almodóvar, Stanley Kubrick, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Manoel de Oliveira, Krzysztof Kieślowski and Tsai Ming-Liang are set to screen as part of the Venice Film Festival’s 18-title Venice Classics lineup.

Almodóvar’s 1986 erotic thriller “Matador,” featuring Antonio Banderas as a young bullfighter and exploring themes of sex and violence in the bullfighting world – a film that Quentin Tarantino has cited an inspiration – is part of a clutch of European titles in the selection. It also includes de Oliveira’s first film “Aniki-Bóbó”; Marcel Carné’s classic noir “Quai des brumes,” starring Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan, which was a prizewinner at Venice in 1938; and Kieslowski’s “Blind Chance, which heralded his famed “Decalogue.”

U.S. highlights comprise Kubrick’s 1962 Vladimir Nabokov adaptation “Lolita,” starring James Mason and Sue Lyon; Delmer Daves’ 1957 western “3:10 to Yuma,” redone by James Mangold in 2007 in a version starring Russell Crowe...

The Venice Film Festival has unveiled the 18 recently restored movies that will be showcased in its Venice Classics sidebar at upcoming 82nd edition.

The line-up features Delmer Daves’ 1957 western 3:10 to Yuma, based on a 1953 short story by Elmore Leonard, which was revisited by James Mangold in 2007 in a version starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

Other U.S. highlights include The Delicate Delinquent, starring Jerry Lewis, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, House of Strangers, starring Edward G. Robinson in the role of a rags-to-riches Italian American banker accused of criminal activity.

The sidebar will also showcase Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Vladimir Nabokov adaptation Lolita, starring James Mason and Sue Lyon.

European classics in the selection include Manoel de Oliveira’s first film Aniki-Bóbó, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blind Chance, which heralded Decalogue; Pedro Almodóvar’s Matador, and Marcel Carné’s pioneering film noir Le Quai des brumes, starring Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan,...

Robert De Niro, in Cannes to receive an honorary Palme d’Or during Tuesday night’s glitzy opening ceremony, used his time in the spotlight to defend democracy and take aim at America’s commander in chief.

“In my country, we are fighting like hell for the democracy we once took for granted. That affects all of us here, because art is the crucible that brings people together, like tonight. Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity. That’s why art is a threat. That’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists,” he said to applause inside the Grand Lumiére theater with Leonardo DiCaprio standing over his shoulder after an affecting tribute to DiCaprio’s frequent collaborator and acting icon.

“America’s Philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions [the Kennedy Center]. He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education.

Throughout film history, countless actors have utilized the gangster genre as a launching pad to superstardom. In the early 1930s, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson became A-list actors following their performances in The Public Enemy and Little Caesar. During the New Hollywood movement, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro entered the upper echelon of Hollywood stardom after their seminal performances in The Godfather and Mean Streets. Internationally, stars such as Jean Gabin and Alain Delon had lengthy careers within the gangster genre, routinely giving memorable performances in works such as Pp le Moko and Le Samoura.

Delivering iconic performances in a gangster movie provides actors with the opportunity to become a staple of the pop culture lexicon. Characters such as Vito Corleone, Michael Corleone, and Tommy DeVito remain popular among audiences decades after they first appeared on the silver screen. Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront,...

Alain Delon, the striking French leading man known for his uncommonly beautiful, coldly calculating villains in Le Samouraï and Purple Noon, has died. As confirmed by his family to France’s Afp news agency, Delon died Sunday after years of health complications stemming from a 2019 stroke. He was 88.An icon of French cinema,...

French crime films of the 1950s and ’60s often centered on professional criminals who followed codes of honor that put them on a more-or-less level moral playing field with the detectives tracking them down. Whether it was Jean Gabin’s aging gangster Max in Jacques Becker’s Touchez Pas au Grisbi or Alain Delon’s steely eyed assassin Jef in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï, these men had a sophistication and moral grounding that minimized the violence and chaos they caused. They were dangerous, even deadly, but only when they needed to be and in a way the cops could wrap their heads’ around.

Fun City Editions’s new Blu-ray set, Seeing Red: 3 French Vigilante Thrillers, consists of a trio of films that play like French twists on the hyper-violent Italian poliziotteschi crime films that reached the height of their popularity in the ’70s. In Jean-Claude Missiaen’s Shot Pattern,...

Three non-English language films make history with Best Picture nominations at the 2024 Oscars. Non-English language films nominated for Best Picture challenge bias against subtitles and cultural relevance. Best Picture nominees like "The Grand Illusion" and "Cries and Whispers" reflect the power of international cinema.

The Best Picture race at the Oscars is always exciting but 2024 is especially interesting as it contains a record-breaking three non-English language Best Picture nominees. As an American institution, the Academy Awards have long given preference to American films, while mostly leaving the acknowledgment of other countries' movies to the International Feature Film category (formerly known as the Best Foreign Language Film category). However, there are some exceptional international movies that have broken those barriers and reached Oscar voters on a bigger level.

International movies always struggle to reach American audiences in general with a bias against having to read subtitles or an unfounded idea that...

I suppose there’s a more interesting film to be made about the great composer Ennio Morricone, but watching Giuseppe Tornatore’s loving and comprehensive “Ennio” makes it almost impossible to care. An uncomplicated and reverent tribute that was shot before the late maestro’s death in 2020 (and would feel like a two-and-a-half-hour tribute reel if not for the fact that Morricone himself is the film’s most frequent talking head), this straightforward biodoc is almost perversely generic for a movie that’s meant to honor one of cinema’s greatest radicals.

And yet, do you really not want to see Clint Eastwood deadpanning that Morricone’s music “helped dramatize me, which is really hard to do”? Would a less conventional documentary have been able to squeeze Bruce Springsteen, Wong Kar-wai, and James Hetfield into the same film, or include so much of what Bernardo Bertolucci had to say about...

Within the same broad outline as Jean Renoir’s La Chienne, Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street strikes many notes to emphasize the emasculation of Christopher “Chris” Cross (Edgar G. Robinson): at a dinner in his honor, the lowly bank cashier sees his boss (Russell Hicks) rush through a ceremonial toast to make time with his mistress; in his own home he’s obligated to indulge his unwelcome hobby of picture painting in the bathroom; and there’s a bit of business with a frilly smock he puts on to do the dishes.

Against the grain of what we might assume about put-upon little guys in movies and the way they lash out, Lang only dwells on the tableaux of Chris eunuchized doldrums to make one almost invisible moment work—when, over drinks with Katherine “Kitty” March (Joan Bennett), Chris doesn’t really correct her when she makes the fateful...

Studiocanal will co-produce and is handling international sales on Fred Cavayé’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s epic novel Les Misérables.

Set to shoot at the end of 2024, Les Miserables is produced by Olivier Delbosc’s Curiosa Films, whose notable behind The Taste Of Things, and Richard Grandpierre’s Eskwad, f recent films Like A Son and Spring Blossom.

No cast is yet attached. Studiocanal will release the film in France.

Cavayé’s most recent credits include the World War II-set drama Farewell Mister Haffmann and period comedy This is the Goat! starring Dany Boon which is set for release...

Can Artificial Intelligence help better restore and preserve heritage cinema?

That was the question asked to a high-level panel on Thursday at the Classic Film Market, which runs alongside Lyon’s Lumière Film Festival, dedicated to heritage film.

Struggling to override the clatter of the heavy downpour hitting the ceiling of the tent set up next to the Lumière Institute for the duration of the festival, participants took part in a heated debate entitled Artificial Intelligence: A Tool for Heritage, in front of a packed room of industry professionals.

Opening the discussion, Barbara Mutz, in charge of legal and regulatory matters at France’s National Audiovisual Institute (Ina), said AI algorithms developed in-house hugely facilitate the archiving and location of its huge catalogue.

“We can index images and sound in a way that allows us to locate them [more easily] at a later stage, both for our own use and that of our users.

he following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1, Episode 2, "Alouette," which premiered Sunday, Sept. 17 on AMC.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has received rave reviews for its production design in an apocalyptic France, emotional performances, and gorgeous cinematography. The styling of the series is unlike anything The Walking Dead franchise has produced before, heavily influenced by European aesthetics, art, and film. Even in high-octane action sequences where the dead take control, the spinoff series is an eloquent masterclass in effective on-camera storytelling.

Director Dan Percival and director of photography/cinematographer Tomasso Fiorilli bring the emotionally gripping and fast-paced story to life through action sequences and dramatic moments. Percival and Fiorilli sat down with Cbr to discuss what influenced their cinematic choices on Daryl Dixon, how they framed the show around natural lighting, and how they used actors as a guiding force. Percival also broke down how he...

A ruby-and-diamond bracelet that legendary star Marlene Dietrich commissioned from Van Cleef & Arpels in 1937 and wore to the Academy Awards in 1951 is headed to the auction block. It will be offered as part of Christie’s upcoming June 7 sale in New York, titled “The Magnificent Jewels of Anne Eisenhower.”

Interior designer and jewelry collector Anne Eisenhower.

Eisenhower — an interior designer who died last year and was a granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower — was also privately a collector of many pieces of exceptional jewelry, from a Panthère de Cartier brooch to a Tiffany and Co. Art Deco diamond bracelet on which a rose is depicted by rubies and emeralds. Both are included in the auction, which has a total of 31 lots.

But it’s Dietrich’s bracelet, which Eisenhower anonymously purchased at auction in 1992, that is the undisputed star of the sale as well as the lot with the highest estimate — $2.5 million to $4.5 million.

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Music Box Films releases the film in select theaters on Friday, August 25.

A former translator for American troops in Kabul — a role that eventually allowed her to leave her birth country but left her with unresolved feelings of guilt and shame — 20something Donya now lives by herself in a Fremont, California, apartment complex full of other Afghan immigrants. Whatever sense of community Donya gets from the other people in the building doesn’t seem to alleviate her quiet isolation, even if neighbors like Suleyman (Timur Nusratty) and Salim (Siddique Ahmed) are readily available for wistful conversation at all hours of the night.

When the sun comes up, Donya commutes to her job at a Chinese-owned fortune cookie factory, where she’s responsible for printing out the cryptic sayings that other people will eventually translate for themselves. That...

Hungry for those wet Parisian streets, the city lights, and cadavres en lambeaux in the pale moonlight? Enter three highly atmospheric, star-studded Crime Noirs, one of which is a stealth classic of Gallic Pulp. Stars Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, and Annie Girardot bring the tales of à sang froid malice and mayhem to life. The films featured are Gilles Grangier’s Speaking of Murder (Le rouge est mis) and Édouard Molinaro’s Back to the Wall (Le dos au mur) and Witness in the City (Un Témoin dans la ville). Beware of French husbands when cucklolded — they show no pity. Bonne chance, victimes!

French Noir Collection

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95

Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Apples (Christos Nikou)

Apples is set in a world where digital technology seems not to exist, yet the psychic imprint of the digital age hangs heavy over first-time director Christos Nikou’s sparse absurdist dramedy. In an alternate-universe Greece, people are falling victim to a pandemic of sudden-onset Memento syndrome: total, crippling amnesia that befalls ordinary adults seemingly at random, necessitating elaborate state-run medical programs for the mnemonically impaired. Of particular concern to such programs are “unclaimed” amnesiacs, patients who fail to be identified by friends or family members and thus become wards of the state, who must be gradually rehabilitated into society and construct new identities from scratch. – Eli F. (full review)

Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)

Causeway (Lila Neugebauer...

Mediawan Rights has expanded its unscripted division with the appointment of former Shine France top executive Jeremy Klif, and is opening up to formats from third-party producers.

Klif has been tapped deputy director of international sales for the unscripted unit which was launched by Mediawan Rights’ managing director Valérie Vleeschhouwer, in April. Klif began his career in the U.S. at Mark Burnett Productions, and later worked as head of sales and acquisitions for Shine France upon his return to Paris. He went on to launch Borderline Media, a production and distribution banner specialized in formats, in 2017. At Mediawan Rights, Klif will work alongside Estelle Bodén, the co-founder of Sweden’s Elk Entertainment, who serves as head of distribution for the division. Like Klif, Bodén has a track record as an entrepreneur and also worked for indies and big groups such as Strix Television.

With Bodén and Klif on board,...

The tough guys in Yves Boisset’s crime drama answer revenge with revenge, and Michel Bouquet’s rogue cop commits outrageous acts of lawlessness to nail his partner’s killer. The French censors were up at arms over Boisset’s slight to police honor, yet the subject isn’t corruption — everything is ‘honor and decency.’ A fine gallery of Gallic thugs fills out the cast; both they and the attitude toward law and order are a step beyond Jean-Pierre Melville, but not an improvement. With standout work from Michel Constantin, Théo Sarapo, Henri Garcin and Bernard Fresson.

The Cop aka Un condé

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1970 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date September 6, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Michel Bouquet, Françoise Fabian, Gianni Garko, Michel Constantin, Théo Sarapo, Henri Garcin, Anne Carrère, Bernard Fresson, Pierre Massimi, Roger Lumont.

Cinematography: Jean-Marc Ripert

Film Editor: Albert Jurgenson, Vincenzo Tomassi

Original Music:...

Last year, Ben Stykuc wrote in his review of “Three Days of a Blind Girl”: “In retrospect, Anthony Wong is the only actor I know that could outNicolasCage Nicolas Cage”, and his comment could not have been more spot on. Having build his career with secondary roles and first roles in Cat III films, Wong eventually managed to become one of the most respected character actors in the industry with a string of awards and outstanding performances to his credit. Just his presence is frequently enough by itself to elevate the films he participates in, with him portraying rather different characters throughout his career, with equal artistry and much gusto. To celebrate this wonderful actor, we present 16 of his best performances, in alphabetical order, focusing on a diversity of roles that have him play from a a priest to rapist, from a cop to a sadistic killer, and anything between.

Portrait of Jennie (1948).We are floating in the heavens, soaring between black and white clouds. A throaty voice reaches out to us from on high. “What is time? What is space? What is life? What is death? Nothing ever dies, but only changes,” the voice declares in the overly serious tone of a kitschy 1950s educational film narrator. Soon a quote from Euripedes fades onto screen, “who knoweth if to die be but to live,” followed by John Keats’ classic lines, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” These hackneyed epigraphs might normally feel stultifying in their obvious pretentiousness, yet tonight they take on a special significance. There hasn’t been a title card yet and there won’t be until the very end, but this film is Portrait of Jennie (1948), the movie that ruined Selznick’s Hollywood career...

by Cláudio Alves

The Almost There series continues its exploration of the Criterion Channel's May programming. It's time to shine a light on Jean Gabin, currently celebrated in a 10-film collection named "France's Everyman". From 1936's The Lower Depths to 1963's Any Number Can Win, this tenfold serves as a sample of the Gallic actor's extensive career, dramatic prowess, and on-screen persona. Gruff and disaffected, with a cynic's soul and a mischievous twinkle in the eye, Gabin came to embody the French working classes in a myriad of roles from romantic heroes through charismatic scoundrels. Even before the Nouvelle Vague rocked the foundations of France's film industry, the actor had already become something bigger than life. Gabin turned from man into symbol, the personification of his nation's cinema. No wonder he never found a home in Hollywood despite a 1940s detour. Maybe he was just too French!

Still, American audiences embraced Gabin's movies.

May on the Criterion Channel will be good to the auteurs. In fact they’re giving Richard Linklater better treatment than the distributor of his last film, with a 13-title retrospective mixing usual suspects—the Before trilogy, Boyhood, Slacker—with some truly off the beaten track. There’s a few shorts I haven’t seen but most intriguing is Heads I Win/Tails You Lose, the only available description of which calls it a four-hour (!) piece “edited together by Richard Linklater in 1991 from film countdowns and tail leaders from films submitted to the Austin Film Society in Austin, Texas from 1987 to 1990. It is Linklater’s tribute to the film countdown, used by many projectionists over the years to cue one reel of film after another when switching to another reel on another projector during projection.” Pair that with 2008’s Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach and your completionism will be on-track.

Some movie stars can hold the screen without saying a word, their faces etched with such character they arrest attention. From an earlier era, Robert Mitchum, William Holden and Jean Gabin come to mind.

Julián Moreno possesses that kind of face – deeply lined, with a gaze that at times feels engaged in the distance. He’s not an actor, but he does anchor a film: the documentary What We Leave Behind, directed by his granddaughter, Iliana Sosa. His mere presence on screen is enough to retain our interest, whether he’s speaking or, more often than not, simply being – quietly, powerfully inhabiting the frame.

Sosa began filming with her grandfather when he was already well into his 80s. She had known him all her life; he lived in a small town in Mexico’s northern state of Durango and would cross the U.S. border once a month to visit his daughter,...

A glossy but faithful 2017 adaptation of the classic Agatha Christie whodunnit, Kenneth Branagh’s “Murder on the Orient Express” remains one of the few Hollywood movies in recent memory that managed to become a bonafide hit despite the complete absence of spandex or symbiotes, and you don’t need to be a world-class detective to sniff out the reasons why. Brand recognition did a lot of the heavy lifting (as it so often does these days), but the film also boasted at least three other undeniable advantages: The star power of its cast, the sumptuousness of its 65mm cinematography, and the IMAX-worthy size of its lead mustache — an ear-to-ear crumb-catcher big enough to hide a Christmas ham.

That “Death on the Nile” is a more satisfying mystery in almost every respect (and ) has a lot to do with its source material, which eschews the twisty legalese of “Murder on the Orient Express...

French VFX powerhouse MacGuff – with headquarters in Paris and offices in L.A. – is using proprietary artificial intelligence tools, in particular Face Engine and Body Engine, in a broad range of VFX projects.

Current projects in the pipeline include Season 2 of “Lupin” for Netflix, “Hôtel du temps” for France Télévisions, and Christian Carion’s “Une belle course,” starring Dany Boon. The studio also used AI tools in Éric Rochant’s political thriller series “The Bureau.”

“Hôtel du temps” is a perfect example of the power of Face Engine since it brings historic figures back to life, such as late actor Jean Gabin and Princess Diana, to be interviewed by hard-hitting French journalist Thierry Ardisson.

MacGuff has an in-house R&d department that has been developing proprietary AI tools by mixing open-source software with proprietary code. The AI developments are being overseen by co-founder and joint director Rodolphe Chabrier and MacGuff...

In film history, the anthology genre is the most challenging. Episodic films often have several directors and screenwriters which gives them an inconsistent tone and quality. But the genre’s pitfalls haven’t stopped such filmmakers including Akira Kurosawa (“Dreams”), the Coens (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (“Sin City”); Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese (“New York Stories”); and Joe Dante, John Landis, George Miller and Steven Spielberg (“Twilight Zone: The Movie”).

Wes Anderson joined them with his latest film “The French Dispatch,” which received a nine-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. The comedy brings to life three stories from an American magazine published in a fictional French city and features his stock company of actors including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson.

If you are a fan of the genre, here are the best anthology movies that...

Is it even Mipcom if The Grand is closed and a legion of bamboo planters is blocking off access to a vacant Grand Palais basement? As the global TV market convened in Cannes after two pandemic-stricken years, it was initially hard to say. But despite an understated affair with fewer U.S. delegates and hardly any presence from Asia, Australia and Latin America those who did attend got valuable face-time with key business contacts and a renewed sense of an industry quietly coming back to life.

Here are the 10 top talking points from Cannes:

Squid Game on Top

Few dared to travel to Mipcom without having seen at least a couple of episodes of Netflix’s smash hit from Korea, “Squid Game.” The show was name-dropped in virtually all content sessions, with breathless executives applauding its imagination and investment from the SVOD. Ironically, while Korea normally has a robust presence in Cannes,...

Thierry Ardisson, a famous French TV journalist, host and producer known for roasting some of the biggest stars and political figures in modern history, has teamed up with Mediawan’s 3eme Oeil Productions to resuscitate late icons in “L’hotel du Temps.”

Pioneering the use of an artificial intelligence-generated tool called FaceRetriever, “L’Hotel du Temps” has allowed Ardisson to fulfil his wildest dream: Travel back in time and bring back legendary figures, including Princess Diana, French actor Jean Gabin, comedian Coluche, singer Dalida and former French president Francois Mitterand.

He interviews them in his favorite Parisian palace, the Hotel Meurice. Represented by Mediawan Rights, “L’Hotel du Temps” has been commissioned by French public broadcaster France Televisions’ France 3 channel for primetime.

Ardisson has tapped an extended team of researchers to explore all interviews and statements that each person ever gave and look at other material in order to craft the segments.

Le Désordre et la Nuit, shown as part of a retrospective for the great thriller director at Lyon’s Lumière film festival, is a well-crafted treat for fans of the genre

A big feature, and an even bigger pleasure, of this year’s Lumière film festival in Lyon is the retrospective for the French master of policiers and crime, Gilles Grangier, a director who enjoyed great commercial success in movies and later in TV from the 1950s to the 80s, working with actors such as Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura and the great screenwriter Michel Audiard (father of Jacques). He was a working-class film-maker who came up from the streets of Paris, and started in the movies as a stuntman, grip, prop boy, any job he could get.

Grangier is a name perhaps eclipsed now by Jean-Pierre Melville and made to feel obsolete in the 60s by the New Wave...

Among authors who didn’t live to witness their own success, Louis Hemon is a particularly unfortunate case — his novel “Maria Chapdelaine” was published in 1913, the same year as his train-struck death. Thus he didn’t see it become an early Quebec-lit classic taught to generations of schoolchildren, published in translation worldwide or adapted into many other media over the past century. Among prior screen versions were two made in his native France, the 1934 one notable as Julien Duvivier’s first collaboration with Jean Gabin.

The slim book, drawing on adventure-seeking Hemon’s own experiences briefly working as a farmhand in the Lac Saint-Jean region, has been treated with less-than-strict fidelity by previous dramatists. Sebastien Pilote’s new film is probably the most faithful to date by far — though that isn’t entirely a plus. . It’s a well-produced episodic tale whose incidents and personalities remain too modest to sustain nearly three hours’ illustration,...

Georges Simenon Limited (Gsl) has signed a licence and co-production arrangement with Colin Callender’s Golden Globe and BAFTA-winning Playground (“Howards End”) to co-develop with Red Arrow Studios International a new English-language returning Inspector Maigret drama series.

The series will be based on Georges Simenon’s iconic series of novels about the ingenious French detective Jules Maigret.

Playground’s option deal with Gsl extends to all 75 novels and 28 short stories based on the Jules Maigret character. The Maigret books have sold over 600 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 50 languages.

Maigret has been portrayed by a host of popular actors over the years in series and films, including Richard Harris (pictured), Rowan Atkinson, Michael Gambon and Jean Gabin.

The adaptation will be executive produced by Colin Callender, David Stern and Scott Huff for Playground, Tim Gerhartz and Rodrigo Herrera Ibarguengoytia for Red Arrow Studios International and John Simenon...

Bertrand Tavernier breaks the barrier between fans of European movies and 101 classic French pictures that most of us have never gotten a peek at. The key to this eight-hour film clip excerpt round-up is the hosting-curatorship of Tavernier — the fascinating miniseries has plenty to offer both fans that have never seen an old French movie, and some of us that thought (until now) that we knew something about them. The author and director is also a great storyteller, presenting his favorite underrated directors, actors & composers and putting them, in historical context. Tavernier is a deft film clip picker — all are riveting, none are spoilers, and you’ll come out learning fifty new French words, most of them clean. Highly, highly recommended.

Journeys Through French Cinema

Blu-ray

Cohen Media Group

2017 / Color + B&w / 1:78 widescreen + 1:33 flat / 459 min. without beating any particular bias-drum.

Even when championing directors he dubs The Forgotten Ones,...

The hallmarks of screenwriter Michel Audiard – slang-laden dialogue, absurd situations and explosive confrontations – are all in evidence in Gilles Grangier’s “The Night Affair” (“Le Désordre et la nuit”), screening at the Lumière Film Festival as part of the program marking the centenary of Audiard’s birth.

The celebration features 18 films scripted by Audiard, one of his directorial efforts, “Don’t Take God’s Children for Wild Geese,” a pastiche of the hardboiled detective thrillers made famous by French publishing imprint Série Noire, and a new documentary on his life, “Le Terminus des prétentieux,” helmed by Sylvain Perret, wherein Gaumont opens their archives to reveal some undiscovered gems from the scenarist’s career.

There is also a new book containing three of his screenplays, “Blood to the Head,” “Maigret Sets a Trap,” and “Inspector Maigret and The President” – presented as part of the Lumière Institute/Actes Sud collection, in collaboration with Audiard’s son,...

The Covid-19 crisis has devastated cinema attendance. Several major cinema chains have closed around the world. In the face of adversity, this year’s 12th edition of the Lumière Festival in France’s Lyon, which runs Oct. 10-18, aims to fly the flag of cinema even more forcefully than ever, through its on site mix of career tributes, restored classics, world premieres of new films and a classic film market.

Veteran French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (“My Journey through French Cinema”) has played a key role in organizing this year’s line-up, including the tribute to the classic French screenwriter Michel Audiard, who would have turned 100 this year, the award of the Lumière Award to Belgian directing duo, the Dardenne brothers, tributes to Oliver Stone and Viggo Mortensen, and a career tribute to French actress Sabine Azéma, who starred in two films by Tavernier. The Festival also pays homage to American...

by Cláudio Alves

The 11th Academy Awards marked an important first in Oscar history. Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion, a French drama about class hierarchies and political strife in World War I, received a Best Picture nomination. It became the first non-English language film to ever do so. As we all know, it'd take 81 years for one such picture to win Hollywood's most coveted trophy, but we're not here to talk about Parasite's glorious victory as tempting as that is. Instead, our subject matter is one of French cinema's greatest stars, a brilliant actor that grew to be a cultural monument, the leading man of that historic '38 Best Picture nominee. Jean Gabin was a divinity of the Silver Screen, as magnetic as he was devastating…...

It’s a classic from the Golden Year of 1939, directed in fine style by Wild Bill Wellman and well cast with Paramount stars Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, and Robert Preston, and with Brian Donlevy as one of the movies’ most hissable villains. The popular story has been remade and spoofed innumerable times, yet this remains the indelible best version. A commentary with William Wellman Jr. and Frank Thompson points out many things we didn’t notice before, including where some excised scenes belong, and what originally happened in them.

Beau Geste

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 112 min. / Street Date April 7, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, J. Carrol Naish, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, Charles Barton, James Stephenson, Heather Thatcher, George P. Huntley, Donald O’Connor, Billy Cook, Martin Spellman, Ann Gillis, David Holt, Henry Brandon, Nestor Paiva, Francis McDonald.

A central figure in French cinema, Bertrand Tavernier has an encyclopedic knowledge of the craft of filmmaking akin to the likes of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. The sense of history he possesses is seen in both his narrative and documentary, the latter of which is perhaps best exemplified in his recent film My Journey Through French Cinema. Clocking in at 3.5 hours, that 2016 documentary has now received a follow-up expansion with an eight-part series and we’re pleased to debut the U.S. trailer.

Titled Journeys Through French Cinema, the director-writer-actor-producer explores the filmmakers that most influenced him, how the cinema of France changed when the country was German occupation, the unknown films and filmmakers he admires (with a focus on female directors), and much more. From better-known filmmakers such as Jacques Tati, Robert Bresson, and Jacques Demy to ones in need of (re)discovery such as Raymond Bernard, Maurice Turner,...

With a knowledge of cinema history simply unparalleled even when it comes to the greatest film scholars, a new Martin Scorsese film also means a wealth of commentary as it pertains to the films that he thought of during development and production. As for his crime epic The Irishman, he’s been fairly tight-lipped about influences, but has now revealed a handful during an insightful conversation with Spike Lee. Check out the films (and a book mention) he discussed below, a few of which are now available in new brand-new restorations on Blu-ray.

Jean-Pierre Melville x 2



While Scorsese said he didn’t screen many cinematic influences with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto regarding the look of the film, it was important to get the tone of the movie right. “The tone of the movie, it had to be contemplative and an epic, but it had to be an intimate epic,” he said.

‘Hands off the Loot!’ Jacques Becker’s crackling Paris crime tale is a time machine to an age of Parisian tough guys in double breasted suits, who never show their cards, and mistreat women in ways the Hollywood production code would never allow. Old thief Jean Gabin’s ill-gotten wealth is threatened by the newcomer creep Lino Ventura, thanks to the treachery of a very young Jeanne Moreau; the struggle revives weapons and tactics not used since the Occupation. One of the Great Euro crime classics is now looking terrific in Kino/Studio Canal’s restoration.

Touchez pas au grisbi

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 96 min. / Honor among Thieves / Street Date August 13, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean Gabin, René Dary, Paul Frankeur, Lino Ventura, Jeanne Moreau, Dora Doll, Daniel Cauchy, Michel Jourdan, Marilyn Buferd, Denise Clair, Gaby Basset, Delia Scala.

Cinematography: Pierre Montazel

Film Editor:...

A classic from the underrated filmography of Henri Decoin, 1955’s Razzia sur la chnouf (Raid on Drugs) is based on a novel by Auguste Le Breton, who wrote Rififi and Bob Le Flambeur, which would end up being seminal titles directed by Jules Dassin and Jean-Pierre Melville, respectively.

Decoin’s film has been eclipsed by those more famed titles, but is nevertheless one of Jean Gabin’s more notable later period roles, who stars as Henri Ferre (aka the Man from Nantes), who arrives back in Paris after a notable criminal career in the Us. Immediately tailed by law enforcement upon his return to France, he’s recruited by Paul Liski (Marcel Dalio), who wants Ferre to improve his hustle in narcotics.…...

As part of Kino Lorber’s resurrection of Jean Gabin classics once owned by Criterion, on top of bringing Port of Shadows to Blu-ray, the label also re-releases 1954’s Touchez Pas au Grisbi (aka Don’t Touch the Loot or Honor Among Thieves), a classic which revitalized the French icon’s film career. A crime saga which inspired Melville and Claude Sautet, Gabin stars as an aged gangster struggling to see his final heist to its conclusion, which happens to be the daring robbery of 96 kilos of gold bullion from the Orly airport.

The plan couldn’t be simpler—Gabin’s Max the Liar simply has to filter the kilos through his family contact, Uncle Oscar (Paul Oettly), who needs to melt the gold down so it’s untraceable.…...

Kino Lorber pilfers another title from Criterion Collection with the re-release of Port of Shadows on Blu-ray. A seminal French film noir, the film’s troubled production was thanks in part to its source material, Pierre Mac Orlan’s controversial novel of the same name. Headlined by matinee idol Jean Gabin, who had already starred in Renoir’s The Lower Depths (1936) and Grand Illusion (1937), the film also marked the first major role for leading lady Michele Morgan, while Renoir’s other favored alum Michel Simon stars as the sinister villain.

A template for noir at its most fatalistic, Gabin stars as Jean, an army deserter who ends in Le Havre in hopes to secure passage to Venezuela.…...

Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, delivered a heartfelt homage to Alain Delon at a ceremony on Sunday during which the French actor received the honorary Palme d’Or.

Alluding to the controversy that Delon has triggered with his past declarations, Fremaux said the actor was entitled to have his own convictions and has never tried to convince anyone of his beliefs.

“We know that intolerance is back (…) we’re being asked to believe that if we all think the same it will protect us from the risk of being disliked or being wrong, but Alain Delon is afraid of being disliked, being wrong, and he doesn’t think of others, and he’s not afraid of being alone,” said Fremaux inside the jam-packed Debussy theater to an audience that included high-profile guests such as John Bailey, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Cannes Film Festival is going forward with its decision to award an honorary Palme d’Or to Alain Delon despite criticism from the U.S. organization Women and Hollywood over comments that the veteran French actor has made about slapping women, opposing the adoption of children by same-sex parents and supporting the rise of the far right in France.

Following Cannes’ April 17 announcement of the honor, Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein said she was “extremely disappointed” that Cannes would honor someone who held such “abhorrent values.” In a tweet, Silverstein said Delon “has publicly admitted to slapping women. He has aligned himself with the racist and anti-Semitic National Front. He has claimed that being gay is ‘against nature.’ The Cannes Film Festival has committed itself to diversity and inclusion. By honoring Mr. Delon, Cannes is honoring these abhorrent values.”

Cannes told Variety that it was “honoring Alain Delon...

Revered French actor Alain Delon, who starred in Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece “The Leopard,” will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

In receiving the honor from Cannes, Delon will follow in the footsteps of Jeanne Moreau, Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Agnès Varda and Jean-Pierre Léaud.

Describing Delon as a “giant, a living legend, a global icon… [and even] a box office champion,” the festival said the honorary Palme d’Or will “pay tribute to [Delon’s] wonderful presence in the history of film.”

“Pierre Lescure and I are delighted that Alain Delon has accepted to be honored by the festival,” said Thierry Fremaux, Cannes’ artistic director. Fremaux added that Delon “hesitated for a long time, having long been reluctant to [accept] this Palme d’Or because he thought he should only come to Cannes to celebrate the directors he had been working with.

After delivering the Netflix original series “The Spy” with Sacha Baron Cohen, Alain Goldman’s Paris-based company, Legende, is on track to produce three more premium drama series: Yehonatan Indursky’s “Shtetl,” Olivier Dahan and Frédéric Krivine’s “Les Enfants du Paradis” (working title), and “Ulysse.”

“Les Enfants du Paradis” is being developed by Krivine, the creative force behind the long-running series “Un Village Francais,” and will explore the lives of artists, including Coco Chanel, Arletty and Jean Gabin, during the Nazi occupation of France. Dahan, the director of the Marion Cotillard-starrer “La Vie en Rose,” is attached to co-write and helm the series.

“‘Les Enfants du Paradis’ will shed light on the world of artists during World War II when Paris was occupied by the Germans, and will be backed by meticulous research as we’ll aim to stick to what happened during those years and portray the artists as they were.

Veteran French helmer Bertrand Tavernier (“The French Minister”) is curating a 15-film retrospective of films by Henri Decoin (1890-1969), a larger-than-life character who before directing his first feature, at the age of 43, was an Olympic swimmer, Wwi pilot, sports journalist and novelist.

Decoin is one of the three directors – alongside Jean Grémillon and Max Ophuls – featured in the first episode of Tavernier’s “My Journeys Through French Cinema,” a follow-up project to his documentary “My Journey Through French Cinema”.

Tavernier believes that Decoin left a decisive mark on Gallic cinema due to the fluidity of his directing style, inspired in part by his sojourn in Hollywood in 1938, his innovative exploration of genres such as crime, espionage thrillers, historical sagas and psychological dramas, his remarkable adaptations of novels by George Simenon and his notable collaboration with actors such as Jean Gabin, Louis Jouvet and his second wife, Danielle Darrieux.

The retrospective...

To see the feline countenance of Alain Delon is to immediately understand his movie stardom. How could he have been anything else? It would almost be a cosmic insult to his beauty not to commit it to celluloid. But beyond the erotically-charged pin-up and genre tough guy, Delon would also become a respected actor with a long list of auteur collaborators: Visconti, Melville, Antonioni, Joseph Losey, and the like. The mega-star of European cinema, with his cold grey eyes and louche attitude, could be forbidding or aloof; dashing or innocent. There’s a chance to see all of those iterations of the actor at a new retrospective dedicated to him at New York’s Quad Cinema, aptly-titled "L’Homme Fatal."Early in his career, Delon’s youthful beauty would be utilized in Luchino Visconti’s classics Rocco and his Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), but filmmakers also quickly recognized his ability to play the cad,...

Above: Italian 1960s re-release poster for Touchez pas au grisbi. Artist: Renato Casaro. In Bertrand Tavernier’s wonderful cine-memoire My Journey Through French Cinema (2016), he opens the film talking about the first film scene he remembers having an impact on him as a child: a chase scene of two motorcycle cops pursuing gangsters through a tunnel. It wasn’t until 25 years later that he discovered that the film was Jacques Becker’s debut Dernier atout (1942) and marvels at the fact that “the film that so impressed me was the work of one of France’s greatest filmmakers, one that I would worship. At age 6 I could have made a worse choice.” He goes on to devote the next 15 minutes of the film to Becker whom he describes as “the French director who best understood and mastered American filmmaking”—“Like many American directors he knew that pace is everything, and pace...