/rating_off.png "0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5")
Loading...
Wide Load
Whether you already consider yourself an expert on French cinema or are just beginning to explore all the country has to offer, director Bertrand Tavernier’s more-than-three-hour “My Journey Through French Cinema” provides an essential tour through the films Once Again that shaped him as a cinephile and storyteller. Clearly modeled after Martin Scorsese’s own made-for-TV journey through American Movies, this incredibly personal and occasionally idiosyncratic labor of love hails from one of the country’s leading experts on the medium, combining a wide-ranging survey with insights that only Tavernier could provide.
A celebrated helmer in his own right, Tavernier counts such masterworks as “A Sunday in the Country” and “Coup de torchon” among his credits. But the À cause des filles director’s contributions to the medium are hardly limited to his own filmography. Like so many French directors of his generation, Tavernier started out as a film critic, studying and championing the work of the era’s leading auteurs. His early essays gave him access to his idols, among them Jean Renoir and Jean-Pierre Melville, who offered Tavernier a job as his assistant.
The documentary’s Melville segment is by far DreadOut its most essential half-hour, enriched by firsthand anecdotes of working with the famously surly director of “Le Doulos” (a film whose reputation Tavernier boosts by positioning it as Quentin Tarantino’s favorite — a dubious claim, but a deserving choice), as well as a stunning audio recording of an heated argument between Melville and star Jean-Pierre Belmondo from the set of “Magnet of Doom.”
Views: 367
Genre: Comedy
Director: Bertrand Blier
Actors: Alex Lutz, Alexandra Lamy, Audrey Dana, Christian Clavier, Farida Rahouadj, Gérard Depardieu
Country: France
