1.
Tarn-et-Garonne
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Tarn-et-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name and this area was originally part of the former provinces of Quercy and Languedoc. The department was created in 1808 by Napoléon Bonaparte, with territory being taken from the departments of Lot, Haute-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Gers and Aveyron. The department is mostly rural with fertile land in the broad river valley. The departmental prefecture is Montauban, and some of the large communes include Castelsarrasin, Molières, Caussade, Valence-dAgen. Quercy was part of Aquitania prima under the Romans, and Christianity was introduced during the 4th century, early in the 6th century the area fell under the authority of the Franks, and in the 7th century became part of the autonomous Duchy of Aquitaine. At the end of the 10th century its rulers were the counts of Toulouse. The kings of both England and France around this time tried to curry favour by adding to the privileges of the towns, in 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny was signed and the whole of Quercy passed to England. However, in the 1440s the English were finally expelled by the newly created army of Charles VII of France, in the 16th century Quercy was a stronghold of the Protestants, and the scene of fierce religious conflicts. The civil wars of the reign of Louis XIII largely took place around Montauban, before the departments formation in the nineteenth century, the northern half formed part of the old province of Quercy and the southern half, part of Languedoc. The department was created on 4 November 1808 during the First French Empire by a decision of Napoleon and he was impressed by their loyalty and granted their request. The department was formed out of territories that had previously been part of neighbouring areas, more than half of the territory was taken from the Department of Lot, over one-third was taken from Haute-Garonne, and the rest from the departments of Lot-et-Garonne, Gers, and Aveyron. The first Prefect was Félix Le Peletier dAunay, who was installed in his post on 31 December 1808, tarn-et-Garonne constitutes part of the Occitanie region in southern France. It borders on the departments of Lot to the north, Aveyron to the northeast, Tarn to the east, Haute-Garonne to the south, the capital of the department is Montauban which lies about 50 km north of Toulouse. Montauban is situated on the bank of the river Tarn at its confluence with the river Tescou. The second largest commune in the department is Castelsarrasin which stands near the confluence of the Tarn, Montauban is connected to the Garonne via the 11 km Canal de Montech. In the northeast of the department is higher land in the form of limestone known as the Causses. The highest point in the department, at 510 m, is the Pech Maurel, the economy of the department depends mainly on agriculture but there is also some industry, and it benefits from its proximity to Toulouse
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Rendez-vous (1985 film)
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Rendez-vous is a 1985 French drama film directed by André Téchiné. The film stars Juliette Binoche, Lambert Wilson, Wadeck Stanczak, rendez-vous premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Director. The film had a total of 766,811 admissions in France, Nina is a young headstrong woman who has traveled to Paris from her provincial home in Toulouse searching immediate success as an actress. Tired of one-night stands and sharing quarters with others, she sets out to find her own apartment, there, she meets Paulot, a timid real estate clerk, who is immediately smitten by her. She invites him to see her perform in the role she has as a maid in a boulevard comedy. After the play, Nina takes Paulot for dinner with her current boyfriend Fred, Paulot invites Nina to stay at his apartment while she finds her own place, but his roommate, Quentin, refuses to let her stay. They have to settle for a room for the night. In their long walk through the city, she tells Paulot that she has slept with every man she has encountered. She complains to him that she is tired of being used solely for easy sex, Quentin, however, has followed them to the hotel, he forces his attentions on Nina. Nina and Quentin then begin an intense and violent liaison, an actor who performs in a live sex show version of Romeo and Juliet, Quentin is unpredictable and provocative. Nina bounces between the two different men, the gentle Paulot and the dangerous and intense Quentin. Nina has a conflict with Quentin, all the while fending off offers by Paulot to take care of her. When he finds that she has slept with Quentin, Paulot starts to change his calm manners towards Nina, Quentin is run over and killed by a car, in what it seems to be a suicide. During casting of Romeo and Juliet, Scrutzler recognizes Nina among the aspiring actress for the role, full of self-doubt and fear stimulated by the ghost-like appearances of the dead Quentin, Nina prepares for the role and copes with Paulot’s advances. They share an apartment, but have settled for a platonic relationship, however, Paulot is still in love with Nina and is jealous of Scrutzler interest on her. He confronts him, but in spite of the assurance that his interest on her is only of a paternal nature. Nina struggles to rehearse her role as Juliet in the soon to be open play, Nina then goes to his work looking for him and entice him to make love to her. They have sex for the first time, in a violent, Nina then insists in going for a long nocturnal walk, like the one they had the first time they met
4.
Screenwriter
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One famous screenwriter is Jack Rosenthal, who has written for various TV shows over the years, including Londons Burning and Coronation Street. No education is required to become a screenwriter, just good storytelling abilities. Screenwriters are not hired employees, they are contracted freelancers, most, if not all, screenwriters start their careers writing on speculation, meaning they write without being hired or paid for it. If such a script is sold, it is called a spec script, what separates a professional screenwriter from an amateur screenwriter is that professional screenwriters are usually represented by a talent agency. Also, professional screenwriters do not often work for free, whereas amateur screenwriters will often work for free and are considered writers in training, spec scripts are usually penned by unknown professional screenwriters and amateur screenwriters. There are a legion of would-be screenwriters who attempt to enter the industry but it often takes years of trial-and-error, failure. In Writing Screenplays that Sell, Michael Hague writes Screenplays have become, for the last half of century, closet writers who used to dream of the glory of getting into print now dream of seeing their story on the big or small screen. Every screenplay and teleplay begins with a thought or idea, and screenwriters use those ideas to write scripts, with the intention of selling them and having them produced. In some cases, the script is based on a property, such as a book or persons life story. The majority of the time, a film project gets initiated by a screenwriter and because they initiated the project and these are referred to as exclusive assignments or pitched assignments. Screenwriters who often pitch new projects, whether original or an adaptation, when word is put out about a project a film studio, production company, or producer wants done, these are referred to as open assignments. In situations where screenwriters are competing for an assignment, more established writers will usually win these assignments. A screenwriter can also be approached and personally offered a writing assignment, many screenwriters also work as full or part-time script doctors, attempting to better a script to suit the desires of a director or studio. For instance, studio management may have a complaint that the motivations of the characters are unclear or that the dialogue is weak, script-doctoring can be quite lucrative, especially for the better known writers. David Mamet and John Sayles, for instance, fund the movies they direct themselves, usually from their own screenplays, by writing and doctoring scripts for others. In fact, some writers make very profitable careers out of being the ninth or tenth writer to work on a piece, in many cases, working on projects that never see exposure to an audience of any size. Many up and coming screenwriters also ghost write projects and allow more established screenwriters to take credit for the project to increase the chances of it getting picked up. After a screenwriter finishes a project, he or she pairs with a representative, such as a producer, director, literary agent, entertainment lawyer
5.
Film director
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A film director is a person who directs the making of a film. Generally, a film director controls a films artistic and dramatic aspects, the director has a key role in choosing the cast members, production design, and the creative aspects of filmmaking. Under European Union law, the director is viewed as the author of the film, the film director gives direction to the cast and crew and creates an overall vision through which a film eventually becomes realized, or noticed. Directors need to be able to mediate differences in creative visions, there are many pathways to becoming a film director. Some film directors started as screenwriters, cinematographers, film editors or actors, other film directors have attended a film school. Some outline a general plotline and let the actors dialogue, while others control every aspect. Some directors also write their own screenplays or collaborate on screenplays with long-standing writing partners, some directors edit or appear in their films, or compose the music score for their films. Film directors create a vision through which a film eventually becomes realized/noticed. Realizing this vision includes overseeing the artistic and technical elements of production, as well as directing the shooting timetable. This entails organizing the crew in such a way as to achieve their vision of the film. This requires skills of leadership, as well as the ability to maintain a singular focus even in the stressful. Moreover, it is necessary to have an eye to frame shots and to give precise feedback to cast and crew, thus. Thus the director ensures that all involved in the film production are working towards an identical vision for the completed film. The set of varying challenges he or she has to tackle has been described as a jigsaw puzzle with egos. It adds to the pressure that the success of a film can influence when, omnipresent are the boundaries of the films budget. Additionally, the director may also have to ensure an intended age rating, thus, the position of film director is widely considered to be a highly stressful and demanding one. It has been said that 20-hour days are not unusual, under European Union law, the film director is considered the author or one of the authors of a film, largely as a result of the influence of auteur theory. Auteur theory is a film criticism concept that holds that a directors film reflects the directors personal creative vision
6.
French New Wave
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The New Wave is a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s. New Wave is an example of European art cinema, using portable equipment and requiring little or no set up time, the New Wave way of filmmaking presented a documentary style. The films exhibited direct sounds on film stock that required less light, filming techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes. The combination of realism, subjective realism, and authorial commentary created a narrative ambiguity in the sense that questions that arise in a film are not answered in the end. This is why I would like to call this new age of cinema the age of the camera-stylo, Cahiers co-founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of influence for the movement. By means of criticism and editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a set of concepts, revolutionary at the time, Cahiers du cinéma writers critiqued the classic Tradition of Quality style of French Cinema. Notable among these was François Truffaut in his manifesto-like article Une Certaine tendance du cinéma français, Bazin and Henri Langlois, founder and curator of the Cinémathèque Française, were the dual father figures of the movement. These men of cinema valued the expression of the personal vision in both the films style and script. The auteur theory holds that the director is the author of his movies, the beginning of the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the Cahiers writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves. Apart from the role that films by Jean Rouch have played in the movement, part of their technique was to portray characters not readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience identification. The auteurs of this era owe their popularity to the support they received with their youthful audience, most of these directors were born in the 1930s and grew up in Paris, relating to how their viewers might be experiencing life. With high concentration in fashion, urban life, and all-night parties. The French New Wave was popular roughly between 1958 and 1964, although New Wave work existed as late as 1973, the socio-economic forces at play shortly after World War II strongly influenced the movement. Politically and financially drained, France tended to back on the old popular pre-war traditions. One such tradition was straight narrative cinema, specifically classical French film, the movement has its roots in rebellion against the reliance on past forms, criticizing in particular the way these forms could force the audience to submit to a dictatorial plot-line. They were especially against the French cinema of quality, the type of high-minded, literary period films held in esteem at French film festivals, New Wave critics and directors studied the work of western classics and applied new avant garde stylistic direction. The low-budget approach helped filmmakers get at the art form and find what was, to them. French New Wave is influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema, many of these directors, such as Edmond Agabra and Henri Zaphiratos, were not as successful or enduring at the well-known members of the New Wave and today would not be considered part of it
7.
Claude Chabrol
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Claude Henri Jean Chabrol was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Chabrols career began with Le Beau Serge, inspired by Hitchcocks Shadow of a Doubt, thrillers became something of a trademark for Chabrol, with an approach characterized by a distanced objectivity. This is especially apparent in Les Biches, La Femme infidèle, and Le Boucher – all featuring Stéphane Audran, sometimes characterized as a mainstream New Wave director, Chabrol remained prolific and popular throughout his half-century career. In 1978, he cast Isabelle Huppert as the lead in Violette Nozière, on the strength of that effort, the pair went on to others including the successful Madame Bovary and La Cérémonie. Some of his films become almost private jokes, made to amuse himself. Claude Henri Jean Chabrol was born on 24 June 1930 to Yves Chabrol and Madeleine Delarbre in Sardent, France, Chabrol said that he always thought of himself as a country person, and never as a Parisian. Both Chabrols father and grandfather had been pharmacists, and Chabrol was expected to follow in the family business, but as a child, Chabrol was seized by the demon of cinema and ran a film club in a barn in Sardent between the ages of 12 and 14. At this time, he developed his passion for the genre, detective stories. After World War II, Chabrol moved to Paris to study pharmacology and literature at the Sorbonne, Some biographies also state that he briefly studied law and political science at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. After graduating, Chabrol served his military service in the French Medical Corps, serving in Germany. Chabrol has claimed that while in the army he worked as a film projectionist, after he was discharged from the army, he joined his friends as a staff writer for Cahiers du Cinéma, who were challenging then-contemporary French films and championing the concept of Auteur theory. He also wrote for Arts magazine during this period, among Chabrols most famous articles were Little Themes, a study of genre films, and The Evolution of Detective Films. In 1956 he helped finance Jacques Rivettes short film Le coup du berger, unlike all of his future New Wave contemporaries, Chabrol never made short film nor did he work as an assistant on other directors work before making his feature film debut. In 1957 Chabrol and Eric Rohmer co-wrote Hitchcock, a study of the films made by director Alfred Hitchcock through the film The Wrong Man. Chabrol had interviewed Hitchcock with François Truffaut in 1954 on the set of To Catch a Thief, years later, when Chabrol and Truffaut had both become successful directors themselves, Hitchcock told Truffaut that he always thought of them when he saw ice cubes in a glass of whiskey. The most prolific of the major New Wave directors, Chabrol averaged almost one film a year from 1958 until his death. In the mid-sixties it was difficult for Chabrol to obtain financing for films so he made a series of commercial potboilers and spy spoofs, Chabrol had married Agnès Goute in 1952 and in 1957 his wife inherited a large sum of money from relatives. In December of that year Chabrol used the money to make his directorial debut with Le Beau Serge. Chabrol spent three months shooting in his hometown of Sardent using a crew and little known actors
8.
Jean-Luc Godard
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Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement La Nouvelle Vague, as a result of such argument, he and like-minded critics started to make their own films. Many of Godards films challenge the conventions of traditional Hollywood in addition to French cinema, along with showing knowledge of film history through homages and references, several of his films expressed his political views, he was an avid reader of existential and Marxist philosophy. Since the New Wave, his politics have been less radical and his recent films are about representation and human conflict from a humanist. In a 2002 Sight & Sound poll, Godard ranked third in the critics top-ten directors of all time and he is said to have created one of the largest bodies of critical analysis of any filmmaker since the mid-twentieth century. He and his work have been central to narrative theory and have challenged both commercial narrative cinema norms and film criticisms vocabulary, in 2010, Godard was awarded an Academy Honorary Award, but did not attend the award ceremony. Jean-Luc Godard was born on 3 December 1930 in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, the son of Odile and Paul Godard and his wealthy parents came from Protestant families of Franco–Swiss descent, and his mother was the daughter of Julien Monod, a founder of the Banque Paribas. She was the great-granddaughter of theologian Adolphe Monod, relatives on his mothers side include also composer Jacques-Louis Monod, naturalist Théodore Monod and pastor Frédéric Monod. Four years after Jean-Lucs birth, his father moved the family to Switzerland, at the outbreak of the Second World War, Godard was in France and returned to Switzerland with difficulty. He spent most of the war in Switzerland, although his family made trips to his grandfathers estate on the French side of Lake Geneva. Godard attended school in Nyon, Switzerland, in 1946, he went to study at the Lycée Buffon in Paris and, through family connections, mixed with members of its cultural elite. He lodged with the writer Jean Schlumberger, having failed his baccalaureate exam in 1948 he returned to Switzerland. He studied in Lausanne and lived with his parents, whose marriage was breaking up and he spent time in Geneva also with a group that included another film fanatic, Roland Tolmatchoff, and the extreme rightist philosopher Jean Parvulesco. His older sister Rachel encouraged him to paint, which he did, after time spent at a boarding school in Thonon to prepare for the retest, which he passed, he returned to Paris in 1949. He registered for a certificate in anthropology at the University of Paris and he got involved with the young group of film critics at the ciné-clubs that started the New Wave. Godard originally held only French citizenship, then in 1953, he became a citizen of Gland, canton of Vaud, Switzerland, in Paris, in the Latin Quarter just prior to 1950, ciné-clubs were gaining prominence. Godard began attending these clubs - the Cinémathèque, the CCQL, Work and Culture ciné Club, at these clubs he met fellow film enthusiasts including Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and François Truffaut. Godard was part of a generation for whom cinema took on a special importance and he has said, In the 1950s cinema was as important as bread—but it isnt the case any more
9.
My Favorite Season
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My Favorite Season is a 1993 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, co-written by Téchiné and Pascal Bonitzer, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, and Marthe Villalonga. The story concerns two middle age siblings, a brother and sister, who resume their relationship when they are forced to care for their ailing mother. It won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1996 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, Berthe, an elderly widow, is forced by her declining health to close the French farmhouse where she has spent much of her life. She moves in with her daughter Émilie and son in law Bruno who share a legal practice and have two grown up children, Anne, a law university student, and Lucien, who was adopted. In spite of efforts, Berthe is not happy in her daughter’s bourgeois home in Blagnac. She sits by the pool in the middle of the night talking to herself. Worried about her mothers physical and mental health, Émilie pays a visit to her younger brother, Antoine. They have not seen each other for three years, since they quarreled at their father’s funeral, Émilie informs Antoine of their mothers condition and invites him to a Christmas dinner with the entire family. On Christmas Eve, Antoine arrives at his sisters home when Émilie, Bruno, the neurotic Antoine has to remind himself not to be carried away and spoil the evening. Antoine promises not to tell anything, when he finds his mothers room, Berthe is delighted to see her son, but complains about living with her daughter. She dislikes Bruno, has no affection for the grandchildren and does not value her daughter’s efforts to make her feel at ease, dinner is lively, but after the youngsters leave for Lucien’s room, tempers flares between Bruno and Antoine and they end up in a fist fight. Bruno becomes angry, Antoine leaves with a nose and Berthe departs with her son. Talking later with Bruno, Émilie loathes what they have become, Anne is distraught with the familys dispute and looks to Khadija for solace. Berthe returns to live alone at her farm but she suffers a stroke and this forces Émilie to visit her brother once again. Antoine has moved to an apartment in Toulouse. He is glad to learn that Émilie has separated from Bruno, the siblings agree to place their mother in a nursing home as the only viable option. They pick up Berthe and on the drive they remember old times, when Émilie and Antoine sing as they used to when they were children, Berthe cheers up. On a stop during the trip, Antoine fulfills a childhood dream, Berthe introduces her children to the director of the retirement home
10.
Wild Reeds
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Wild Reeds is a 1994 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, about the sensitive passage into adulthood and the awakening of sexuality in four youths at the end of the Algerian War. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 67th Academy Awards, the film is set in southwest France in 1962. François, a shy man from the lower middle class, is working towards his high school diploma. He spends most of his time talking about movies and literature with his best friend, Maïté, Mme Alvarez and Maïté are communists. At the boarding school, François becomes acquainted with Serge, the son of immigrant farmers. At night, he joins François in the dormitory to chat, finally, Serge draws François into an erotic relationship. François discovers his homosexuality and develops an attraction for Serge. François confides this discovery to Maïté, who swallows her disappointment, when Serge becomes increasingly interested in Maïté, she declares herself to be interested in nobody. Serges brother Pierre dies while serving in the army in Algeria, an Algerian-born French exile, Henri, enrolls in the boys boarding school and aggravates their conflicts, adding a political conflict. He is obsessed with events in Algeria and supports the OAS and he treats François without sympathy and bluntly tells him to own up to his homosexuality. His political stance provokes Serges hatred, Henri finally engages Maïté, his political opposite, and they yield to their mutual attraction. But after completing the script, Téchiné decided to make it a theatrical release. Based on his own story, it is his biggest personal success in France. It is one of limited number of films on the delicate subject of the Algerian War. They include The Little Soldier, Avoir vingt ans dans les Aurès and it was released in the United States on May 10,1995 grossing $38,192 in 7 theaters its widest release eventually grossing a total of $917,915 in North America. In France the film received limited release playing at a total of 40 cinemas, in total the film had 589,301 admissions in France and was the 51st highest earning film of the year. At the 1995 César Awards, Les Roseaux Sauvages won Best Film, Best Director, Most Promising Young Actress and Best Original Screenplay. com Wild Reeds at the Internet Movie Database
11.
Montauban
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Montauban is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies 50 kilometres north of Toulouse, Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, and the sixth most populated of Languedoc Roussillon Midi Pyrenees behind Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes, Perpignan and Béziers. In 2013, there were 57,921 inhabitants, called “Montalbanais”, the town has been classified “Ville d’art et d’histoire” since 2015. The town, built mainly of a brick, stands on the right bank of the Tarn River at its confluence with the Tescou. Montauban is the second oldest of the bastides of southern France and its foundation dates from 1144 when Count Alphonse Jourdain of Toulouse, granted it a liberal charter. The inhabitants were chiefly from Montauriol, a village which had grown up around the neighbouring monastery of St Théodard. In 1360, under the Treaty of Brétigny, it was ceded to the English, in 1560 the bishops and magistrates embraced Protestantism, expelled the monks, and demolished the cathedral. Ten years later it became one of the four Huguenot strongholds under the Peace of Saint-Germain and it was the headquarters of the Huguenot rebellion of 1621, and successfully withstood an 86-day siege by Louis XIII. It did not submit to royal authority until after the fall of La Rochelle in 1629, the Protestants again suffered persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In the 17th century, the King of France revoked “l’Édit de Nantes”, Montauban was considered as an intellectual city. Because Montauban was a Protestant town, it started to resist and hold its position against the royal power, to scare off the King’s opponents and speed up the end of the siege,400 cannonballs were fired, but Montauban resisted and the royal army was vanquished. Saint Jacques church is marked by the cannonballs, and every year in September, the city celebrates “les 400 coups”. During World War II, Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa was briefly hidden in a secret vault behind a cellar at Montauban. Montauban’s climate is temperate and oceanic, temperatures are rather mild in winter and hot in summer. The town experienced severe droughts in 2003,2006,2012 and 2015, on August 31,2015, the Tarn-et-Garonne area was particularly struck by a wave of violent storms. These storms, accompanied by very important winds, created a tornado, Montauban was particularly affected, with winds measured between 130 and 150 kilometers per hour in the city center. This bridge is known as Pont Vieux, King Philip the Fair of France officially launched the building of the bridge in 1303 while on a tour to Toulouse. The project took 30 years to complete, and the bridge was inaugurated in 1335, the main architects were Étienne de Ferrières and Mathieu de Verdun
12.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
13.
The Soft Skin
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The Soft Skin is a 1964 French-Portuguese romantic drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Jean Desailly, Françoise Dorléac, and Nelly Benedetti. Written by Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard, the film is about a successful married publisher and lecturer who meets an air hostess with whom he has a love affair. The film was shot on location in Paris, Reims, and Lisbon, at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Palme dOr. Despite Truffauts recent success with Jules and Jim and The 400 Blows, Pierre Lachenay, a well-known writer and editor of a literary magazine, is running late for his flight to Lisbon. His friend gives him a ride to the airport, with his daughter Sabine going along for the ride, on the airplane he makes eye contact with a beautiful air hostess named Nicole. Upon landing, he is greeted by photographers who ask that he pose with the air hostess, Pierre checks in at the Hotel Tivoli, and then leaves to attend a conference. As hes walking through the lobby he notices Nicole walking past him, at the conference he gives a talk titled Balzac and Money based on one of his books. Back at the hotel, he sees Nicole in the elevator, in his room he calls her room and asks if shed like a drink, but she declines because of the late hour. Shortly after hanging up, Nicole calls back, apologizes, the next evening, Pierre and Nicole spend hours talking through the night. She is captivated by his stories of Balzac and the world of literature, in the morning they return to the hotel and make love in her room. On the airplane the day, Nicole slips him a matchbook with her phone number. Back in Paris, while he and his wife Franca entertain friends, Pierre sneaks off and tries calling Nicole, the next day he tries again from a phone booth, and this time he gets through, and they meet briefly. In the coming days, they spend time together between her flights, one day they meet at the airport and decide to spend the evening at a nightclub, ending up at her apartment where they make love. Later that week, Pierre and Nicole travel to Reims where Pierre is scheduled to present a showing of the 1952 documentary film about André Gide at a conference and they check into the Hotel Michelet before Pierre heads over to the theater. After Pierre takes the stage, Nicole arrives without a ticket, afterwards, Pierres friend insists on having a drink before Pierre returns to Paris. As they leave, Pierre ignores Nicole who has been waiting in the street, when his friend invites himself to accompany him back to Paris, Pierre sneaks back to the hotel where an upset Nicole tells him he should leave without her. He apologizes and they decide to leave, after driving through the night they find a romantic cabin. The next day, Pierre and Nicole enjoy their time taking photographs
14.
Jean Eustache
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Jean Eustache was a French filmmaker. Each film went to the end of its material, from real to fictional sorrow and it was impossible for him to go against it, to calculate, to take cultural success into account, impossible for this theoretician of seduction to seduce an audience. Jim Jarmusch dedicated his 2005 film Broken Flowers to Eustache, Eustache was born in Pessac, Gironde, France into a working class family. After becoming a filmmaker, Eustache maintained close ties to his friends, in 1981, he was partially immobilized in an auto accident. He killed himself by gunshot in his Paris apartment, a few weeks before his 43rd birthday, Eustache had a son, Boris Eustache, who worked on his fathers second feature and appears as an actor in Eustaches short film Les Photos dAlix. Eustache was quoted as saying, “The films I made are as autobiographical as fiction can be. ”Because of his reluctance to discuss his personal life, the Mother and the Whore, the first, is a 217-minute rumination on love, relationships, men and women. The film’s central three-way romance plot focuses on Alexandre, his girlfriend Marie, such an incident occurred in December 1997, when I was assigned to review Jean Eustache’s 1973 film The Mother and the Whore, then beginning a revival engagement at Film Forum. Frankly, I was a lot more excited about seeing Scream 2 that evening. Little did I know, as I eased into my seat, shot in color by cinematographer Nestor Almendros, the film also features significantly less dialogue and focuses on teenage characters in a rural setting. The film was entered into the 9th Moscow International Film Festival, Eustache appeared as an actor in The American Friend. Eustache admired the qualities of early actuality films, and frequently cited the Lumiere Brothers as influences. He made two films about a religious parade in Pessac, both titled La Rosière de Pessac, in 1968 and 1979, and remade his short Une sale histoire twice
15.
The Mother and the Whore
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The Mother and the Whore is a 1973 French film directed by Jean Eustache. An examination of the relationships between three characters in a triangle, it was Eustaches first feature film and is considered his masterpiece. The film is available on the internet. The film focuses on three twenty-somethings in a love triangle in Paris during the summer of 1972. Alexandre is a young man involved with both a live-in girlfriend Marie and the Polish nurse Veronika. He had picked up Veronika at a café after a reconciliation with a former love. With Veronika, he begins a desultory affair, although Marie affirms her indifference to Alexandres affairs, she quickly changes her mind when she sees how close he becomes to Veronika. This leads to an estrangement between her and Alexandre. The film focuses less on plot or narrative than on the confused and he told a reporter from Le Nouvel Observateur If I knew what it was that I wanted, I wouldnt wake up in the morning to make films. Id do nothing, Id try to live without doing or producing anything, Eustache was loaned money from friend Barbet Schroeder to spend three months writing the script, which was over three hundred pages. Although the film seems to be highly improvised, every word of dialogue was written by Eustache. Many of the used in the film were places that Garnier had lived or worked. The character played by Jacques Renard was based on Eustaches friend Jean-Jacques Schuhl, the film was shot between May 21 and July 11,1972. On a budget of 700,000 francs, Eustache called it a very hostile film, and it mostly consisted of dialogues and monologues about sex. Eustache says that the character Alexandre is destroying, but he is looking for it all along, after his voyage into madness and depression, he ends up alone. Thats when I stop the film, Eustache described the film as a narrative of certain seemingly innocuous acts. It could be the narrative of entirely different acts, in other places, what happens, the places where the action unfolds, have no importance. My subject is the way in which important actions situate themselves in a continuum of innocuous ones. Its the description of the course of events without the schematic abbreviation of cinematographic dramatization
16.
Jacques Rivette
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Jacques Rivette was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. He made twenty-nine films, including Lamour fou, Out 1, Celine and Julie Go Boating and his work is noted for its improvisation, loose narratives, and lengthy running times. Inspired by Jean Cocteau to become a filmmaker, Rivette shot his first short film at age twenty, Rivette began writing film criticism, and was hired by André Bazin for Cahiers du Cinéma in 1953. He continued making films, including Le Coup de Berger. Truffaut later credited Rivette with developing the movement, although he was the first New Wave director to begin work on a feature film, Paris Belongs to Us was not released until 1961. Rivette became editor of Cahiers du Cinéma during the early 1960s and publicly fought French censorship of his feature film. He then re-evaluated his career, developing a unique style with Lamour fou. This technique led to the thirteen-hour Out 1 which, although rarely screened, is considered a Holy Grail of cinephiles and his films of the 1970s, such as Celine and Julie Go Boating, often incorporated fantasy and were better-regarded. After attempting to make four films, however, Rivette had a nervous breakdown. During the early 1980s, he began a partnership with producer Martine Marignac. Rivettes output increased from then on, and his film La Belle Noiseuse received international praise and he retired after completing Around a Small Mountain, and it was revealed three years later that he had Alzheimers disease. Very private about his life, Rivette was briefly married to photographer and screenwriter Marilù Parolini during the early 1960s. Jacques Pierre Louis Rivette was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France to André Rivette and Andrée Amiard, according to childhood friend André Ruellan, Rivettes father was a skilled painter who loved opera. His younger sister said that their home in Rouen was next to a movie theater, Rivette, educated at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille, said that he briefly studied literature at university just to keep myself occupied. Inspired by Jean Cocteaus book about the filming of La Belle et la Bête, Rivette decided to pursue filmmaking, in 1948, he shot his first short film, Aux Quatre Coins, in Rouens Côte Sainte-Catherine section. The following year, he moved to Paris with friend, Francis Bouchet, on the day of his arrival, he met future collaborator Jean Gruault, who invited him to see Les dames du Bois de Boulogne at the Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin. Éric Rohmer, whose film criticism Rivette admired, gave a talk at the screening, although Rivette submitted his film to the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques because it was the kind of thing that would have pleased my parents, he was not accepted by the school. He took courses at the Sorbonne, but began frequenting screenings at Henri Langloiss Cinémathèque Française with Bouchet instead of attending classes, Rivette was active in post-screening debates, and Rohmer said that in film-quiz competitions at the Studio Parnasse he was unbeatable
17.
Roland Barthes
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Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician. Roland Barthes was born on 12 November 1915 in the town of Cherbourg in Normandy and his father, naval officer Louis Barthes, was killed in a battle during World War I in the North Sea before Barthes first birthday. His mother, Henriette Barthes, and his aunt and grandmother raised him in the village of Urt, when Barthes was eleven, his family moved to Paris, though his attachment to his provincial roots would remain strong throughout his life. Barthes showed great promise as a student and spent the period from 1935 to 1939 at the Sorbonne and he was plagued by ill health throughout this period, suffering from tuberculosis, which often had to be treated in the isolation of sanatoria. His repeated physical breakdowns disrupted his career, affecting his studies. They also exempted him from service during World War II. His life from 1939 to 1948 was largely spent obtaining a license in grammar and philology, publishing his first papers, taking part in a medical study and he received a diplôme détudes supérieures from the University of Paris in 1941 for his work in Greek tragedy. In 1948, he returned to academic work, gaining numerous short-term positions at institutes in France, Romania. During this time, he contributed to the leftist Parisian paper Combat, out of which grew his first full-length work, in 1952, Barthes settled at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, where he studied lexicology and sociology. During his seven-year period there, he began to write a series of bi-monthly essays for the magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles. Knowing little English, Barthes taught at Middlebury College in 1957 and befriended the future English translator of much of his work, Richard Howard, that summer in New York City. Barthes spent the early 1960s exploring the fields of semiology and structuralism, chairing various faculty positions around France, many of his works challenged traditional academic views of literary criticism and of renowned figures of literature. By the late 1960s, Barthes had established a reputation for himself and he traveled to the US and Japan, delivering a presentation at Johns Hopkins University. Barthes continued to contribute with Philippe Sollers to the literary magazine Tel Quel. In 1970, Barthes produced what many consider to be his most prodigious work, throughout the 1970s, Barthes continued to develop his literary criticism, he developed new ideals of textuality and novelistic neutrality. In 1971, he served as visiting professor at the University of Geneva, in 1975 he wrote an autobiography titled Roland Barthes and in 1977 he was elected to the chair of Sémiologie Littéraire at the Collège de France. In the same year, his mother, Henriette Barthes, to whom he had been devoted, died, aged 85 and they had lived together for 60 years. The loss of the woman who had raised and cared for him was a blow to Barthes
18.
Bertolt Brecht
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Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director of the 20th century. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht was born in February 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Brechts mother was a devout Protestant and his father a Catholic. The modest house where he was born is preserved as a Brecht Museum. His father worked for a mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. Thanks to his mothers influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would have an effect on his writing. From her, too, came the image of the self-denying woman that recurs in his drama. Brechts home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied, at school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership. Neher designed many of the sets for Brechts dramas and helped to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre, when Brecht was 16, the First World War broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates swallowed by the army and his expulsion was only prevented through the intervention of his religion teacher. On his fathers recommendation, Brecht sought a loophole by registering for a course at Munich University. There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist, from July 1916, Brechts newspaper articles began appearing under the new name Bert Brecht. Brecht was drafted into service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic. In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer had a son, some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin. Brechts diaries for the few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform. Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, for his virtually complete rejection of mimicry and he did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out, anyone can be creative, he quipped, its rewriting other people thats a challenge. Brecht completed his second play, Drums in the Night. Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht made acquaintance with many people in the Berlin cultural scene
19.
Ingmar Bergman
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Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer, and producer who worked in film, television, theatre and radio. He directed over sixty films and documentaries for cinematic release and for television and he also directed over 170 plays. From 1953 he forged a creative partnership with his full-time cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Among his company of actors were Harriet and Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, most of his films were set in Sweden, and numerous films from Through a Glass Darkly onward were filmed on the island of Fårö. His work often dealt with death, illness, faith, betrayal, bleakness and insanity. Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Erik Bergman, a Lutheran minister and later chaplain to the King of Sweden, and Karin and he grew up with his older brother Dag and sister Margareta surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His father was a parish minister with strict ideas of parenting. Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for infractions, such as wetting the bed, there was everything that ones imagination could desire—angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans. Although raised in a devout Lutheran household, Bergman later stated that he lost his faith at age eight and only came to terms with this fact while making Winter Light in 1962. His interest in theatre and film began early, At the age of nine, he traded a set of tin soldiers for a magic lantern, a possession that altered the course of his life. Within a year, he had created, by playing with this toy and he fashioned his own scenery, marionettes, and lighting effects and gave puppet productions of Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts. Bergman attended Palmgrens School as a teenager and his school years were unhappy, and he remembered them unfavorably in later years. Bergman wrote in a response that he had disliked the emphasis on homework. In 1934, aged 16, he was sent to Germany to spend the vacation with family friends. He attended a Nazi rally in Weimar at which he saw Adolf Hitler, Bergman commented that Hitler was unbelievably charismatic. The Nazism I had seen seemed fun and youthful, Bergman did two five-month stretches of mandatory military service. In 1937 he entered Stockholm University College to study art and literature and he spent most of his time involved in student theatre and became a genuine movie addict. At the same time, a romantic involvement led to a break with his father lasted for years
20.
William Faulkner
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William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and he is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life. Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers in American literature generally, two of his works, A Fable and his last novel The Reivers, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Absalom, Absalom. is often included on similar lists, Faulkner was born William Cuthbert Falkner in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler. He had three brothers, Murry Charles Jack Falkner, author John Faulkner, and Dean Swift Falkner. Soon after his first birthday, his family moved to Ripley, Mississippi, Murry hoped to inherit the railroad from his father, John Wesley Thompson Falkner, but John had little confidence in Murrys ability to run a business and sold it for $75,000. Following the sale of the business, Murry became disappointed and planned a new start for his family by moving to Texas. Maud, however, disagreed with this proposition, and it was decided that they would move to Oxford, Mississippi, where Murrys father owned several businesses, making it easy for Murry to find work. Thus, four days prior to Williams fifth birthday on September 21,1902, the Falkner family settled in Oxford and his family, particularly his mother Maud, his maternal grandmother Lelia Butler, and Caroline Callie Barr crucially influenced the development of Faulkners artistic imagination. Both his mother and grandmother were avid readers and also painters and photographers, while Murry enjoyed the outdoors and encouraged his sons to hunt, track, and fish, Maud valued education and took pleasure in reading and going to church. She taught her sons to read before sending them to school and exposed them to classics such as Charles Dickens. Faulkners lifelong education by Callie Barr is central to his novels preoccupations with the politics of sexuality, as a schoolchild, Faulkner had much success early on. He excelled in the first grade, skipped the second, and continued doing well through the third, however, beginning somewhere in the fourth and fifth grades of his schooling, Faulkner became a much more quiet and withdrawn child. He began to play hooky occasionally and became indifferent to his schoolwork. The decline of his performance in school continued, and Faulkner wound up repeating the eleventh, and then final grade, Faulkner also spent much of his boyhood listening to stories told to him by his elders. These included war stories shared by the old men of Oxford and stories told by Barr of the Civil War, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Falkner family. Faulkners grandfather would tell him of the exploits of Williams great-grandfather, after whom he was named, William Clark Falkner, who was a successful businessman, writer. Telling stories about William Clark Falkner, whom the family called Old Colonel, had become something of a family pastime when Faulkner was a boy
21.
North Africa
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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of Africa. The United Nationss definition of Northern Africa is, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, the countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya are often collectively referred to as the Maghreb, which is the Arabic word for sunset. Egypt lies to the northeast and encompasses part of West Asia, while Sudan is situated on the edge of the Sahel, Egypt is a transcontinental country because of the Sinai Peninsula, which geographically lies in Western Asia. North Africa also includes a number of Spanish possessions, the Canary Islands and Madeira in the North Atlantic Ocean northwest of the African mainland are included in considerations of the region. From 3500 BC, following the abrupt desertification of the Sahara due to changes in the Earths orbit. The Islamic influence in the area is significant, and North Africa is a major part of the Muslim world. Some researchers have postulated that North Africa rather than East Africa served as the point for the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent in the Out of Africa migration. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia, are part of the mountain system that also runs through much of Southern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming a steppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, the sediments of the Sahara overlie an ancient plateau of crystalline rock, some of which is more than four billion years old. Sheltered valleys in the Atlas Mountains, the Nile Valley and Delta, a wide variety of valuable crops including cereals, rice and cotton, and woods such as cedar and cork, are grown. Typical Mediterranean crops, such as olives, figs, dates and citrus fruits, the Nile Valley is particularly fertile, and most of the population in Egypt and Sudan live close to the river. Elsewhere, irrigation is essential to improve yields on the desert margins. The inhabitants of Saharan Africa are generally divided in a manner corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa, the Maghreb, the Nile valley. The edge of the Sahel, to the south of Egypt has mainly been inhabited by Nubians, Ancient Egyptians record extensive contact in their Western desert with people that appear to have been Berber or proto-Berber, as well as Nubians from the south. They have contributed to the Arabized Berber populations, the official language or one of the official languages in all of the countries in North Africa is Arabic. The people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speak Berber languages and several varieties of Arabic, the Arabic and Berber languages are distantly related, both being members of the Afroasiatic language family. The Tuareg Berber languages are more conservative than those of the coastal cities. Over the years, Berbers have been influenced by contact with cultures, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Europeans
22.
Jardin du Luxembourg
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The garden today is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 hectares and is known for its lawns, tree-lined promenades, flowerbeds, model sailboats on its circular basin, and picturesque Medici Fountain, built in 1620. In 1611, Marie de Medici, the widow of Henry IV and she purchased the hotel du Luxembourg and began construction of the new palace. She commissioned Salomon de Brosse to build the palace and a fountain, in 1612 she planted 2,000 elm trees, and directed a series of gardeners, most notably Tommaso Francini, to build a park in the style she had known as a child in Florence. Francini planned two terraces with balustrades and parterres laid out along the axis of the chateau, aligned around a circular basin and he also built the Medici Fountain to the east of the palace as a nympheum, an artificial grotto and fountain, without its present pond and statuary. The original garden was just eight hectares in size, in the center he placed an octagonal basin with a fountain, with a perspective toward what is now the Paris observatory. Later monarchs largely neglected the garden, in 1780, the Comte de Provence, the future Louis XVIII, sold the eastern part of the garden for real estate development. The architect Jean Chalgrin, the architect of the Arc de Triomphe and he remade the Medici Fountain and laid out a long perspective from the palace to the observatory. He preserved the famous pepiniere, or nursery garden of the Carthusian order, and the old vineyards, the building of new streets next to the park also required moving and rebuilding the Medici Fountain to its present location. The long basin of the fountain was added at this time, during this reconstruction, the director of parks and promenades of Paris, Gabriel Davioud, built new ornamental gates and fences around the park, and polychrome brick garden houses. He also transformed what remained of the old Chartreux nursery garden, at the end of the park, into an English garden with winding paths. He kept the regular pattern of the paths and alleys. The garden is famed for its calm atmosphere, surrounding the bassin on the raised balustraded terraces are a series of statues of former French queens, saints and copies after the Antique. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear trees, the gardens include a large fenced-in playground for young children and their parents and a vintage carousel. The orangerie displays art, photography and sculptures, the École nationale supérieure des Mines de Paris and the Odéon theatre stand next to the Luxembourg Garden. It was installed as part of the development of the avenue de lObservatoire by Gabriel Davioud in 1867, most importantly Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux sculpted the four nude women supporting the globe, representing the Four Continents of classical iconography. Open hours for the Luxembourg Garden depend on the month, opening between 7,30 and 8,15 am, closing at dusk between 4,45 and 9,45 pm. The garden contains just over a hundred statues, monuments, and fountains, surrounding the central green space are twenty figures of French queens and illustrious women standing on pedestals
23.
Paulina Is Leaving
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Paulina is Leaving is a 1969 French drama film written and directed by André Téchiné, starring Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier. It marked Téchiné’s debut as a director and it remains Téchinés less known film, since it was only very briefly release to theaters in 1975, six years after its premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It has neither rereleased nor ever transferred to video, the title refers to Paulina leaving both the household she shared with her brothers and the world of sanity. The film was inspired by Jean Pierre Melville’s 1950 adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles. Paulina leaves the apartment where she lives with her two brothers, Nicolas and Olivier and her departure is mark by chaotic and sometimes violent confrontations. In a café, she meets a stranger who works in a nearby psychiatric clinic. There, she is introduced by a nurse and made to answer a questionnaire which she views on a cinema screen, meanwhile, a civil conflict seems to be raging, with checkpoints, sounds of shooting and the reappearance of Nicholas in chains. He is allowed to visit Paulina at the clinic but is carted off the day as a deserter. Paulina meets up again with Nicholas in a town, but is then seen looking for Hortense again. Initially conceived as a short, it was expanded to a feature length film. It was made with a shoe string budget and shot in two periods, over one week in 1967 and two weeks in 1969, the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The film remains a title since it has not been available for viewing and was never released on video
24.
Venice Film Festival
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The film festival is part of the Venice Biennale, which was founded by the Venetian City Council in 1895. The film festival has taken place in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice. Screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi, since its inception the Venice Film Festival has grown into one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. The 74th Venice International Film Festival is scheduled to be held from 30 August to 9 September 2017, the first edition of the Venice Film Festival was carried out from the 6 to the 21 of August in 1932. The festival began with an idea of the president of the Venice Biennale Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata and Luciano De Feo, with good reason, the festival was considered the first international event of its type, receiving strong support from authorities. This first edition was held on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior on the Venice Lido, and at that stage it was not a competitive event. The very first film to be shown in the history of the Festival was Rouben Mamoulians Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the second edition was held two years later, from 1 to 20 of August in 1934. For the first time it included a competition, at least 19 countries took part with over 300 accredited journalists. The Mussolini Cup was introduced for best foreign film and best Italian film, other awards were the Great Gold Medals of the National Fascist Association for Entertainment to best actor and actress. The prize for best foreign film went to Robert J. Flahertys Man of Aran and was a confirmation of the taste of the time for auteur documentaries, starting in 1935, the Festival became a yearly event under the direction of Ottavio Croze. The actors award was renamed Volpi Cup, in 1936 an international jury was nominated for the first time and in 1937 the new Cinema Palace, designed by the architect Luigi Quagliata, was inaugurated. The 1940s represent one of the most difficult moments for the review, the conclusion of the Second World War divides the decade in two. Before 1938 political pressures distorted and ruined the festival, in addition, few countries participated and there was an absolute monopoly of institutions and directors that were members of the Rome-Berlin Axis. The festival resumed full speed in 1946, after the war, with the return of normalcy, Venice once again became a great icon of the film world. In 1947 the festival was held at the Doges Palace, a most magnificent backdrop for hosting a record 90 thousand participants, surely it can be considered one of the greatest editions in the history of the festival. For the next twenty years the festival continued its development and expansion in accordance with the plan set in motion after the war. In 1963 the winds of change blow strongly during Luigi Chiarini’s directorship of the festival, during the years of his presidency, Chiarini aspired to renew the spirit and the structures of the festival, pushing for a total reorganization of the entire system. The social and political unrest of 1968 had strong repercussions on the Venice Bienniale, from 1969 to 1979 no prizes were awarded and the festival returned to the non-competitiveness of the first edition
25.
French Provincial
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French Provincial is a 1975 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Jeanne Moreau, Michel Auclair and Marie-France Pisier. The film presents an overview of French life and politics though the changes within one family in southwestern France from the 1930s through the 1970s, at the beginning of the 20th century, Pédret, a Spanish immigrant, arrives in the southwest French country side. He becomes a blacksmith and marries Augustine, the daughter of the village baker, by 1936 Pédret’s forge has become a foundry where his three sons are the managers. But old Pédret, who knows that his sons have their spirits broken, can see that Berthe has the blunt good sense they lack, while the bourgeois wives of the two other sons mope and become peevish, Berthe makes herself useful. In the war, she is a heroine of the Resistance and she takes over the dominant role in management, and becomes the new matriarch as well. In contrast with the practical Berthe, Regina, her sister in law, is flighty, dark and beautiful, Regina is married to Prosper, Pédret’s youngest son and the only one with a college education. But Regina and the handsome, refined Prosper are a mismatch, a rapacious dreamer, Regina, fed up with the dull austerity of provincial society, runs off with an American soldier. Regina may now be willing to aid Berthe in exchange for her freedom, the film traces the lives of its characters through the period of Nazi occupation to the present day, but their story is secondary. The focus of the film is the family-owned factory and we see its birth, its maturing, and its decline, as if it were a living thing. Around it, times change, the change, social attitudes and hair-styles change. The film’s style mingles European and American directors Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Orson Welles, William Wyler, Jean Cocteau Alfred Hitchcock, the flashback sequence of Pedret’s youth wings from Wuthering Heights and the flaming silhouettes of Gone with the Wind to The Conformist and The Spiders Stratagem. French Provincial was a show piece for legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau. Despite the fact that her character in the film seems to age over a 30 year period, she appears perfectly at ease with this style of drama. Famous critic Pauline Kael called the film, Marvelous, Téchiné and Goldin may not know anything except movies, but the way they know movies is enough for me. Kael, Pauline, When the Lights Go Down, Holt, Rinheart, ISBN 0-03-042511-5 Marshall, Bill, André Téchiné, Manchester University Press,2007, ISBN 0-7190-5831-7 French Provincial at the Internet Movie Database
26.
Orson Welles
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George Orson Welles was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. In 1937 he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. It reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was actually occurring, although some contemporary sources claim these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to notoriety. His first film was Citizen Kane, which he co-wrote, produced, directed, Welles was an outsider to the studio system and directed only 13 full-length films in his career. He has been praised as the ultimate auteur, Welles followed up Citizen Kane with critically acclaimed films including The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942 and Touch of Evil in 1958. Although these three are his most acclaimed films, critics have argued other works of his, such as The Lady from Shanghai and Chimes at Midnight, are underappreciated. Known for his voice, Welles was an actor in radio and film, a Shakespearean stage actor. George Orson Welles was born May 6,1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Head Welles and he was named after his paternal great-grandfather, influential Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head, and his brother George Head. Despite his familys affluence, Welles encountered hardship in childhood and his parents separated and moved to Chicago in 1919. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic. Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital May 10,1924, the Gordon String Quartet, which had made its first appearance at her home in 1921, played at Beatrices funeral. After his mothers death Welles ceased pursuing music and it was decided that he would spend the summer with the Watson family at a private art colony in Wyoming, New York, established by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward. There he played and became friends with the children of the Aga Khan, Welles briefly attended public school before his alcoholic father left business altogether and took him along on his travels to Jamaica and the Far East. When they returned they settled in a hotel in Grand Detour, Illinois, when the hotel burned down, Welles and his father took to the road again. During the three years that Orson lived with his father, some observers wondered who took care of whom, in some ways, he was never really a young boy, you know, said Roger Hill, who became Welless teacher and lifelong friend. Welles briefly attended school in Madison, Wisconsin, enrolled in the fourth grade. At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged theatrical experiments and productions there, Todd provided Welles with many valuable experiences, wrote critic Richard France
27.
The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
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The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American period drama, the second feature film produced and directed by Orson Welles. Welles adapted Booth Tarkingtons Pulitzer Prize–winning 1918 novel, about the fortunes of a proud Midwestern family. The film stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, Welles lost control of the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons to RKO, and the final version released to audiences differed significantly from his rough cut of the film. More than an hour of footage was cut by the studio, Although Welless extensive notes for how he wished the film to be cut have survived, the excised footage was destroyed. Composer Bernard Herrmann insisted his credit be removed when, like the film itself, even in the released version, The Magnificent Ambersons is often regarded as among the best U. S. films ever made, a distinction it shares with Welless first film, Citizen Kane. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the Ambersons are by far the wealthiest family in the small midwestern city of Indianapolis. It is the turn of the 20th century, and life is peaceful, Eugene Morgan as a young man courts Isabel Amberson, but she rejects him even though she loves him. Isabel instead marries Wilbur Minafer, a man she does not love. They have a child, George, whom she spoils and who becomes the terror of the town, George Amberson Minafer, on break from college, returns to his home. His mother Isabel and Major Amberson, his grandfather, hold a reception in his honor, among the guests are the widowed Eugene Morgan, now a prosperous automobile manufacturer who has just returned to town after a 20-year absence, and his daughter Lucy. George instantly takes to the beautiful and charming Lucy, but takes as quick a dislike to Eugene, as Eugenes automobile plant prospers, the industrialist builds a mansion to rival the magnificence of that of Major Amberson. During a dinner party, George tells Eugene that he thinks automobiles are a useless nuisance, during the evening George learns from his uncle Jack and his aunt Fanny that Isabel and Eugene were an item and is enraged when Fanny implies that Isabel loved Eugene, not Georges father. Eugene courts Isabel again and decides to ask her to marry him, sensing the developing intensity of their relationship, George takes control and rebuffs a planned visit from Eugene at the door of the Amberson mansion. Isabels love for her son overrides her love for Eugene, so she complies with Georges demands, George takes Isabel on a world tour, ostensibly to get away from the scandalous talk in the town, but also to remove her from the possibility of a relationship with him. Before leaving for Europe, George tries to learn what Lucy is feeling, George and Isabel travel and live in Europe for a while. After she becomes ill, they return home, where George acts as gatekeeper for the dying Isabel, Eugene comes to the house to visit, but George refuses to let him see Isabel, who is on her deathbed. Shortly after Isabels death, her grief-stricken father Major Amberson dies, George and the other family members must fend for themselves financially. Lucy does not reconcile with George, with the entire Amberson fortune gone, George gives up his job at a law firm for higher-paying work in dangerous trades that will enable him to care for Fanny, who has descended into psychosis
28.
Jeanne Moreau
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Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director. She won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for Seven Days, Seven Nights, the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for Viva Maria. and the César Award for Best Actress for The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea. She has also been the recipient of several awards, including a BAFTA Fellowship in 1996. Moreau made her debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. She began playing roles in films in 1949, impressing in a Fernandel vehicle Meutres. in 1950. She achieved prominence as the star of Elevator to the Gallows, directed by Louis Malle, most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continued to appear in films into her eighties. Moreau was born in Paris the daughter of Katherine, a dancer who performed at the Folies Bergère, and Anatole-Désiré Moreau, moreaus father was French, her mother was English, a native of Lancashire in England, and of part-Irish descent. Moreaus father was Catholic and her mother, originally a Protestant, when a young girl, the family moved south to Vichy, spending vacations at the ancestral village of Mazirat, a town of 30 houses in a valley in the Allier. It was wonderful there, Moreau said, every tombstone in the cemetery was for a Moreau. During the war, the family was split and Moreau lived with her mother in Paris, Moreau ultimately lost interest in school at age 16 and, after attending Jean Anouilhs Antigone, found her calling as an actor. She later studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and her parents separated permanently while Moreau was at the conservatory and her mother, after 24 difficult years in France, returned to England with Jeannes younger sister, Michelle. In 1947, Moreau made her debut at the Avignon Festival. She debuted at the Comédie-Française in Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country and, from the late 1950s, after appearing in several successful films, she began to work with the emerging generation of French film-makers. Elevator to the Gallows with first-time director Louis Malle was followed by Malles The Lovers, the latter film, controversial in its day, led the media to tag her The New Bardot. Largely thanks to those films, Moreau went on to work many of the best known New Wave. François Truffauts New Wave film Jules et Jim, her biggest success internationally, is centred on her starring role. In 1983 she was head of the jury at the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival, in 2005, she was awarded with the Stanislavsky Award at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. Moreau has had success as a vocalist and she has released several albums and once performed with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall
29.
Barocco
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Barocco is a 1976 French romantic thriller film, directed by André Téchiné. The film stars Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu and Marie-France Pisier, identity, redemption and resurrection are the themes of the film. The plot follows a woman who convinces her boxer boyfriend to accept a bribe to tell a lie that discredits a local politician. When the boyfriend is murdered, she is racked with guilt until she meets the killer, the film won three César Awards, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Cinematography and Best Music. The film had a total of 678,734 admissions in France, in a French speaking port in Northern Europe, Laure, an aimless young woman, goes to see her boyfriend, Samson, a washed up boxer. The smearing campaign has been hatched by political rivals involved with gang members, Samson is hesitant, but Laure pushes him to take the offer. The money would allow them to have a better future somewhere else, Laure goes to her house located in the citys red light district. Her roommate, Nelly, a prostitute, advertises her trade from a show window. She has a daughter and is looking for a name for her newborn. Nelly tries to persuade her friend from leaving and an argument stars between them, Jules, Nellys husband, intervenes and Nelly, discovering the money hidden in Laures bag, lets her leave but insist that Jules escort her to the train station. At the station, Samson has been followed by two hired assassins, Laure buys the train tickets and hides the money at the stations lockers, but prevented by Samson they go separate ways. She waits for him at a diner, but ends ups falling sleep. The next morning she is awaken no by Samson but by one of the killers for hire, while she tries to run, Samson shows up on the snowy street and he is immediately shot by the assassin. Samson falls death while a train approaches the station, after the assassination, Samsons killer, a brunette dead ringer for the murdered man, looks for Laure and the money. Returning from helping the police with the investigation, Laure bravely confronts the killer who is smitten by her. Walt, the editor of the newspaper that was going to run the scandalous revelations about the politician and he is helped by Antoinette, his assistant, a newspaper reporter who is secretly in love with him. Walt goes as far as to contact both Gauthier, the leader of the gang that ordered Samsons assassination and members of the campaign of the object of the smear campaign. The murderer is now in hiding from his employees and the police
30.
Isabelle Adjani
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Isabelle Yasmina Adjani is a French film actress and singer. She is one of the most acclaimed French actresses of all time and she was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 2010, and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2014. After success in the Comédie-Française, Adjanis lauded performance as Adele Hugo in the 1975 film The Story of Adele H. earned her the first of two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her second nomination for Camille Claudel made her the first French actress to receive two nominations and she also won Best Actress at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival for Possession and Quartet, and the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 1989 Berlin Film Festival for Camille Claudel. Her other films include The Tenant, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Subway, Diabolique, gusti met Adjanis father, Mohammed Adjani, near the end of World War II, when he was in the French Army. They married and she returned him to Paris, not speaking a word of French. She asked him to take Cherif as his first name as it sounded more American, Isabelle grew up bilingual, speaking French and German fluently, in Gennevilliers, a northwestern suburb of Paris, where her father worked in a garage. She said her parents used their ethnic and cultural differences against each other in arguments, after winning a school recitation contest, Adjani began acting by the age of twelve in amateur theater. She successfully passed her baccalauréat and was auditing classes at the University of Vincennes in 1976, Adjani had a younger brother Éric, who was a photographer. Éric died on 25 December 2010, aged 53, at the age of 14, Adjani starred in her first motion picture, Le Petit bougnat. She first gained fame as an actress at the Comédie française. She was praised for her interpretation of Agnès, the female role in Molières LÉcole des femmes. She soon left the theatre to pursue a film career, after minor roles in several films, she enjoyed modest success in the 1974 film La Gifle, which François Truffaut saw. He immediately cast her in her first major role in his The Story of Adèle H. which he had finished writing five years prior, critics praised her performance, with the American critic Pauline Kael describing her acting talents as prodigious. Only 19 when she made the film, Adjani was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar and she quickly received offers for roles in Hollywood films, such as Walter Hills 1978 crime thriller The Driver. She had previously turned down the chance to star in films like The Other Side of Midnight and she had described Hollywood as a city of fiction and said, Im not an American. I didnt grow up with that will to win an award, Truffaut on the other hand said, France is too small for her. I think Isabelle is made for American cinema and she agreed to make The Driver because she was an admirer of Hills first film Hard Times
31.
Marie-France Pisier
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Marie-France Pisier was a French actress, screenwriter, and director. She appeared in films of the French New Wave and twice earned the national César Award for Best Supporting Actress. Pisier was born in Dalat, French Indochina, where her father was serving as governor of French Indochina. Her younger brother, Gilles Pisier, is a mathematician and a member of the French Academy of Sciences and her sister, Evelyne, was the first wife of Bernard Kouchner, a French politician and the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières. The family moved to Paris when Marie-France was twelve years old, five years later, she made her screen acting debut for director François Truffaut in his 1962 film, Antoine and Colette. Pisier had a brief but incendiary romance with the older, married Truffaut, despite its end, she later appeared in Truffauts Stolen Kisses and Love on the Run. Love on the Run was the fifth and final film in Truffauts series about the character Antoine Doinel, in a review in The New York Times, film critic Vincent Canby praised her for a ravishing performance. Pisier later collaborated on the screenplay to Jacques Rivettes Celine and Julie Go Boating, later in the same year she had a role in Luis Buñuel’s Phantom of Liberty. She gained widespread recognition in 1975 when she appeared in Jean-Charles Tacchellas popular comedy. Her role as the volatile Karine earned her a César Award for Best Supporting Actress, Pisier attempted to crack the American film industry with The Other Side of Midnight, adapted from a Sidney Sheldon novel. She appeared on American television in the miniseries The French Atlantic Affair and she made two more Hollywood films, French Postcards with Debra Winger and Chanel Solitaire with Timothy Dalton. Returning to France, Pisier made her debut with The Governors Party. She also played Madame Verdurin in Raúl Ruizs adaptation of Marcel Proust and her final film as director was with Bérénice Bejo in Like An Airplane. Pisiers first marriage to Georges Kiejman ended in divorce and she resided in Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, Var, and was married to Thierry Funck-Brentano. The couple had a son, Mathieu, and a daughter, the 66-year-old actress died on 24 April 2011. She was found dead in her swimming pool by Funck-Brentano and is believed to have drowned and she is survived by her sister Évelyne, brother Gilles, and both children. The local mayor announced her death to the media and President Nicolas Sarkozy made a public statement honouring “her supreme elegance born of the most perfect simplicity. Marie-France Pisier at the Internet Movie Database Marie-France Pisier at AllMovie
32.
Isabelle Huppert
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Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in more than 100 films and television productions since her debut in 1971. She is the most nominated actress for the César Award, with 16 nominations and she twice won the César Award for Best Actress, for La Cérémonie and for Elle. Huppert was made Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite in 1994 and was promoted to Officier in 2005 and she was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1999 and was promoted to Officer in 2009. Hupperts first César nomination was for the 1975 film Aloïse, in 1978, she won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for The Lacemaker. Her other films in France include Loulou, La Séparation,8 Women, Gabrielle, Amour, among international films most prolific actresses, Huppert has worked in Italy, Russia, Central Europe, and on the Asian continent. Her English-language films include, Heavens Gate, I Heart Huckabees, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, and Louder Than Bombs. In 2016, Huppert garnered international acclaim for her work in Elle, for which she won a Golden Globe Award, an Independent Spirit Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won Best Actress awards from the National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle, Huppert is the most nominated actress for the Molière Award, with 7 nominations. She made her London stage debut in the role of the play Mary Stuart in 1996. She returned to the New York stage in 2009 to perform in Heiner Müllers Quartett, Huppert was born in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the daughter of Annick, an English teacher, and Raymond Huppert, a safe manufacturer. She has a brother and three sisters, including filmmaker Caroline Huppert and her father was Jewish, his family is from Prešov and Alsace-Lorraine. Huppert was raised in her mothers Catholic faith, Huppert was encouraged by her mother to begin acting at a young age, and became a teenage star in Paris. She later attended Versailles Conservatoire, where she won a prize for her acting and she is also an alumna of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Paris, CNSAD. Huppert made her debut in 1971 with Le Prussien. Her later appearance in the controversial Les Valseuses made her increasingly recognized by the public and her international breakthrough came with La Dentelliere, for which she won a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. In 1994, Huppert collaborated with American director Hal Hartley on Amateur and she also appeared in Michael Hanekes The Piano Teacher, which is based on a novel of the same name by Austrian author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004, Elfriede Jelinek. In this film, she played a teacher named Erika Kohut. Regarded as one of her most impressive turns, her performance netted the 2001 Best Actress prize in Cannes, in 2004, she starred in Christophe Honorés Ma Mère as Hélène with Louis Garrel
33.
Hotel America
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Hôtel des Amériques is a 1981 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Catherine Deneuve and Patrick Dewaere. The film, set in Biarritz, tells the ill-fated romance of mismatched lovers and this is the first of several collaborations between Téchiné and Deneuve, who became his favorite actress. In the French touristic city of Biarritz, Hélène, an anesthetist with unresolved issues, is coming home one night. Driving alone, confused and somewhat dazed, she hits a pedestrian. The two go for a coffee and end up spending the night in a diner so that she can file a report, but Gilles and he asks her for a date, and while she accepts, she remains coldly indifferent toward him. Unfulfilled and aimless, Gilles has recently come back from a trip to New York, bringing him, Bernard. Gilles’s mother runs the Hotel de la Gare with his younger sister and this fact makes life uncomplicated for the two friends who live for free at the hotel. Bernard would like to seduce Elise, a reader who never goes out. Keen about his relationship with Hélène, Gilles invites her to a restaurant at the local casino. They have dinner with Bernard and Colette, but the ends up in discord. Hélène clearly dislikes Bernard’s attitude and Gilles confronts her, Bernard is his friend and Gilles is disappointed of her air of superiority. He backs off from the relationship suspecting that she could never love someone less well off than her. Gilles’s disenchantment has the effect on Hélène and she is unable to let him go. Hélène looks for him and they sleep together in his mothers hotel. Gilles finds a job as a tourist guide and paints Hélène beach front apartment, however her past comes to haunt their relationship. She is still mourning the death of her lover, an architect who drown in Biarritz more than a year ago. Many years ago Hélène and Rudel were lovers and he introduced her to the architect, Hélène has inherited La Salamandre, a big abandoned house outside town, where the architect was planning to live. The house is still in disrepair, but after taking Gilles there he insists on leaving the beachfront apartment, first he had an argument with Gilles about Hélène
34.
Biarritz
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Biarritz is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located 35 kilometres from the border with Spain and it is a luxurious seaside tourist destination known for the Hôtel du Palais, its casinos and its surfing culture. Biarritz is located in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and it is adjacent to Bayonne and Anglet and 35 kilometres from the border with Spain. It is in the province of Labourd in the French Basque Country. In Basque, its name is Biarritz or Miarritze and its current Occitan Gascon name is Biàrrits. The name for an inhabitant is Biarrot, Biarriztar ou Miarriztar in Basque, the suffix -itz is a Basque locative. The name appears as Bearriz in 1170, Bearids in 1186, Biarritz appears as Bearids and Bearriz in 1150, Beiarridz in 1165, Bearriz and Beariz in 1170, Bearidz, Bearriz and Beariz, lo port de Beiarriz and Bearridz in 1261. Other forms include Beiarid, Bearritz, Beiarriz and Beiarrids, Bearridz, Bearrits, Bearritz, Sanctus Martinus de Biarriz, mearritcen, analysis of stones from the Middle Paleolithic show that the Biarritz area was inhabited at that time. The oldest mention appears in a cartulary, Baiona’s Golden book, from 1186, the first urban town was to the south, at the top and at the interior, where the church of San Martin is located. This church is the oldest in Biarritz, in 1152, Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II of England, who became suzerain of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Prince Edward, oldest son of Henry III of England, was invested with the duchy, and betrothed to Eleanor of Castile, two population centers are attested in the Middle Ages. This château had a double crenulated wall two meters thick, a drawbridge and four towers, mentions of this château occur as late as 1603, in the letters patent of Henry IV. One tower remained as of 1739, when a daymark was established there, called de la Haille, most of the documents, records and official agreements gathered in the archives from Biarritz mention whaling. This was the local industry. Consequently, the coat of arms features the image of a whale below a rowing boat manned by five sailors wearing berets. This inscription is written on it, Aura, sidus, mare, Biarritz has long made its living from the sea, from the 12th century onwards, it was a whaling town. In the 18th century, doctors claimed that the ocean at Biarritz had therapeutic properties, after the 7th century, Biarritz had many confrontations with Baiona, with the Kingdom of England – Lapurdi was under its control – and with the Bishop of Baiona. Almost all of the disputes were about whale hunting, in 1284, the towns right to hunt whales was reinstated by the authorities of Lapurdi and the Duchy of Aquitaine
35.
Catherine Deneuve
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Catherine Deneuve is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model and producer. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof, mysterious beauties for various directors, including Luis Buñuel, Francois Truffaut, in 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, Frances national symbol of liberty. A 14-time César Award nominee, she won for her performances in Truffauts The Last Metro and she is also noted for her support for a variety of liberal causes. She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for Belle de Jour, and she also won the 1998 Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for Place Vendôme. Other films include Scene of the Crime, My Favourite Season,8 Women and her English-language films include The April Fools, Hustle, The Hunger and Dancer in the Dark. In 2015, she starred in The Brand New Testament and Standing Tall, Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, France, the daughter of French stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot. Deneuve was her mothers name, which she chose for her stage name. Her work for Buñuel would be her most famous, further prominent films from this early time in her career included Jean-Paul Rappeneaus A Matter of Resistance, and Demys musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Her starring roles at the time were featured in films as A Slightly Pregnant Man with Marcello Mastroianni. She made her film as a producer in 1988, Drôle dendroit pour une rencontre. In 1997, Deneuve was the protagonist in the video for the song NOubliez Jamais sung by Joe Cocker. In 1998 she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in Place Vendôme. In the late 1990s, Deneuve continued to appear in a number of films such as 1999s five films Est-Ouest, Le temps retrouvé, Pola X, Belle maman. In 2000, Deneuves part in Lars von Triers musical drama Dancer in the Dark alongside Icelandic singer Björk was subject to critical scrutiny. The film was selected for the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival and she made another foray into Hollywood the following year, starring in The Musketeer for Peter Hyams. In 2002, she shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in 8 Women. In 2005, Deneuve published her diary A lombre de moi-meme, in it she writes about her experiences shooting the films Indochine and she also provided the voice role of Marjane Satrapis mother in Satrapis animated autobiographical film Persepolis, based on the graphic novel of the same name. In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël, during an interview at the Cannes Film Festival with Ali Naderzad, Deneuve was asked which was her own favorite film
36.
Juliette Binoche
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Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 60 feature films, been recipient of international awards. Coming from a background, she began taking acting lessons during adolescence. Her sensual performance in her English-language debut The Unbearable Lightness of Being, directed by Philip Kaufman, for her performance in Lasse Hallströms romantic comedy Chocolat, Binoche was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. During the 2000s she maintained a career, alternating between French and English language roles in both mainstream and art-house productions. In 2010, she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Abbas Kiarostamis Certified Copy making her the first actress to win the European Best Actress Triple Crown. In 2008 she began a tour with a modern dance production in-i devised in collaboration with Akram Khan. Binoche was born in Paris, the daughter of Jean-Marie Binoche, a director, actor, and sculptor, and Monique Yvette Stalens, a teacher, director, and actress. Her father, who is French, also has one eighth Portuguese-Brazilian ancestry, juliettes mother was born in Częstochowa, Poland. Binoches maternal grandfather, Andre Stalens, was born in Poland, of Belgian and French descent, both of them were actors who were born in Częstochowa, the German Nazi occupiers imprisoned them at Auschwitz as intellectuals. When Binoches parents divorced in 1968, four-year-old Binoche and her sister Marion were sent to a boarding school. During their teens, the Binoche sisters spent their holidays with their maternal grandmother. Binoche has stated that this perceived parental abandonment had an effect on her. She was not particularly academic and in her years began acting at school in amateur stage-productions. At 17 she directed and starred in a student production of the Eugène Ionesco play and she studied acting at the Conservatoire National Supérieur dArt Dramatique, but quit after a short time as she disliked the curriculum. In the early 1980s, she found an agent through a friend and joined a troupe, touring France, Belgium. Around this time she began lessons with acting coach Vera Gregh, after this Binoche secured her first feature-film appearance with a minor role in Pascal Kanés Liberty Belle. Her role required just two days on–set, but was enough to inspire Binoche to pursue a career in film, Binoches early films established her as a French star of some renown
37.
Scene of the Crime (1986 film)
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Scene of the Crime is a 1986 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Catherine Deneuve, Wadeck Stanczak and Danielle Darrieux. The film tells the story of a family in rural France. Thomas, a troubled boy, picking flowers in a cemetery, is surprised by Martin. The boy does not know where to get money, the tells him to ask his parents. My parents are dead, the boy says, in fact, his parents, Maurice and Lili, are alive. They are separated but they live near the boys grandparents house. Thomas, disaffected by his parents divorce, goes to a catholic school but is spending the weekend with his family. His grandmother is arranging to celebrate that day and hopes her daughter. The boy tries to get the money for the stealing from Lili, his mother. He goes through a series of desperate attempts to get money and eventually scrounges some out of his grumpy grandfather. When the boy returns to give Martin the money, the accomplice, Luc, decides that the boy is too much of a liability. Martin saves Thomass life killing his accomplice, Lili Ravenel, who is emotionally close and distant to her son, is worried about Thomas. He is not doing well at school, according to the chaplain who comes to complain about the boys behavior. Lili, trapped in an existence, runs a nightclub that is situated on a river just at the waters edge. Pushed by her mother, she had married Maurice against her better judgment and now needs to escape the effects of her union with him. Maurice threatens to remove the care and custody of her son from her, Lili has to perform her marital duties even after the divorce - while Maurice screens old home-movies of their domestic happiness long past and gone. After killing Luc, Martin arrives to have a drink at a bar by a river and he has no money and at the end of the night, fascinated by the young man, she arranges for the fugitive to take a room at a local hotel. When she arrives home, her son tells her the story in the cemetery, as it was a dream he had, but she realizes that it actually happened and the convict is the man she just left in the hotel
38.
Great Expectations
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Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel, a bildungsroman that depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens second novel, after David Copperfield, to be narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens weekly periodical All the Year Round, in October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery—poverty, prison ships and chains and these include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media. Upon its release, the novel received universal acclaim. Although Dickens contemporary Thomas Carlyle referred to it disparagingly as that Pip nonsense, later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as All of one piece and consistently truthful. During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to Great Expectations and its sales, when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it a very fine, new and grotesque idea. On Christmas Eve, around 1812, Pip, an orphan who is seven years old, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard, while visiting the graves of his parents. Pip now lives with his elder sister and her kind husband Joe Gargery. The convict scares Pip into stealing food and a file, early on Christmas morning Pip returns with the file, a pie and brandy. During Christmas dinner, at the moment Pips theft is about to be discovered, soldiers arrive, Joe and Pip accompany them as they recapture the convict who is fighting with another escaped convict. The first convict confesses to stealing food from the smithy, a year or two later, Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who still wears her old wedding dress and lives as a recluse in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pumblechook to find a boy to visit. Pip visits Miss Havisham and falls in love with her adopted daughter Estella, Pip visits Miss Havisham regularly, until he is old enough to learn a trade. Joe accompanies Pip for the last visit, when she gives the money for Pip to be bound as apprentice blacksmith, Joes surly assistant Dolge Orlick is envious of Pip and dislikes Mrs Joe. When Pip and Joe are away from the house, Mrs Joe is brutally attacked, Orlick is suspected of the attack. Mrs Joe becomes kind-hearted after the attack, Biddy arrives to help with her care. Four years into Pips apprenticeship, Mr Jaggers, a lawyer, Pip is to leave for London, presuming that Miss Havisham is his benefactor, and visits her
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Les Innocents (film)
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Les Innocents is a 1987 French drama film directed by André Téchiné and starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Simon de La Brosse and Abdel Kechiche. The plot follows a girl who, whilst looking for her runaway brother, the film was partially inspired by a William Faulkner novel. Téchiné uses several French-Arab relationships to mirror the tensions between France and its former colonies, jean-Claude Brialy won a César award for Best Supporting Actor and the film was nominated for three other César awards, Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Music. Jeanne, a woman born and raised in Northern France, is visiting the Mediterranean for the first time. She arrives at the southern French seaport of Toulon to attend the wedding of her older sister Maïté to Nourredine, however, her main goal is to repatriate her deaf-mute younger brother, Alain, with whom she had been living following the death of their parents. At the wedding celebration, Jeanne meets Klotz, a middle age orchestra conductor prone to drinking, Jeanne re-encounter with Alain is not a happy one. She learns that her brother has been supporting himself pickpocketing under the tutelage of Saïd. Jeanne sleeps next to her brother, but the morning, Alain runs away stealing all of Jeanne’s money. Desperate to find Alain, Jeanne goes to the school where Maïté works. Maïté is disappointed with her two siblings and she is in no mood to help, in her lunch hour from work, a lover is waiting for Maïté, who confesses to Jeanne that she got married with Nourredine only to have a child. Jeannes first lead in finding her brother is the orchestra conductor Klotz. Saïd treats Klotz very badly, but Klotz lust after the handsome, when Jeanne visits Klotzs luxurious beach-side villa, she meets Klotz son Stéphane, who is recovering from a coma, and Stéphanes overbearing mother, Myrian. Stéphane is immediately attracted to Jeanne and takes her in his motorcycle to the auditorium where his father is rehearsing with his orchestra, when Jeanne finds Alain, she moves into the modest hotel he shares with Saïd, which is run by a repatriated Pied-Noir from Algeria. At the same time Jeanne starts a relationship with Stéphane, during a brief stay in Algeria, Saïd telephones Stéphane to tell him of the night he has spent with Jeanne, which motivates Stéphane to denounce Saïd to the racist gang. However, Stéphane catches up with Saïd and warns him not to go back to the hotel, Saïd, however, drags Stéphane with him and they are both shot dead. The film ends with Jeanne staring at the two bodies, Jeanne finds herself torn between the two men a French and a North African in a romantic and sexual dilemma that mirrors Frances political turmoil regarding the nations growing Arab population. Les Innocents is available in Region 2 DVD, marshall, Bill, André Téchiné, Manchester University Press,2007, ISBN 0-7190-5831-7 Les Innocents at the Internet Movie Database
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Toulon
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Toulon is a city in southern France and a large military harbour on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-dAzur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department, the Commune of Toulon has a population of 165,514 people, making it the fifteenth-largest city in France. It is the centre of an area with 559,421 inhabitants. Toulon is the fourth-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast after Marseille, Nice, Toulon is an important centre for naval construction, fishing, wine making, and the manufacture of aeronautical equipment, armaments, maps, paper, tobacco, printing, shoes, and electronic equipment. The military port of Toulon is the naval centre on Frances Mediterranean coast, home of the French Navy aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle. The French Mediterranean Fleet is based in Toulon, archaeological excavations, such as those at the Cosquer Cave near Marseilles, show that the coast of Provence was inhabited since at least the Paleolithic era. The Ligurians settled in the beginning in the 4th century BC. In the 2nd century BC, the residents of Massalia called upon the Romans to help pacify the region. The Romans defeated the Ligurians and began to start their own colonies along the coast, Toulon harbour became a shelter for trading ships, and the name of the town gradually changed from Telo to Tholon, Tolon, and Toulon. Toulon was Christianized in the 5th century, and the first cathedral built, honoratus and Gratianus of Toulon, according to the Gallia Christiana, were the first bishops of Toulon, but Louis Duchesne gives Augustalis as the first historical bishop. He assisted at councils in 441 and 442 and signed in 449 and 450 the letters addressed to Pope Leo I from the province of Arles, a Saint Cyprian, disciple and biographer of St. Cæsarius of Arles, is also mentioned as a Bishop of Toulon. His episcopate, begun in 524, had not come to an end in 541, in 1095, a new cathedral was built in the city by Count Gilbert of Provence. As barbarians invaded the region and Roman power crumbled, the town was attacked by pirates. In 1486 Provence became part of France and his Italian campaign failed, and 1497, the rulers of Genoa, who controlled commerce on that part of the Mediterranean, blockaded the new port. However, a few months later the commander of the new fort sold it to the commander of an Army of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1543, Francis I found a surprising new ally in his battle against the Holy Roman Empire. He invited the fleet of Ottoman Admiral Barbarossa to Toulon as part of the Franco-Ottoman alliance, the residents were forced to leave, and the Ottoman sailors occupied the town for the winter. This fleet carried aboard an army of 8,000 infantry and 800 cavalry and its baggage under Thomas of Savoy, king Louis XIV was determined to make France a major sea power. In 1660, his Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert ordered Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban to build a new arsenal and to fortify the town
