French
Articles and Essays on French Films
Rules of the Game, The (1939)
By February 1939 war was brewing near and a feeling of doom was hanging over Europe. The great French director Jean Renoir anticipated for war and troubled by it, he created a remarkable comedy of manners, an absurd comic farce that ends in tragedy. A total box-office failure in 1939, Jean Renoirs The Rules of the Game is now […]
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Beauty and the Beast (1946)
“Children believe what we tell them. They have complete faith in us. They believe that a rose plucked from a garden can plunge a family into conflict. They believe that the hands of a human beast will smoke when he slays a victim and that this will cause the beast shame, when a young maiden […]
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Breathless (1960)
In its opening shots a girlie tabloid slips down to reveal the face of a man, a cigarette dangling on his lips as his eyes suspiciously survey’s the area under his jaunty cocked hat that is obviously too large for his head. He turns and he rubs those lips with the edge of his thumb; and he […]
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Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the most excruciating spiritual experiences I have ever witnessed on the screen and it is directed by the only person that could pull off such a remarkable achievement, the great French director Robert Bresson. It’s a tragic film full of pain, anguish and human suffering, a story that is Bresson’s heartbreaking prayer […]
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Le Samourai (1967)
“There is no greater solitude than that of a Samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle…” Bushido (Book of the Samurai) The film opens to an near empty room, along with the sound of a bird chirping in its cage. In the shadows we can barely see a man laying on […]
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