Fueled by the demands of the digital marketplace and linked to evolving local tastes, dramatic series have attained unprecedented influence in the French television industry, marking a notable departure from the country’s longtime approach.
For decades, international acquisitions dominated Gallic airwaves, while local production focused mainly on one-off telefilms, less-than-prestigious family shows and self-contained limited series.
The breadth of change has been remarkable. As late as 2011, U.S. imports accounted for 72% of the country’s top broadcast hits, while that number fell to just 4% by 2017. Domestic productions ascended in turn, rising from 3% in 2011 to 42% by 2017.
This shift in public appetite can partially be credited to a shift in the industry itself. “The main channels used to program a lot of French cinema, but [today] French cinema has more narrow appeal than before,” says Francois Godard of Enders Analysis. “So they had to look at other program genres, and they were...
For decades, international acquisitions dominated Gallic airwaves, while local production focused mainly on one-off telefilms, less-than-prestigious family shows and self-contained limited series.
The breadth of change has been remarkable. As late as 2011, U.S. imports accounted for 72% of the country’s top broadcast hits, while that number fell to just 4% by 2017. Domestic productions ascended in turn, rising from 3% in 2011 to 42% by 2017.
This shift in public appetite can partially be credited to a shift in the industry itself. “The main channels used to program a lot of French cinema, but [today] French cinema has more narrow appeal than before,” says Francois Godard of Enders Analysis. “So they had to look at other program genres, and they were...
- 4/8/2019
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
The Da Vinci Code, of course, is full of Leonardo, but I prefer my Last Supper posed by beggars, as in Viridiana
Ah yes, An American in Paris. Gene Kelly's character is a heel, but audiences are so busy ooh-la-la-ing over MGM's soundstage mock-up of Montmartre they don't care, and neither, really, does the film, which finally gives way to a barely relevant 16-minute ballet inspired by the work of painters such as Dufy, Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec. The results, as so often with director Vincente Minnelli, pass all the way through kitsch to emerge somewhere on the side of sublime.
Minnelli once again dodges the kitsch bullet in Lust for Life, which ends up a moving study of Van Gogh, though artist biopics that aim to be tasteful, such as Girl with a Pearl Earring, usually end up as upmarket ersatz, best appreciated by folk who think film is...
Ah yes, An American in Paris. Gene Kelly's character is a heel, but audiences are so busy ooh-la-la-ing over MGM's soundstage mock-up of Montmartre they don't care, and neither, really, does the film, which finally gives way to a barely relevant 16-minute ballet inspired by the work of painters such as Dufy, Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec. The results, as so often with director Vincente Minnelli, pass all the way through kitsch to emerge somewhere on the side of sublime.
Minnelli once again dodges the kitsch bullet in Lust for Life, which ends up a moving study of Van Gogh, though artist biopics that aim to be tasteful, such as Girl with a Pearl Earring, usually end up as upmarket ersatz, best appreciated by folk who think film is...
- 10/27/2011
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
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