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Film Series - Spring 2007
WWII in French Cinema series
Unless otherwise noted, all films are screened at 8:00 pm, either in the Griffith Theater, Bryan Center, on the West Campus of Duke University, or in the Richard White lecture hall, on East Campus; in 35mm format; in French with English subtitles. All films are free and open to the public.
This program is organized in collaboration with the Film/Video/Digital Program. Very special thanks to Hank Okazaki.
For more on this and other film series, please visit the Screen/Society site.
Monday, Jan. 29 ***TONIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE*** These films will be screened in DVD format.Jeux interdits One of the first films to see the horrors of war through the eyes of children, Forbidden Games was a critical smash, winning prizes from the New York Film Critics, the British Academy, and the Venice Film Festival. Adapted by Francois Boyer, director Rene Clement, and two others from Boyer's novel, the story focuses on Paulette (Brigitte Fossey), a five-year-old refugee from Paris taken in by a peasant family after her parents are killed during a bombardment of a civilian convoy. Michel Dolle (Georges Pujouly), the family's 11-year-old son, becomes her best friend, and they create a cemetery in which Paulette's dog is interred, along with other animals and insects, some of whom the children kill themselves. The Dolle family is too busy feuding with the Gouards, their neighbors, to notice the absence of the children. Eventually, authorities locate Paulette and insist that she be placed in an orphanage for legal adoption. Unsentimental and yet heartbreaking, Forbidden Games demonstrates the strategies of children who witness war to deal with the constant presence of death. It's also a bitter condemnation of the selfishness of adults who could offer their charges more love and protection. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide Followed by... Nuit et brouillard Though only a short subject, this groundbreaking documentary remains one of the most influential and powerful explorations of the Holocaust ever made. Director Alain Resnais bluntly presents an indictment not only of the Nazis but of the world community, and the film is all the more remarkable for its harsh judgment considering the time in which it was made, less than a decade after the end of the war, when questions of responsibility were not yet being addressed. Juxtaposing archival clips from the concentration camps across Germany and Poland with the present-day denials of the camps' existence, the film seeks to once and for all expose the horrifying truth of the Final Solution, as well as to address the continuing anti-Semitism and bigotry that existed long after the war's end. An invaluable resource and testament to history, this film was a profound influence on all films to address issues of the Holocaust, from Judgment at Nuremberg and Shoah to Schindler's List. Night and Fog remains an essential and indispensable document of the 20th century. ~ Robert Lane |
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Monday, Feb. 5 L'armée des ombres Jean-Pierre Melville is widely worshipped for his gangster sagas, such as Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge, but this tale of the French Resistance, though no less stylish (hats and dark suits still abound), has an added pulse of the heartfelt. It stars Lino Ventura as a stalwart of the underground movement who slips the shackles of the occupying Germans and rejoins his small band of fellow-heroes. Not that their heroism is remotely flamboyant; what concerns Melville is the courage of the stoical, the phlegmatic, and the formidably organized. His direction honors that efficiency with a series of set pieces (one in a barber shop, another at Gestapo headquarters, a third in the face of a firing squad) in which the suspense grows almost intolerable. The movie, though made in 1969, has never been released here before. To miss it now would be a gross dereliction of duty. ~ Anthony Lane, The New Yorker Original cinematographer Pierre Lhomme personally supervised this superb new 35mm color restoration. |
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Monday, Feb. 12 Lacombe Lucien Set in occupied France, the film opens in the summer of 1944 as Lucien, our troubled, bull-headed teen hero, expresses an interest in assisting the local resistance movement. He is turned down and, after a chance encounter, signs up as a collaborator for the Gestapo instead. Easily seduced by the power and apparent glamour of the position, he fingers one of his villagers (an old teacher) and relishes a newfound sense of belonging that allows him to forget his old life. The Gestapo also allows Lucien to give in to his most nihilistic urges. When he develops a strained relationship with a Jewish tailor - and falls for his beautiful daughter - he becomes increasingly compromised and is forced into examining his real identity. ~ Chris Wiegand, BBC |
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Monday, Feb. 19 Un héros très discret Irony abounds in this French comedy that tells the tale of an unsophisticated, rather dim-bulbed country lad who follows the advice of a former French freedom fighter and tries to change himself into a hero of the recently ended French Resistance. Poor Albert is no stranger to deceit. For his first 12-years, his mother led him to believe that his father was a war hero. He is devastated to learn that his father really died of alcoholism. During the war, Albert does all he can to avoid fighting for the Resistance, even though the Nazis control his village. He marries and moves in with his wife's family, innocent of the fact that the whole time he is there, they are concealing downed British fliers. The night their town is freed, Albert leaves for Paris where he meets Dionnet, "The Captain," a bona-fide Resistance hero. It is he, who teaches Albert how to successfully change his identity. After much practice and memorization, Albert finally has a new identity and goes to work as a secretary for Mr. Jo, a former double agent. Albert stays in a boarding house, where a resident prostitute teaches him about lovemaking. Meanwhile, Albert becomes recognized as a courageous patriot, a role he manages to sustain only a little while before it all falls apart and the painful truth is finally revealed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide |
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Monday, Feb. 26 This film will be screened in PAL VHS format. La grande vadrouille Summer 1942. During the Nazi Occupation in France, a Royal Air Force Wellington bomber gets lost after a mission and is shot down over Paris by German flak. The crew, Reginald (with the big moustache), Peter Cunningham and Alan MacIntosh, parachute out right over the city. They are hidden by a house painter, Augustin Bouvet, and the grumbling conductor of the Opéra National de Paris, Stanislas Lefort. Involuntarily, Lefort and Bouvet get themselves involved in the manhunt against the aviators, led by Major Aschbach. They have to help the flyboys to go back to England with the help of Resistance fighters and sympathizers. |
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