French cinema consists of the film industry and its film productions, whether made within the nation of France or by French film production companies abroad. It is the oldest and largest precursor of national cinemas in Europe; with primary influence also on the creation of national cinemas in Asia.
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made. He was ranked by the BFI's Sight & Sound poll of critics in 2002 as the fourth greatest director of all time. Among numerous honours accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975 for his contribution to the motion picture industry. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the uncle of the cinematographer Claude Renoir. He was one of the first filmmakers to be known as an auteur.
Marcel Albert Carné was a French film director. A key figure in the poetic realism movement, Carné's best known films include Port of Shadows (1938), Le Jour Se Lève (1939), The Devil's Envoys (1942) and Children of Paradise (1945), the last of which has been cited as one of the greatest films of all time.
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s. More a tendency than a movement, poetic realism is not strongly unified like Soviet montage or French Impressionism but were individuals who created this lyrical style. Its leading filmmakers were Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carné, and, perhaps the movement's most significant director, Jean Renoir. Renoir made a wide variety of films some influenced by the leftist Popular Front group and even a lyrical short feature film. Frequent stars of these films were Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Simone Signoret, and Michèle Morgan.
Laura Huguette Smet is a French actress. She is the daughter of rock musician Johnny Hallyday and actress Nathalie Baye. In 1986, Johnny Hallyday recorded in her honor the song "Laura", written by Jean-Jacques Goldman.
Julien Duvivier was a French film director and screenwriter. He was prominent in French cinema in the years 1930–1960. Amongst his most original films, chiefly notable are La Bandera, Pépé le Moko, Little World of Don Camillo, Panic (Panique), Voici le temps des assassins and Marianne de ma jeunesse.
French Cancan is a 1955 French-Italian musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and Francoise Arnoul. Where Renoir's previous film Le Carosse d’or had celebrated the 18th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, this work is a homage to the Parisian café-concert of the 19th century with its popular singers and dancers. Visually, the film evokes the paintings of Edgar Degas and the Impressionists, including his own father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It also marked his return to France and to French cinema after an exile that began in 1940.
Michel Simon was a Swiss-French actor. He appeared in many notable French films, including La Chienne (1931), Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), L'Atalante (1934), Port of Shadows (1938), The Head (1959), and The Train (1964).
Catherine Rouvel is an acclaimed French actress. Her career spans from 1959 in television to 2004.
Daniel Yves Alfred Gélin was a French film and television actor.
Charles-Marie Vanel was a French actor and director. During his 76-year film career, which began in 1912, he appeared in more than 200 films and worked with many prominent directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Jacques Feyder, and Henri-Georges Clouzot. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as a desperate truck driver in Clouzot's The Wages of Fear for which he received a Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953.
Le Grand Jeu is a 1934 French film directed by Jacques Feyder. It is a romantic drama set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, and the film was an example of poetic realism in the French cinema. The title Le Grand Jeu refers to the practice of reading the cards. Blanche asks whether her client wants the 'full works', the whole story: "Alors... je te fais le grand jeu?"
Gaston Modot was a French actor. For more than 50 years he performed for the cinema working with a number of great French directors.
Robert Hakim and Raymond Hakim were Egyptian-born brothers who usually worked in collaboration as film producers in France and other European countries. Their brother André Hakim was also a film producer.
Maurice Jaubert was a French composer. A prolific composer, he scored some of the most important films of the early sound era in France, including Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct and L’Atalante, and René Clair’s Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire. Serving in both world wars, he died in action during World War II at the age of 40.
Gabriel Gabrio was a French stage and film actor whose career began in cinema in the silent film era of the 1920s and spanned more than two decades. Gabrio is possibly best remembered for his roles as Jean Valjean in the 1925 Henri Fescourt-directed adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Cesare Borgia in the 1935 Abel Gance-directed biopic Lucrèce Borgia and as Carlos in the 1937 Julien Duvivier-directed gangster film Pépé le Moko, opposite Jean Gabin.
Charles Spaak was a Belgian screenwriter who was noted particularly for his work in the French cinema during the 1930s. He was the son of the dramatist and poet Paul Spaak, the brother of the politician Paul-Henri Spaak, and the father of the actresses Catherine Spaak and Agnès Spaak.
They Were Five is a 1936 French drama film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin, Charles Vanel, and Viviane Romance. It tells the story of five unemployed workers who win the jackpot in the national lottery but their solidarity then proves fragile.
The Air of Paris is a 1954 French-Italian drama film directed by Marcel Carné and starring Jean Gabin, Arletty and Roland Lesaffre. Gabin won the Volpi Cup at the 1954 Venice International Film Festival.
Jules Berry was a French actor.
