French films falter
Just 7 Gallic pix pass million-ticket mark
Among the 32 films that surpassed 1 million in ticket sales in 2000, just seven were French movies -- and one of those was a co-production, Lars Von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark."
Although final figures have not yet been released, French cinema's market share is expected to fall below the 30% mark, while U.S. product slightly upped its market share to 60%-plus.
"It isn't a catastrophe, but it was not a very good year," says Francois Hurard, director of cinema at the National Film Center's (CNC).
Some of the year's costliest, most star-studded productions turned out to be the biggest flops. Gerard Depardieu and Uma Thurman were unable to save Roland Joffe's Cannes Film Festival opener "Vatel" from sinking into obscurity. "The Widow of Saint-Pierre" with Juliette Binoche, "Les destinees sentimentales" with Emmanuelle Beart and "Le roi danse" starring Daniel Auteuil did not fare much better.
Comedies score
Yet Agnes Jaoui's altogether more modest social comedy "Le gout des autres" (The Taste of Others) -- France's Oscar contender -- packed them in at Gallic theaters, as did Dominik Moll's darkly humorous second feature "With a Friend Like Harry."
The three other French movies that passed the million-ticket mark were aimed at the youth market: Gerard Krawczyk's action-comedy "Taxi 2" -- which was France's biggest grossing film of the year, raking in more than $53 million -- Mathieu Kassovitz's thriller "Crimson Rivers" and Fabien Onteniente's comedy "Jet Set."
On Thursday, popular daily Le Parisien laid into French moviemakers for failing to come up with films the public wants to see.
"The problem with French cinema is not the lack of money -- there has never been so much -- but the lack of original ideas and good scripts," the newspaper opined. "It is a void that complaints about the flood of American films can no longer cover up."
Audience poll
In a straw poll carried out by the newspaper, one moviegoer found French films "more intelligent" --except those with Depardieu in them, which were on a par with U.S. product. Another, whose views were perhaps more representative of young French people, said he went to the cinema for the spectacle, and preferred to watch French films on video or on TV.
But CNC's Hurard cautions against too much pessimism about the fate of French cinema. "Taxi 2" was, after all, the biggest box office hit of the year; the previous year's box office topper's was the homegrown "Asterix and Obelix." "People haven't deserted French films. The potential is still there to attract a wide public," he maintains.
Indeed, the French film industry isn't ready to concede defeat. The first couple of months of 2001 will see a batch of big-budget releases, including Christophe Gans' period thriller "Pact of the Wolves"; Jacques Dorfmann's "Vercingetorix," starring Christopher Lambert; and Francis Weber's comedy "The Closet."
