FRENCH FILM-MAKERS NOW GO TO SCHOOL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 402, 7 March 1947, Page 32

FRENCH FILM-MAKERS NOW GO TO SCHOOL

By

PAUL

GUTH

Special to |

"T he Listener" from the French Press and Information Service

New Development in Cinema Industry

CHOOL’S in for French film makers. A few years ago it was still possible to distinguish between two types of situation -those for which we

prepared and those for which we didn’t prepare. We prepared for the care of ’flu cases, for the teaching of Latin, for the defence of murderers in Court,

for the command of a ship, or for the firing of a gun in times of war. There were schools for these things. But people did not prepare for the projection of shadows on a rectangle of white cloth; at least not in a special school, following accepted principles. The cinema, invented by toy merchants or black-shrouded photographers, had retained from its origins a marked inclination towards the miraculous. No one knew how anyone bécame a pro-ducer-whether by natural gifts, by

"connections," or simply by living off Mother Hubbard’s cupboard until] the day came, perhaps, when the Goose that laid the golden eggs was found inside it. Since last year, however, all has changed-or so it seems. In Villeneuve-

sur-Lot or in Souillac, teachers or clerks can reply to sons who want to make films like those they see at the local cinemas on Sunday nights.

"Well, son, you can prepare for it at the I.D.H.E.C." Youngest of Large French Colleges The Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies) is situated in the Rue de Penthiévre, Paris, near the Champs Elysées where film people discuss their affairs in the bars. It has discardéd the University benches on which generations of pupils have carved their (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) names. amid arrow-pierced hearts. It has rejected the fly-spots, ink-stains, grease-marks, and clouds of chalk dust which are the normal surroundings of student life. This youngest of large French Colleges is installed in a special building with big windows and high ceilings. The electric lighting has not the harshness reserved for youth in sombre schools. Here the light is not thrown down directly, nor is it shut up in shades of stiffly bureaucratic design, but diffused from airy globes. Work at the I.D.H.E.C. is none-the-less hard. I was somewhat perturbed by the requirements of the courses. The Institute has followed the rule that the student shall work to his limits (always extensible), without ever reaching them. It has gone so far as to cater for all

branches of cinematographic activity other than that of acting, and has opened five courses for the following types of film workers: Directors and Producers; Sound Technicians; Property-Men; Cameramen; Dress Designers and Costumiers. Refining Process A short time ago a film director was regarded as a gangster in a check coat and dark glasses. who yelled orders through a megaphone, hurled insults at the stars, or kissed their hands while tossing off glasses of champagne, completely under the control of his unmentionable passions-all this being done under the disguise of inspiration. But the Institute wants to produce film directors as skilled as engineers or doctors. For the entry examination, the future producer or director will have studied the Princesse de Cléves, Phédre, and Sylvie (French literary classics). He will have had to read Faral’s Daily Life in the Time of St. Louis and Plutarch’s lives of Aristides and Themistocles. For the school year he will examine thoroughly "Gothic Art in France to the End of the 19th Century"; and in aesthetics, the Epic and "The Child. in Literature and Art." The sound technician will have to be acquainted with Moivre’s formula and know how to resolve a polynomial into a product of real factors. The dress designer will know how to make in 12 hours a costume for the Princesse de Cléves, whose voice will be recorded by the sound technician and whose tears will be filmed by the cameraman. Every cameraman, make-up or lighting expert will lose his former Savage aspect and rudeness, which sometimes concealed intelligence. The Institute intends to civilise these savages, polish them, provide them with a general cul-

tural background. The most learned professors of Paris will take part in the refining process, just as though it was a matter of preparing students for graduation. M. Reinhardt, professor in charge of courses at the Institute of Political Studies, will teach them Social History; and Mlle. Rousseau, negotiating agent for the National Museums, will teach them the History of Art. Armed with a knowledge of human geography, theatrical history and comparative literature, they will sharpen their critical faculties and dissect the films already produced which are laid before them. And with their minds now broadened and deepened and ordered, enriched with a variety of associations and equipped with a bristling array of the necessary weapons, they will abandon their naive reactions of yesteryear, and be able to draw up a film script.

They will know how to swing the panorama through the’ full circle, "beginning by the couple entwined on the balcony of the Grand Theatre, then dwelling a few moments on the fateful black wall, before disclosing the cruel grin of the spying villain, Lacenaire, who thereby becomes all the more sinister." They will know .how to co-ordinate montage and plot development in a harmonious whole, how to study the problem of the long film which en-

tails an increase in the price of admission and the curtailment of "shorts," how to take due account of the comments of the man in the street ("The ending leaves you in the air"), and how to quote Shakespeare. The Institute has not yet sent out into the world its first brood of film experts. We may expect to recognise them by their work in a few years’ time, work which should Be most succgssful. Culture has always aided genius more than it has suppressed it, in fact has often honourably concealed its absence. The Ecole Normale Supérieure created Giraudoux’s delicacy of touch and. Peguy’s rusticity, eternally redolent of the soil. The Institute, we hope, will create the Giraudoux and Peguys of the cinema, who will no longer owe their success to their "connections" or to string-pulling, but to their natural gifts and to hard work.