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You are here: Home » Arts + Culture + Fashion » Archive » January 2008-2
January 2008-2
French Arts + Culture Archive: January 8-18, 2008
Tax breaks boost French film production
Variety. Jan. 18, 2008
Despite a shrinking audience for French films, the number of French nationality pic productions rose from 203 in 2006 to 228 in 2007, the second highest production output in a decade after 2005, when France turned out 240 films. The rise in production levels is largely explained by a big bounce in French majority international co-productions. New French tax breaks, introduced in 2006 but settling in in 2007, have raised the level of public investment in French films.
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Documentary absolves Polanski of sex crime
Los AngelesTimes. Jan. 18, 2007
Marina Zenovich’s compelling, smartly told film "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” is an expose of the circumstances surrounding Polish director Roman Polanski's fleeing the USA for refuge in France after pleading guilty to having sex with a minor. The film concludes that the judge in the case acted improperly and everyone involved has suffered as a result.
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Book examines perfume creation
Yahoo.Jan. 18, 2008
In "The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York” ( (Henry Holt) New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr contrasts the creation and launch of actress Sarah Jessica Parker’s perfume Lovely, with the development of a new scent for the Parisian luxury brand Hermes. Master perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena is hired to create Un Jardin sur le Nil, a garden on the banks of the Nile to challenge the dominance of the Chanel perfumes.
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French films shut out of Academy Awards
Variety. Jan. 16, 2008
Of the 63 films originally submitted in the foreign-language Oscar category, nine have proceeded into the Academy’s latest voting round, but none are French. The French favorite “Persepolis,” which took the Jury Prize in Cannes, as well as the New York Film Critics and L.A. Critics Award for best animated film, was surprisingly shut out.
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France's Besson plans film focusing on environment
Reuters. Jan. 16, 2006
French film maker Luc Besson is to make a full length movie inspired by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand's "Earth from the Air" images of the planet, French retailer PPR, the film's sponsor, said on Monday. The film, with the working title "Boomerang," is intended to contribute to "raising awareness of the dire condition of our planet," PPR said. It is due to be released on World Environment Day -- June 5 -- in 2009.
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French DVD sales slide
Variety. Jan. 16, 2008
DVD sales were down for the third consecutive year in France, dropping 11% in value and 10% in volume in 2007, according to estimates from the country's national syndicate for digital video, the SEVN. France is the only major European country to exhibit such negative results in DVD sales in '07, and the DVD market here has seen a 25% decrease in value over the past three years, allegedly due to piracy and copying.
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Art Thieves Target Europe's Churches
Time. Jan. 16, 2008
Every year, thousands of churches, chapels and monasteries across Europe are robbed of their most beloved and valuable artworks. "Our churches are being pillaged," says Captain Dominique Lambert of France's Central Office for the Fight against Traffic in Cultural Goods (OCBC). "They take everything — statues, paintings, chalices, silverwork.” The loot ends up in America, England, Japan, Russia, India, and once a stolen work crosses into another country, it can get trapped in legislative red tape for years.
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De Montebello's triumphant reign
NewYorkMagazine. Jan. 15, 2008
French-born Metropolitan Museum director Philippe de Montebello is retiring after 30 years. When he was hired in 1977, critics doubted that “a director who sounded like a count from the ancien régime” was the right fit for demotic New York. In the end, however, his reign was “a triumph of strategic snobbery.” He became the most admired museum director of his generation, a model administrator, scholar, politician, fund-raiser, collector, and showman.
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Michel Gondry’s Career Advice
NewYorkMagazine. Jan. 15, 2008
French film director Michell Gondry, now a New York resident, premieres his latest film, Be Kind Rewind, at the Sundance Festival. His creative inspiration comes from his hippie childhood, a brief stint at art school, miscellaneous jobs, making music videos, and persistence.
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French Golden Globe Winners
AFP. Jan. 15, 2008
French films took several prizes at the a low-key Golden Globe awards on Jan. 13, 2008. Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy went to Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose. Best Animated Feature Film went to Ratatouille (Walt Disney/Pixar). Best Foreign Language Film went to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and its director Julian Schnabel took Best Director.
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German experts conforim Mona Lisa identity
Reuters. Jan. 15, 2008
German academics believe they have solved the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the "Mona Lisa" in Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait housed in the Louvre. Experts at Heidelberg University say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, was the model for the sixteenth-century painting.
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Abu Dhabi Louvre Confirmed
Variety.
Jan. 13, 2008
On Jan. 7, 2008, French and Emirati officials have signed a deal that will see a "desert Louvre" designed by Jean Nouvel created as part of a vast cultural and tourism complex being created on an island off Abu Dhabi. The deal was inked by Bruno Maquart of France-Museums and Emirati tourism minister Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoun al-Nahayan at a ceremony also attended by French culture minister Christine Albanel. Under the 30-year agreement, Abu Dhabi will pay $525 million for the Louvre brand name and for the loan of hundreds of artworks from the Paris museum for periods of up to six months. The project has enraged many in France, who accuse the Louvre of "selling its soul" by lending out its prized collections overseas.
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French Sotheby’s asks for Market Reform
Artforum. Dec. 13, 2007
Despite a healthy fiscal year, Sotheby's France is asking for a change in certain policies. The current market regulations and fiscal laws suffer from "archaism,” according to Sotheby's France president Guillaume Cerutti, who believes French auction houses should be able to benefit from three liberties that other national markets take for granted: to propose minimum guarantees to selling clients, to be able to sell and resell artworks quickly, and to be authorized to organize private sales. French Culture Minister promised last September to launch a "renewal plan" for the French art market, which in recent years has lost ground to both New York and London.
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Shaw’s Saint Joan
ChicagoTribune. Jan. 13, 2008
This production of George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan" from Canada's illustrious Shaw Festival brims with much debate on women and leadership, religion and politics, class and condescension. In a sound-bite world, 2 hours and 40 minutes of traditional, talky Shaw about a 15th-century French saint can seem like a daunting commitment. But this is his Shaw’s last truly great play and not to be missed, Chicago Shakespeare Theater through Jan. 20
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Obituary: stylist Alexandre de Paris
YahooNews. Jan. 13, 2008
Master hairstylist Alexandre de Paris (real name Louis Alexandre Raimon), one of the fathers of the “haute coiffure” has died at the age of 85. He styled stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Liza Minelli, Shirley Maclaine, Greta Garbo, Maria Callas, Arletty, Michèle Morgan, and Romy Schneider, and became a symbol of French elegance along with the couturiers he worked with such as Chanel, Grès, Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Balmain, Gaultier, and Mugler.
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Marienbad shows how French films and American audiences have changed
NewYorkTimes. Jan. 13, 2008
Rialto Pictures is touring a new 25 mm print of French director Alain Resnais’s iconic New Wave film “Last Year at Marienbad.” When it debuted in New York in 1962, its fractured narrative, long takes and mannered poses polarized film buffs. In those days, Americans loved European films which no matter how bizarre and dissident. Today, European films are a tiny niche market dominated by Hollywoodized romances and action spectaculars.
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New York street furniture: a French defeat
NewYorkTimes. Jan. 13, 208
New York’s first public pay toilets have been installed, part of a $1 billion street-furniture contract with Spanish outdoor-advertising conglomerate Cemusa to provide bus shelters, newsstands, bike parking racks and pay toilets. The prestigious contract nearly went to the French company J. C. Decaux, who installed prototypes in 1992, but city backed out when a Decaux founder was charged with bribery in Belgium.
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Spider sculpture donated to Tate
BBC. Jan. 13, 2008
A giant sculpture of a spider by French-born artist Louise Bourgeois has been donated to London’s Tate gallery by its creator and an anonymous benefactor. Bourgeois' 9-metre-high work, titled Maman, was part of Bourgeois' inaugral commission for The Unilever Series in the Turbine Hall in 2000. Bourgeois, who lives in New York has described the piece as "an ode to my mother, my best friend".
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Knocking Nouvel’s Manhattan Tower
Bloomberg. Jan. 11, 2008
French architect Jean Nouvel’s proposed 75-story skyscraper to be built next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York was greeted with approvel by the New York Times’s architecture critic who welcomed “the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation.” But dissenting voices are now being heard. Bloomberg’s architecture critic James Russell condemns Nouvel’s “implausibly thin obelisk” as an “ode to zoning abuse” that hogs air rights and casts Midtown in shadowy darrkness.
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Cartier’s Contemporary Art Mission
Bloomberg. Jan. 11, 2008
Cartier is not just a jeweller. It's also a major promoter of contemporary art in Paris. The Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, headquartered in architect Jean Nouvel’s glamorous building on the Blvd. Raspail, spends around $8 million a year collecting and exhibiting international contemporary art. The institution drew an estimated 240,000 visitors last year with shows on early rock'n'roll, the art of filmmaker David Lynch, and drawings and photos by rock singer Patti Smith.
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French international box office falls 13%
Variety. Jan. 11, 2008
The box office for French films in foreign markets fell 13% last year to $396 million. An estimating 57 million foreign viewers saw Gallic films last year, film promotional body Unifrance reported. Europe as a whole was by far France’s largest export market: 61% of the total. Russia is now ahead of the USA in French film consumption. The top performing French titles overseas were “Arthur and the Invisibles”, “La Vie en rose”, “Taxi 4”, and “Paris, je t’aime.”
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Beineix’s 'Diva' celebrates 25th anniversary
ChicagoTribune. Jan. 11, 2008
French director Jean-Jacques Beineix’s film "Diva" arrived a quarter of a century ago as fresh air, a film that felt different, lighter, kinkier and more hip than so many European and art house movies before it. Now in re-release with a new print to honor its 25th anniversary, the movie holds up well as a prescient stylistic harbinger of the decade that followed. Unlike the great French black-and-white classics, this color movie by director Jean-Jacques Beineix is punk-prankish in its hues and sardonic in its attitude.
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French actress Green opposes official insularity
UKTimes Jan. 10, 2008
French star Eva Green (Casino Royale) has no time for French cultural chauvenism and quotas against films in English. “Sometimes French people will say that it’s very pretentious to want to make movies in English. They want to own you. But why not? I live in London and want to continue doing international work.” The majority of French filmgoers increasingly agree with her. US films took 49.9 % of the 2007 French box office, 13 per cent more than films in French.
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Met’s French director Montebello to retire
NewYorkTimes. Jan. 9, 2008
French-born aristocrat Philippe de Montebello, 71, who has led the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through 30 prosperous years, will retire at the end of 2008. Count Guy Philippe Henri Lannes de Montebello is the Met’s eighth and longest-serving director. He studied art history at Harvard and New York University and ascended to the Met throne in 1978. In 2007 he was the highest paid non-profit institution director in America, earning over $4 million.
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Sarko’s son produces gangster rap
UKTimes. Jan. 8, 2007
President Sarkozy is famously disliked by urban youth. When interior minister, he ordered the prosecution of half a dozen rappers for insulting the police. Now his son Pierre, 23, who describes himself as a a hophop producer and goes by the street name Mosey, has written a profanity-laden anti-authority rap song with ghetto rapper Poison.
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Diving Bell and Ratatouille take Critics Choice Awards
NewYorkTimes. Jan. 8, 2008
The French drama "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was named best foreign language film at the Critics Choice Awards on Monday. One of the year's biggest box office hits, "Ratatouille," about a rat who cooks in a French kitchen, was named best animated feature. The Critics Choice Awards have an enviable track record as an Oscar predictor.
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Messiaen’s Complete Organ Music in New York. Free!
NewYorkSun. Jan. 8, 2008
This year marks the centenary of French composer Olivier Messiaen’s birth. Starting this weekend, New York music professor Gail Archer will play Messiaen's complete organ cycles on six of Manhattan's best organs. The first concert will be this Sunday at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue and 90th Street; the last will be on May 29 at St. Patrick's Cathedral. All are free.
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Broadway Revival of 'Les Miz' Closes
The second Broadway incarnation of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's hit musical Les Misérables will end on Jan. 6, 2008 after 463 regular performances. Combined with the original production's 6,680 performances, Les Miz on Broadway will have played more than 7,176 performances. The show, inspired by Victor Hugo’s epic novel Les Miserables (1862), remains a money-making brand name around the world, and has had a huge influence on popularizing French history.
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Darker side of Simone de Beauvoir
AFP. Jan. 8, 2008
Simone de Beauvoir was an iconic figurehead of the 20th-century struggle for women's liberation. As France marks the centenary of her birth on Wednesday, half a dozen books and a tribute DVD series are being released, while scholars are gathering in Paris for a three-day symposium on her life and work. But De Beauvoir and Sartre’s humanist reputations have been shaken by revelations of their “menage a trois” with a series of young women, who were treated like toys for the pair’s amusement then brutally discarded.
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France experiments with free museum admission
Reuters. Jan. 7, 2008
French national museums including the Louvre in Paris will let in many visitors free in the coming months, in an experiment intended to open up high culture to a wider public. "We hope to draw in a new public, especially young people," Christine Andre, spokeswoman for the culture ministry's museum body, said on Friday. Until June 30, 2008, some national museums will offer completely free admission to their permanent collections, while others will offer it to those under 26, one evening a week. Foreign tourists will benefit like the French, but the aim is to draw more locals.
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