Cinema In France Film Studies Essay

Cinema In France Film Studies Essay Select a national cinema of your choice to examine its position in articulating a cultural identity. Attempt to present your answer by a close reading of at least two films.   (2,000 words) Cinema in France has always been a key issue in society, the arts and culture in general. This can be understood through many different aspects. The first being the very invention of cinema in France by the Lumià ¨re brothers, with the first public projection in the world taking place in Paris in 1895. But also many other key elements such as George Mà ©lià ¨s being considered as the first director and inventor of scenarios and special effects, until more recent features such as the Nouvelle Vague, the movement of rejection by young film-makers against more academic ways of film-making and acting, influencing cinema worldwide until this day. In other words, cinema in France is well and very active, with production, exports, viewers, talented directors being steady. The number of Art Houses and Festivals are higher than anywhere else in the world, and France has the highest number of screens per million inhabitants, as well as the ceremony of the Cà ©sars, the equivalent of the Os cars in France. This places the French movie industry third in the world, behind the USA and India, which makes it the strongest in Europe, with 22% of European films being produced and having the largest market-share of nationally-produced films in Europe. This is due to its long history in the cinema industry, but also to its more recent policies concerning French films, and what is known as lexception culturelle. This French concept, basically meaning the French cultural exception, defends everything that is cultural, in opposition to a product and the market and protected from free enterprise and quotas. This is because French society, most culturally represented by its language, needs to protect itself against any competition that would harm the French culture and replace it by another one. Everything that refers to Culture in France; writers, musicians, film-makers, and more are protected against market laws and this is the States role; therefore there being a Minister of Culture. This is ultimately a reaction against globalization, seen as dangerous in this sense, and a will to maintain or reinforce a national identity. Before World War 1, Pathà © and Gaumont dominated the industry and French cinema was first worldwide in terms of quality, quantity and diversity. But after the war, this cultural status was replaced by American cinema. This struggle of course concerns the USA more than an y other, as they are the leading country in the industry, and the American hegemony in the rest of the world is evident. Therefore, France came up with a unique financing system to fight against the main threat for French cinema; television and North American cinema. In the 1980s the French State put in place quotas in television in favor of audiovisual and cinematographic oeuvres. The main television channels have to allocate 3.2% of their revenue to cinema, which includes 2.5%, minimum, to French films. A minimum of 50% of French films must be broadcast. And this is when the now very popular pay-channel, Canal+, helped a lot, as they must give 20% of their income to buy rights. And on each cinema ticket, a tax (11%) is billed to a support fund for foreign films, as long as they are co-produced with a French producer. In result, over 160 films per year are made, and France ranks third worldwide. Moreover, an important factor concerning television, is the amount of broadcast cultural programs on public channels, relating to the exception culturelle concept and that helps understand French cinema better, in the sense that, a movie in France is considered as a message made by the director, on top of the entertainment aspect of it. Compared to most countries, French audiences are very aware of their audiovisual landscape, and experience more films in cinema and on all television channels, often at primetime, giving them a very different cinematic experience, closer to culture. In the 1980s, the Socialist government of the time, and more particularly the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, made many efforts to help and promote a more cultural cinema. A goal to marry popular and cultural cinema, and distribute French cinema domestically and abroad, also as a way to offset the Hollywood domination. Jack Lang wanted a cultural cinema for the masses, promoting films that were assimilated with French cultural heritage, but that could also provide popular entertainment for a wide public. These particular heritage films, or films de patrimoine, have played an important part in the French audiovisual landscape from the late 1980s. It was successful as the key aspects put together worked very well, not being too frankly popular nor too highly cultural. This genre, seems to dominate international perceptions of French cinema, although of course there is much more diversity. The first prominent example of this kind, was Claude Berris movie, Jean de Florette, in 1986, a box office success, and the first high budget film in France, including French stars, such as Yves Montand and indicative of old-school French cinema, Gà ©rard Depardieu, often compared as the contemporary equivalent of Jean Gabin or Maurice Chevalier, and the rising Daniel Auteuil, for which this movie marked the beginning of his career as a serious actor. It is drawn upon the very popular novels of French author, Marcel Pagnol, continuing and developing furthermore the tradition of literary adaptations. This combination of elements along with the natural locations in Provence, evoking nostalgia, and celebrating the landscape, the history and the culture of France, actually contemporizes the film as a whole. At the same time, Jean de Florette marks continuity in French cinema, with its central locations mainly being Paris and the South, often opposing them too. In this film the focus is on the past; past values and past issues. But a past that is not so far away as it has and still marks Frances national identity, and this film was made to reinforce this by a whole aesthetic of nostalgia, tending to idealize the past and the regions and the nations geography, taking part in the protectionist cultural imperatives. France relies a lot on its past to vehicle its national identity, and that is why canonical source-texts, by the greatest French authors were and are often used as basis for films. The past, in Jean de Florette, is used as a spectacle, the nations territory, the landscape of Provence evokes the nations nostalgia, as it idealises its rural past, showing the French industrys will to affirm itself through the representation of its past. This is because it offers a firm cultural point, marked in the nations history, in a time where notions of national identity were, and still are, unstable, with the globalization and issues of immigration in the 1980s.These concerns can be found in the story itself, with questions of greed, materialism, identity, exclusion concerning the main characters Jean, the outsider, and Papet Soubeyran and Ugolin, the established peasants, and at the time it was suggested that the way Jean was treated by the locals, represented the anti-immigration movement, growi ng at the time. Now, it could be said that in the film, the past, represented by Provence itself, is the main character. Through a mix of panoramic and static tableau shots, Berri shows it as an idyllic place, providing visual sites for national identification, as not only is it one of the most symbolic regions in France, but it often speaks to the spectator who in many cases may have childhood recollections of the journeys down south, to visit family. This feeling can be experienced in the opening sequence, where a car journey is shown, without showing the character, which gives a feeling of intimacy. The spectator has a view from the window, and a feeling of return to the past, going back to nature, from urban to rural, with many elements that could be seen as stereotypical, such as the long winding roads, the crowing cock in the morning, the magnificence of the mountains. Therefore the emphasis on the geographical setting is the most important aspect in the film, but also the somewhat stereotypic al images of Provence. The characters, first of all, include a patriarch, and loud southerners, an outsider, farmer, an introverted peasant, and a bad guy of course. These characters all take on traditional rural activities, and the action takes place in the most emblematic Provenà §al and rural places: the cafà ©, the market, the fountain, the square, as well as the main spaces of the action in the film, being Jeans house and garden, the Soubeyrans property, the village and the mountain, which build up a sense of place and identity. Of course another main aspect of the region is very much reliant on dialogue, which reinforces the specificity of the film within the region. The accent of Provence is very marked, and clearly illustrates the difference between the locals and Jean, with his standard spoken french, who represents frenchness for many foreigners through Gà ©rard Depardieu, and marks the binary of Paris/province, meaning anywhere outside of Paris. Similarities to some of Paul Cà ©zannes paintings can be found in some of the bar scenes, reminding the Card players series and The Smoker, but also the mountain panoramas, recalling his famous paintings of Mont Ste Victoire. The background characters also provide a local color and credibility, with the game of boules and the pastis also being typical associations. In essence, Berri used this film to emphasize Provence as a French, cultural, historical region, representing the past and everything the French can identify to the region. Right after Jean de Florette, the sequel, Manon des Sources, came out. They were filmed as a whole over the period of seven months. In the long term, they did much to promote tourism in the region, causing interest internationally, as the film was very successful, inspiring true authenticity of rural France. Of course, many successful films of the kind followed, most notably, Cyrano de Bergerac, with Depardieu, also a literary adaptation, which won Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1990, and contributed to expand and revive Frances historical national identity. Now, a binary opposition was mentioned above, and it comes with the notion of films in Paris. Paris, the capital, the city of love, arts, and of course of cinema. For many, Paris truly represents France, of course this is a more international perception, but it still maintains its position in Frances history and key elements in the nations culture. A film that recently played upon many key cultural elements, giving it a worldwide success in 2001, is Le Fabuleux Destin DAmà ©lie Poulain, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Again it can be said that Amà ©lie Poulain celebrates nostalgia. The nostalgia of typically French and Parisian aspects of life. The action is set in Montmartre, a quartier of Paris, well known for being where many artists established themselves living la bohà ¨me, also a classic setting seen in many films, such as Les 400 coups (Truffaut, 1959), French Cancan (Jean Renoir, 1955), Lautrec (Roger Planchon, 1998) or Zazie dans le mà ©tro (Louis Malle, 1960). The particular element of the film is that it is seen through the eyes of the main character Amà ©lie, which gives it a romantic and idealized aspect, picturesque and clearly serving many stereotypes, a reason for its national and international success. Many key elements are present, the grocers, the cafà ©, the metro station, the scooter, the old painter, and the different views of Paris in general. At different moments in the film, Amà ©lie is watching Jules et Jim on television, a classic of Franà §ois Truffaut, which is a testimony of the importance of French cinema and the influence of the New Wave on current film-makers. The photography of the film is very special, and contributes to this nostalgic feeling, mainly displaying two colors, red and green. The story is very simple, and could be considered as a modern fairytale, but it is the way it is told, and the backdrop and atmosphere of the whole that give an aspect to it that can be considered French, culturally. This very atmosphere is also majorly due to its magnificent music that accompanies Amà ©lie everywhere she goes. The young composer, Yann Tiersen, used music from his earlier album, but also composed 19 songs and variants for the film. The main motive of the film appears in different variations, expressing different moods. Tiersens music, mainly includes accordion and piano, and what more can the accordion refer to than frenchness; a marker of the past, at the time of the guinguettes, open air dancing establishments outside the center. The accordion vehicles a known clichà ©, but also nostalgia and marginality, and is practically the real center of the film. This retrospective to guinguettes, is reprised in different ways, with references to the Moulin de la Galette, a Montmartre guinguette, which was painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Van Gogh in the 1870s and 1880s. The reference to Renoir is also repeated with the character of Dufayel, the old painter neighbour, who repeats the same painting every year, by Renoir, The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881). This obsession and the repetition, aim to make what was in the past, present. This is also marked in the many repetitions of the accordion which anchor the film nostalgically in the period of the guinguettes, between 1880 and 1940. The accordion signifies a national identity, but that is very specific to Paris, and the imaginary this place evokes; romanticism, and a touch of exoticism. At the time, the two presidential candidates for 2002, Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, publicly marked their appreciation of the film, and audiences were seen clapping eagerly at the end of the film in cinemas, a very rare happening in France, and which testifies the important role cinema has in French culture and society. France treats cinema very seriously,

Essay --

Since it’s discovery in 1981, AIDS has become a worldwide pandemic. Over 30 million people have died since 1981 worldwide because of the silent virus. HIV, which is the abbreviation of human immuno deficency virus, has a worldwide effect because there is not a known way of curing the virus. HIV gradually destroys one’s immune system until their body is too weak to fight off disease, making it easy for a person to die from a simple infection like the flu, or a fever. Today, 33 million people and counting are living with this disease, and one in five are unaware of their infection. most of the 3.5–5.3 million Americans living with viral hepatitis do not know that they are infected, putting them in greater risk for severe or fatal complications from the disease, and increasing the chance that they will spread the virus to others. People living with AIDS or HIV can have trouble getting or maintaining work positions. Many people are afraid to be around people with AIDS because they do not want the disease to be transmitted to them. This assumption occurs because of lack of education on the subject. One cannot, in fact, contract HIV through skin to skin contact, unless infected blood, semen, or vaginal fluid comes in contact with an opening in one’s body. The issue of HIV/AIDS has not yet been resolved because of the lack of knowledge on the disease. Researchers do not know for sure why the illness weakens your immune system, and there is no cure for AIDS or HIV. There are, however, medicines that can keep the AIDS disease at bay, and freeze the progress of a current HIV infection. There are currently five different strains of HIV drugs. Each class of drugs attacks HIV at different points in it’s progression. This medication is stan... ...sitive, and that it is against Russian federal law for them to engage in sexual intercourse with another Russian citizen without telling them about their incurable disease. they are then sent away with no drug prescriptions, no counseling, and no knowledge on how serious the disease is. Between 1999 and 2000 more people died of AIDS in Africa than in all the wars on the continent. AIDS affects different segments of society in different ways. For example, children may have to care for an ill parent. Schooling may suffer as a result. Other times, children become orphans as parents succumb to AIDS. While poverty is obviously a main factor as to why AIDS is much more severe in Africa, political will of national governments is another cause. Constraints such as social norms and taboos, or lack of effective institutions have all contributed to the situation getting worse.

Nokia Analysis

IntroductionNokia is one of the largest telecommunication manufacturer companies in the world. They are recognized globally for their reliable and high quality products. Though they are a pioneer in manufacturing mobile phones and the GSM technology, Nokia’s profitability has been on the decline in recent years. A reduction of market share in North America of thirty-five percent in March of 2008 to eight and one tenths percent in April of 2010 highlight’s Nokia’s decline (Wong, 2011).Synopsis of the situationNokia has been on a steady decline for the last few years due to outdated product design and technology. On February 11, 2011, Nokia’s new CEO Stephen Elop announced a new mobile strategy to adopt Microsoft’s new but unproven windows phone as its primary smartphone operating system (Wong, 2011). Nokia’s flagship phone, the Vertu, has been a staple in the urban luxury market for the last eight years. Will Nokia’s loyal customer acce pt or reject this new move for their beloved devise.Key IssuesNokia was once an industry leader, but as of recently found themselves behind in the times. Nokia has several key issues that need to be addressed. The first is their shrinking market share and brand preference. The next issue is the inability to deliver innovative products in a timely manner.Define the ProblemThe Microsoft operating system is not a winning over the customers that Elop thought that it would. Nokia has one phone that has been their flagship item for the last eight years. It is believed that making the change to the Microsoft operating system on that phone will cause Nokia to lose the customers for that one popular devise.Alternative solutionsOne alternate solution that could be well received would be to scrap the Microsoft idea all together. The system could be replaced with the current Android smartphone operating system. Android has a proven track record and is even more popular and used than iOS6 which is Apples current operating system.Selected Solution of the problemThe solution is to move forward with the production of the phones with the Microsoft operating system. Nokia has always been on the cutting edge of technology. They did not get to the place that they are by following the trends. Nokia is a company that sets the trends. Microsoft’s operating system is a viable option for the Nokia platform andImplementationImplementing new technology in the workplace can be an advantage to current job performance levels. You may experience an increase in production and reduction of working man hours while adding considerably to the bottom line of the company's income statement. This could be the shot in the arm that Nokia needs. Integrating this new technology in your current system without any disruption to the current workflow can prove to be challenging.You may run into problems with compatibility due to existing systems, hard-to-train workers or errors in the technology ins tallation, all of which adds cost and time to the integration process (Simmons, 2011). There are approaches you can take to make the integration of the new technology as seamless and frustration-free as possible. It is just a matter of careful planning and the support of the workers and vendors alike.RecommendationsIt is my recommendation that the Nokia stays the course. The new and improved Vertu will be a greater success that its predecessor. It is time for the company to regain its place on top of the leader board in the industry, and this new decision could take them there. Nokia will never be at the head of the pack by following its competitors.ConclusionIn conclusion, I feel that that the current CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop, should take the reins of this company and lead it into a new era. Elop has solid ideas and sound vision for the direction of the company. I feel that the customers that have been loyal to Nokia will continue to be loyal to the company. These customers expec t something new and exciting. That excitement is what led them to Nokia in the first place. It is Nokia’s job to fulfill that promise. There was some initial negative reaction to the news of the direction of the company, but you can always expect some adversity with change. We do not change because it is the easy thing to do; we change because it is necessary. It is necessary to evolve to remain in existence.

Martin Luther King And King Remembered By Malcolm X Analysis

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation within public high schools unconstitutional. A few years later, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act for African Americans were passed. During, these years civil and economic rights were being diligently fought for. The unity of all African Americans regardless of their religion, political views, or social was being encouraged. Speeches and rallies also took place to end racism and instill equality. There is no doubt any of this would have been accomplished without the help of notable activists Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. Two bold and heroic men, one nonviolent and the other defiant. Yet, despite their different approaches to unjust acts each man made a similar†¦show more content†¦He instead, articulated anger into the struggles and beliefs of African Americans. Malcolm X was a man who believed in violence when â€Å"nonviolence means postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem-j ust to avoid violence.† (The Autobiography of Malcolm X). As told to Alex Haley, in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm believed â€Å"when the law fails to protect Negroes from whites’ attack, then those Negroes should use arms to defend themselves.† He would go to many lengths to achieve equal rights and justice for all African Americans. To him, if violence is what it took to get an African American their human rights, then so be it. During, Malcolm’s human rights speech, The Ballot or The Bullet, he cautioned African Americans to use arms if the government continued to deny full equality when voting. Many people today classify Malcolm X’s style as, â€Å"by any means necessary†, words he defiantly stated when advocating for freedom, justice, and equality. Although, these words are distinctively different from the nonviolent approach of Dr. King, both men had the same dream of having equal rights. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had many similarities despite their contrasting approaches. Besides, both men being African American, they both were ministers. King, a southern baptist preacher, and X, a muslim minister, both spoke the word of the most high when advocating for equal rights. These prominent leadersShow MoreRelatedA Comparative and Contrasting Essay on 20th Century Black Political Leaders: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X2551 Words   |  11 PagesA Comparative and Contrasting Essay on 20th Century Black Political Leaders: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X This essay will discuss Martin Luther King’s integration and assimilation in addition to Malcolm X’s separatism and Black Nationalism. 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