Cloclo film trailer creates buzz

It looks as though so-called biopics are going to be putting plenty of bums on seats at cinemas over the coming year.

Already there's word out that Meryl Streep is in the running for yet another Oscar nomination for her portrayal of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady".

Similarly "My week with Marilyn" starring Michelle Williams has been getting rave reviews with the actress also tipped for a possible gong nomination for "capturing the magnetism and vulnerability of Marilyn Monroe."

Then there's "the role of a lifetime" (IndieWire's Melissa Silverstein)for Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh in her portrayal of Burmese opposition leader and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in "The Lady".

Yeoh might not get any nods from Hollywood's direction, but film critics have been largely enthusiastic and the director, Frenchman Luc Besson, has also been praised for "crafting a masterpiece in the gentle telling of a wife and mother who is forced to balance her love for her country against her love for her family." (Working Author's Summer J. Holliday)

All well and good, but where's French cinema (apart from Besson of course) in all of this apparent "biopic trend"?

Well the answer will be revealed on March 14.

That's the release date set for the long-awaited "Cloclo", a film that takes as its title the nickname of an icon of French popular music, the late Claude François.

As far as critics who've already seen a trailer for the film are concerned, director Florent Emilio Siri has made an inspired choice in casting 31-year-old Belgian actor Jérémie Rénier to play the lead role.

Jérémie Rénier is Claude François (screenshot from Cloclo trailer)

The physical resemblance, as TF1 news reported, is "staggering" and, as the national daily Le Figaro wrote it looks as though Rénier has made the role his own - and not just in terms of looking like François.

"I asked for a lengthy preparation period before shooting began," Rénier told the paper.

"I couldn't sing, dance or play the drums, so I had a lot to learn," he continued.

'I also worked a lot on my breathing and exercised. In total it took four months of intense preparation - every day."

The result will be on general release in France just days after the 34th anniversary of François' death.

For those who can't wait, here's the trailer - just to whet your appetite followed by a (rather poorly recorded although there are others available on YouTube that cannot be embedded) clip of François singing one of his biggest hits "Alexandrie Alexandra".





As Radio France Internationale says in its biography of the singer, François was "the undisputed icon of French kitsch" and his songs remain timeless and popular.

Most of his hits in France were French renditions or adaptations of songs that had already been hits in English abroad, but he also co-wrote and recorded the original of what would become one of the standards of popular music throughout the world, "Comme d'habitude" or "My Way" in English.

Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" - a film to see

If there's one film - just one single film - you should absolutely go to see this year it has to be "The Artist".

(screenshot "The Artist" trailer)

French critics have been heaping praise on it ever since it premiered at the Cannes film festival in May when Jean Dujardin took home the award for Best Actor.

Director Michel Hazanavicius' idea might seem completely potty.

At a time when 3D is all the rage, special FX, music, BIG Hollywood names, colour, the kitchen sink - you name it - are all part of what supposedly tickles the fancy of film-goers, what does the 44-year-old director, screenwriter and producer come up with?

A film in black and white of course - and a silent one to boot!

Hazanavicius apparently had the idea of making a black and white silent movie as far back as the early 90s but couldn't get the funding together.

It wasn't until after the success in France of his two spy spoof movies "OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions" ("OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies") in 2006 and "OSS 117: Rio Ne Répond Plus" ("OSS 117: Lost in Rio") in 2009, both of which starred Dujardin, that Hazanavicius sent the script of "The Artist" to the producer Thomas Langmann, who managed to get together a €10 million budget.

The film was shot at Warner Studios in Los Angeles in just 35 days, a feat which Hazanavicius admits, didn't really give him a chance to appreciate fully exactly how "mythical" the setting was.

"It was very short and I didn't have the time to be clear about where I was," he said.

"I had to keep to a very tight schedule and convince those working on the film to adapt to the French method of movie making."

The result? A romantic comedy described as "A pastiche…but lovingly made and extremely watchable," by Screen International.

Jean Dujardin (screenshot "The Artist" trailer)

Its storyline perhaps isn't entirely original: George Valentin (Dujardin) a star of silent movies in the late 1920s at a time when talkies are the future meets young actress Peppy Miller (played by Hazanavicius' wife, Bérénice Bejo) looking for her big break. As Valentin's star wanes, so Miller's rises.

(screenshot "The Artist" trailer)

But - and it's a big but - there's emotion, passion, music, dance, wonderful cinematography (yes it's possible in black and white) more than a few nods to classic Hollywood films that should keep any cinephile happy and, and and...oh yes a dog in the shape of Jack (played by Jack Russell Uggy who also won an award at Cannes - the Palm Dog).

"The Artist" opened in France October 12 and there are rumblings that it won't just be entered into that also-ran Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars next year - but will be in the main competition for the proper gongs.

So here's a word of advice - go see it.

Enjoy - and hey....even if you don't speak a word of French, it'll likely be the first film from this country that you'll sit through and be able to understand in its entirety.

French film festivals - the Americans are coming!

Less than a week after the announcement that US actor Robert De Niro would jury chairman at the 64th annual Cannes film festival in May comes the news that another American will be "topping the bill" so-to-speak at this year's César awards in February.

Jodie Foster, Berlin 2007 (image from Wikipedia, author Franz Richter)

Actress Jodie Foster will add her very own brand of American flair, in fluent French of course, to this country's equivalent of the Oscars next month as president of the 36th annual César awards ceremony to be held at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

While De Niro's appointment continues a trend that will have seen three out of the last four jury presidents at Cannes coming from across the Pond (Sean Penn in 2008 and Tim Burton in 2010) Foster will become the first foreigner since the late Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni to preside over the César ceremony and only the fourth American ever after Kirk Douglas (1990), Gene Kelly (1984) and Orson Welles (1982)

The choice of the 48-year-old Foster perhaps comes as no surprise as the weekly national Le Journal du Dimanche pointed out on its website.

She is, as the paper reminds its readers, "an accomplished francophone" who studied at the Lycée Français in Los Angeles.

Apart from an acting career which includes the not-so trifling accolade of winning two Oscars for best actress (1988 in The Accused and 1991 in The Silence of the Lambs) and being nominated on two other occasions (for best supporting actress at just 14 years of age in the 1976 film Taxi Driver and again in the best actress category in the 1994 movie Nell) Foster has also directed and produced.

And, as US Daily reports, she is no stranger to French cinema having "appeared in Eric Le Hung's 1977 film Moi, Fleur Bleue (Stop Calling Me Baby (Moi, fleur bleue), Claude Chabrol's Le Sang des autres (The Blood of Others) in 1984 and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement) in 2004.

The César award ceremony will take place on February 25 and be broadcast live on Canal + television.

The nominees in each of the categories will be announced on January 21 in Paris.

The double-American whammy should put paid (for a while at least) to those assertions that the French always look sniffily down their collective Gallic noses when it comes to US "culture", although perhaps both Foster and De Niro are noteworthy exceptions to the rule that "The world is turning Disney".



The making of the real The Silence of the lambs






The spoof starring Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders

Disney disenchantment for Paris film-goers

It was supposed to have been a family treat as a group that included six adults and nine children made their way to a cinema in Paris to see a matinée performance of the latest Disney film "The Princess and the Frog".

But it ended up with the police being called in and all of them being escorted from their seats and eventually out of the cinema.

It all happened the weekend before last at the UGC Ciné Cité des Halles - let's not beat about the bush with this as it has been all over the media here - right in the heart of the French capital.

After having bought their tickets, the group happily made their way to the auditorium, not knowing what was in store, because before being allowed to take their places they were asked the age of the youngest child.

Now, little Gabrielle was just two years and 10 months, which according to the rules of UGC was below the age at which any child could be allowed into a cinema, no matter what the film.

There's a law that says as much...after all this is France, a country in which to many, there seems to be a regulation governing everything.

All right, so it dates back to 1927, but it's there in black and white; article 198 of the ordinance of the prefecture of Paris, "prohibits children under three years from entering all cinemas."

And that's the law the UGC followed - to the letter - shortly afterwards.

The group of course was told that they couldn't take Gabrielle in as she was too young, but they said there had been no problems buying the tickets (totalling more than €100) from the cashier and they hadn't been told about the age limit.

So they ignored the employee and took their places.

Moments later though, after the commercials had finished and before the film had begun, the employee returned with three police officers who then escorted the whole group from their seats and into the foyer.

Once there apparently as Eric Bordron, one of the parents explained on national radio, they were joined by several other officers, and while the children started crying the adults were reminded of the regulation and were threatened with being taken down to the police station.

The group had their papers checked and eventually left quietly.

UGC stuck to its guns in terms of having been right to enforce the regulations about the age limit in the first place.

"The noise level can be harmful for the ears of very young children," said Jean-Marie Dura, the CEO of the UGC group.

'The regulation is in place to ensure that comfort of the whole audience audience," he continued.

"And it can be very difficult for young children to concentrate for the duration of the film," he added.

While admitting that the regulations perhaps weren't clearly enough spelled out to cinema-goers ahead of a film, Dura said that signs would be put in place in all of the group's movie theatres so that a similar incident wouldn't occur again.

As to claims that the situation had been handled less than delicately, especially in the light of so many police being called in, the management of the UGC Ciné Cité des Halles, insisted that "usually such conflicts are resolved through dialogue, but here, unfortunately, that didn't seem to work."

And the lesson to be learnt from this tale - apart from the fact of course that in France "rules are rules"?

Wait for the DVD perhaps.