Closing out his âexercise in admiration and gratitudeâ from an even more personal perspective, Tavernier recounts firsthand experiences from his 10 rewarding years as press attachĂ© to and with legendary producer and publicist Pierre Rissient. Through the turbulent 1960s, the duo promoted American filmmakers while also shoring up French ones. Tavernier shares with us epiphanies he had with directors including but not limited to Eric Rohmer (narrating 1962âs La BoulangĂšre de Monceau); the intensely loyal Jacques Deray; the gone-too-soon Philippe FourastiĂ©; Pierre Granier-Deferre, who provided invaluable insight into how to direct actors; and Alain Resnais, whom Tavernier had idolized since seeing Hiroshima mon amour three times at age 18 and was proud to later count as a friend. Concluding the series in style, Tavernier surprises us by excerpting one final film that he cherishes...
My Journey Through French Cinema (2017), Bertrand Tavernierâs CĂ©sar-nominated three-and-a-half-hour tour through French film history, was too short to introduce audiences to all that he wanted to share. In this new eight-part series (8x55min), the acclaimed director of such films as Coup de Torchon and âRound Midnight guides us through a roster of filmmakers both influential and forgotten, explores how his countryâs cinema was shaped by the German occupation and changed again through the New Wave, spotlights little-known female filmmakers, and more. Subjects include: RenĂ© ClĂ©ment, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Julien Duvivier, Henri Decoin, Claude Autant-Lara, as well as composers who made movie music an art in and of itself, far from the Hollywood spotlight.
