137-461: Film award Award Honorary César Country France Presented by Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma First awarded 1976 Website academie-cinema .org The César Award is France 's national film award. Recipients are selected by the members of the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma . The following are
274-814: A Christian in the event of victory against the Visigothic Kingdom , which was said to have guaranteed the battle. Clovis regained the southwest from the Visigoths and was baptised in 508. Clovis I was the first Germanic conqueror after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity; thus France was given the title "Eldest daughter of the Church" by the papacy, and French kings called "the Most Christian Kings of France". The Franks embraced
411-425: A European counterweight between American and Soviet spheres of influence. However, he opposed any development of a supranational Europe , favouring sovereign nations . The revolt of May 1968 had an enormous social impact; it was a watershed moment when a conservative moral ideal (religion, patriotism, respect for authority) shifted to a more liberal moral ideal (secularism, individualism, sexual revolution). Although
548-611: A Kodak 8mm camera with which he began to make his own short films, including a three-minute version of Fantômas . Around the age of 14, he discovered surrealism and through that an interest in the works of André Breton . Visits to the theatre in Paris gave Resnais the desire to be an actor, and in 1939 he moved to Paris to become an assistant in Georges Pitoëff 's company at the Théâtre des Mathurins . From 1940 to 1942 he studied acting in
685-482: A change of direction. Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968) drew upon the traditions of science-fiction for a story of a man sent back into his past, a theme which enabled Resnais again to present a narrative of fragmented time. Alain Resnais's scriptwriter on this film was the author Jacques Sternberg . The film was unlucky in its release (its planned screening at Cannes was cancelled amid the political events of May 1968), and it
822-728: A combination of social, political and economic factors, which the Ancien Régime proved unable to manage. A financial crisis and social distress led in May 1789 to the convocation of the Estates General , which was converted into a National Assembly in June. The Storming of the Bastille on 14 July led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, among them the abolition of feudalism , state control over
959-531: A common starting point, and to be seen in any order. Sabine Azéma and Pierre Arditi played all the parts, and the theatricality of the undertaking was again emphasised by the studio set designs for a fictional English village. Resnais returned to Ayckbourn in the following decade for his adaptation of Private Fears in Public Places to which he gave the film title of Cœurs (2006). Among the stage/film effects which contribute to its mood of "cheerful desolation"
1096-559: A coup and civil war. During the May 1958 crisis , the weak Fourth Republic gave way to the Fifth Republic , which included a strengthened presidency. The war concluded with the Évian Accords in 1962 which led to Algerian independence , at a high price: between half a million and one million deaths and over 2 million internally-displaced Algerians. Around one million Pied-Noirs and Harkis fled from Algeria to France. A vestige of empire
1233-408: A film in which dialogue and song would alternate. Music, very differently used, was a major component of L'Amour à mort ( Love unto Death , 1984). For this intense chamber work with four principal actors (Azéma, Arditi, Ardant and Dussollier), Resnais asked Hans Werner Henze to compose musical episodes which would act as a "fifth character", not an accompaniment but a fully integrated element of
1370-415: A global centre of art , science , and philosophy . It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination , receiving 100 million foreign visitors in 2023 . A developed country , France has a high nominal per capita income globally , and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world . It is a great power , being one of
1507-470: A novel by Christian Gailly, as the basis for Les Herbes folles ( Wild Grass , 2009). He explained however that what initially attracted him to the book was the quality of its dialogue, which he retained largely unchanged for the film. When Les Herbes folles was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it was the occasion for a special jury award to Resnais "for his work and exceptional contribution to
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#17328554937141644-556: A prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948, and also won an Oscar for Best 2-reel Short in 1949. (Braunberger went on to act as producer for several of Resnais's films in the following decade.) Resnais continued to address artistic subjects in Gauguin (1950) and Guernica (1950), which examined the Picasso painting based on the 1937 bombing of the town, and presented it to the accompaniment of
1781-462: A screenplay written by David Mercer , and a cast that included John Gielgud , Dirk Bogarde and Ellen Burstyn . The story shows an ageing, maybe dying, novelist grappling with alternative versions of his own past as he adapts them for his fiction. Resnais was eager that the dark subject should remain humorous, and he described it as "a macabre divertissement". Formal innovation characterised Mon oncle d'Amérique ( My American Uncle , 1980) in which
1918-414: A series of short documentary films showing artists at work in their studios, as well as a few commercial commissions, Resnais was invited in 1948 to make a film about the paintings of Van Gogh , to coincide with an exhibition that was being mounted in Paris. He filmed it at first in 16mm, but when the producer Pierre Braunberger saw the results, Resnais was asked to remake it in 35mm. Van Gogh received
2055-504: A survivor of the camps) was intentionally understated to add to the distancing effect. Although the film encountered censorship problems with the French government, its impact was immense and it remains one of the director's most admired works. A different kind of collective memory was considered in Toute la mémoire du monde (1956), in which the seemingly endless spaces and bibliographic riches of
2192-461: A text written by Paul Éluard . A political perspective on art also underpinned his next project (co-directed with Chris Marker ), Les statues meurent aussi ( Statues Also Die , 1953), a polemic about the destruction of African art by French cultural colonialism. Nuit et Brouillard ( Night and Fog , 1956) was one of the first documentaries about the Nazi concentration camps, but it deals more with
2329-505: A volume of his photographs, taken between 1948 and 1971, of locations in London, Scotland, Paris, Nevers, Lyon, New York and Hiroshima; Jorge Semprun wrote the introductory text. Some of the photographs relate to his unfulfilled Harry Dickson film. After contributing an episode to L'An 01 (The Year 01) (1973), a collective film organised by Jacques Doillon , Resnais made a second collaboration with Jorge Semprun for Stavisky (1974), based on
2466-598: A woman and two men, in the opulent setting of a grand European hotel or château where the possibility of a previous encounter a year ago is repeatedly asserted and questioned and contradicted. After winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival , the film attracted great attention and provoked many divergent interpretations of how it should be understood, encouraged by interviews in which Robbe-Grillet and Resnais themselves appeared to give conflicting explanations of
2603-529: Is a public establishment in France between local authorities and the national government covering an inhabited rural area of outstanding beauty, to protect the scenery and heritage as well as setting up sustainable economic development in the area. As of 2019 there are 54 PNRs in France. Alain Resnais Alain Resnais ( French: [alɛ̃ ʁɛnɛ] ; 3 June 1922 – 1 March 2014)
2740-399: Is acknowledged under the pseudonym Alex Reval, since he did not want his name to appear more than once in the credits.) Time and memory have regularly been identified as two of the principal themes of Resnais's work, at least in his earlier films. He however consistently tried to modify this view of his concerns: "I prefer to speak of the imaginary, or of consciousness. What interests me in
2877-442: Is compromised by a lack of sensuousness, and that his seriousness of intent fails to communicate itself to audiences. Elsewhere however it is suggested that such views are partly based on a misreading of the films, especially his earlier ones, which has impeded an appreciation of the humour and irony which pervade his work; and other viewers have been able to make the connection between the film's form and its human dimension. There
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#17328554937143014-737: Is different from Wikidata Articles with hCards France – in Europe (green & dark grey) – in the European Union (green) France , officially the French Republic , is a country located primarily in Western Europe . Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America , Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic,
3151-400: Is general agreement about Resnais's attachment to formalism in his approach to film; he himself regarded it as the starting point of his work, and usually had an idea of a form, or method of construction, in his head even before the plot or the characters took shape. For him this was also the basis for the communication of feeling: "There cannot be any communication except through form. If there
3288-452: Is no form, you cannot create emotion in the spectator." Another term which appears in commentaries on Resnais throughout his career is "surrealism", from his documentary portrait of a library in Toute la mémoire du monde , through the dreamlike innovations of Marienbad , to the latterday playfulness of Les Herbes folles . Resnais himself traced a link to his teenage discovery of surrealism in
3425-558: Is the French overseas departments and territories . During the Cold War , de Gaulle pursued a policy of "national independence" towards the Western and Eastern blocs . He withdrew from NATO's military-integrated command (while remaining within the alliance), launched a nuclear development programme and made France the fourth nuclear power . He restored cordial Franco-German relations to create
3562-435: Is the artificial snow which is continually seen through set windows until eventually it falls on the studio interior as well. Speaking in 1986, Resnais said that he did not make a separation between cinema and theatre and refused to make enemies of them. He preferred working with "people of the theatre", and he said that he would never want to film a novel. It was therefore something of a departure when he chose L'Incident ,
3699-512: The 1973 oil crisis , which now accounts for 75 per cent of its electricity production and results in less pollution. According to the 2020 Environmental Performance Index conducted by Yale and Columbia , France was the fifth most environmentally conscious country in the world. Like all European Union state members, France agreed to cut carbon emissions by at least 20% of 1990 levels by 2020. As of 2009 , French carbon dioxide emissions per capita were lower than that of China. The country
3836-560: The 1995 public transport bombings , France has been targeted by Islamist organisations, notably the Charlie Hebdo attack in 2015 which provoked the largest public rallies in French history, gathering 4.4 million people, the November 2015 Paris attacks which resulted in 130 deaths, the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II and the deadliest in the European Union since
3973-642: The Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror added "King of England" to his titles, becoming vassal and the equal of the king of France, creating recurring tensions. The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet was crowned king of the Franks . His descendants unified the country through wars and inheritance. From 1190, the Capetian rulers began to be referred as "kings of France" rather than "kings of
4110-651: The Bibliothèque nationale were explored in another compendium of long travelling shots. In 1958 Resnais undertook a commission from the Pechiney company to make short film, in colour and wide-screen, extolling the merits of plastics, Le Chant du styrène . Poetry was brought to the project, literally, by Raymond Queneau who wrote the narration for the film in rhyming couplets. In his decade of making documentary short films, Resnais established his interest in and talent for collaboration with leading figures in other branches of
4247-574: The British Isles and Switzerland . The wars were ended by Henry IV 's Edict of Nantes , which granted some freedom of religion to the Huguenots. Spanish troops, assisted the Catholics from 1589 to 1594 and invaded France in 1597. Spain and France returned to all-out war between 1635 and 1659. The war cost France 300,000 casualties. Under Louis XIII , Cardinal Richelieu promoted centralisation of
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4384-704: The Catholic Church in France , and a declaration of rights . The next three years were dominated by struggle for political control, exacerbated by economic depression . Military defeats following the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792 resulted in the insurrection of 10 August 1792 . The monarchy was abolished and replaced by the French First Republic in September, while Louis XVI
4521-2749: The Cinémathèque Française France [REDACTED] Jacques Tati Actor, director and screenwriter France 1978 — Robert Dorfmann Film producer France [REDACTED] René Goscinny (posthumous) Writer, director, producer and editor France 1979 Marcel Carné Director and screenwriter France [REDACTED] Charles Vanel Actor, director and screenwriter France [REDACTED] Walt Disney (posthumous) Animator, director, screenwriter, actor and producer US 1980s [ edit ] Year Recipient Profession Nationality 1980 — Pierre Braunberger Producer, director and screenwriter France [REDACTED] Louis de Funès Actor, screenwriter and director France [REDACTED] Kirk Douglas Actor, director and producer US 1981 [REDACTED] Marcel Pagnol (posthumous) Director and screenwriter France — Alain Resnais Director, editor and screenwriter France 1982 — Georges Dancigers Film producer Russia / France — Alexandre Mnouchkine Film producer Russia / France — Jean Nény Sound engineer France [REDACTED] Andrzej Wajda Director and screenwriter Poland 1983 — Raimu (posthumous) Actor France 1984 [REDACTED] René Clément Director and screenwriter France — Georges de Beauregard Film producer France Edwige Feuillère Actress and screenwriter France 1985 — Christian-Jaque Director and screenwriter France [REDACTED] Danielle Darrieux Actress France — Christine Gouze-Rénal Producer and actress France — Alain Poiré Producer and screenwriter France 1986 — Maurice Jarre Composer France [REDACTED] Bette Davis Actress and producer US [REDACTED] Jean Delannoy Director, screenwriter and producer France [REDACTED] René Ferracci [ fr ] (posthumous) Art director and poster designer France [REDACTED] Claude Lanzmann Director of
4658-592: The Consulate seized power in a coup led by Napoleon . Napoleon became First Consul in 1799 and later Emperor of the French Empire (1804–1814; 1815). Changing sets of European coalitions declared wars on Napoleon's empire . His armies conquered most of continental Europe with swift victories such as the battles of Jena-Auerstadt and Austerlitz . Members of the Bonaparte family were appointed monarchs in some of
4795-477: The Cours René-Simon (and one of his small jobs at this time was as an extra in the film Les Visiteurs du soir ), but he then decided in 1943 to apply to the newly formed film school IDHEC to study film editing. The filmmaker Jean Grémillon was one of the teachers who had the most influence on him at that period. Resnais left in 1945 to do his military service which took him to Germany and Austria with
4932-639: The Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic , and subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque . France was one of the major participants of World War I , from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allies of World War II , but it surrendered and
5069-566: The French West Indies , and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean , giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world . Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north, Germany to the northeast, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the southeast, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with
5206-1049: The Hercynian uplift in the Paleozoic Era , the Armorican Massif , the Massif Central , the Morvan , the Vosges and Ardennes ranges and the island of Corsica were formed. These massifs delineate several sedimentary basins such as the Aquitaine Basin in the southwest and the Paris Basin in the north. Various routes of natural passage, such as the Rhône Valley , allow easy communication. The Alpine, Pyrenean and Jura mountains are much younger and have less eroded forms. At 4,810.45 metres (15,782 ft) above sea level, Mont Blanc , located in
5343-603: The House of Plantagenet , rulers of the County of Anjou , established its dominion over the surrounding provinces of Maine and Touraine , then built an "empire" from England to the Pyrenees , covering half of modern France. Tensions between France and the Plantagenet empire would last a hundred years, until Philip II of France conquered, between 1202 and 1214, most continental possessions of
5480-721: The Madrid train bombings in 2004 . Opération Chammal , France's military efforts to contain ISIS , killed over 1,000 ISIS troops between 2014 and 2015. The vast majority of France's territory and population is situated in Western Europe and is called Metropolitan France . It is bordered by the North Sea in the north, the English Channel in the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean in the west and
5617-461: The Mediterranean Sea in the southeast. Its land borders consist of Belgium and Luxembourg in the northeast, Germany and Switzerland in the east, Italy and Monaco in the southeast, and Andorra and Spain in the south and southwest. Except for the northeast, most of France's land borders are roughly delineated by natural boundaries and geographic features: to the south and southeast,
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5754-565: The New Wave or nouvelle vague in the late 1950s, but by then he had already established a significant reputation through his ten years of work on documentary short films. He defined his own relationship by saying: "Although I was not fully part of the New Wave because of my age, there was some mutual sympathy and respect between myself and Rivette, Bazin, Demy, Truffaut ... So I felt friendly with that team." He nevertheless acknowledged his debt to
5891-514: The Popular Front government (e.g., annual leave , eight-hour workdays , women in government ). In 1940, France was invaded and quickly defeated by Nazi Germany . France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north, an Italian occupation zone and an unoccupied territory, the rest of France, which consisted of the southern France and the French empire. The Vichy government , an authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, ruled
6028-600: The Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Its European territory kept growing, however, with acquisitions such as Lorraine and Corsica . Louis XV's weak rule, including the decadence of his court, discredited the monarchy, which in part paved the way for the French Revolution . Louis XVI (r. 1774–1793) supported America with money, fleets and armies , helping them win independence from Great Britain . France gained revenge, but verged on bankruptcy—a factor that contributed to
6165-608: The United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea . Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 km (248,573 sq mi) and have a total population of 68.4 million as of January 2024 . France is a semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris ,
6302-421: The Venice Film Festival . Resnais was born in 1922 at Vannes in Brittany, where his father was a pharmacist. An only child, he was often ill with asthma in childhood, which led to his being withdrawn from school and educated at home. He was an eager reader, in a range that extended from classics to comic books, but from the age of 10 he became fascinated by films. For his twelfth birthday his parents gave him
6439-419: The country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture . In the Early Middle Ages , the Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia , which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire . The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned
6576-470: The official language of France and Europe's aristocracy. France became rivals of the House of Habsburg during the Italian Wars , which would dictate much of their later foreign policy until the mid-18th century. French explorers claimed lands in the Americas, paving expansion of the French colonial empire . The rise of Protestantism led France to a civil war known as the French Wars of Religion . This forced Huguenots to flee to Protestant regions such as
6713-403: The trap-bath split such as Received Pronunciation , though it can be also heard in some other dialects such as Cardiff English . The oldest traces of archaic humans in what is now France date from approximately 1.8 million years ago. Neanderthals occupied the region into the Upper Paleolithic era but were slowly replaced by Homo sapiens around 35,000 BC. This period witnessed
6850-459: The 1970s France faced an economic crisis and allowed new immigrants (mostly from the Maghreb , in northwest Africa) to permanently settle in France with their families and acquire citizenship. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in subsidised public housing and suffering from high unemployment rates. The government had a policy of assimilation of immigrants, where they were expected to adhere to French values and norms. Since
6987-402: The 200 years of the Crusades, in such a fashion that the Arabs referred to crusaders as Franj . French Crusaders imported French into the Levant , making Old French the base of the lingua franca ("Frankish language") of the Crusader states . The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars in the southwest of modern-day France. From the 11th century,
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#17328554937147124-420: The 4th century, a period of revival and prosperity. In 312, Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity . Christians, who had been persecuted, increased. But from the 5th century, the Barbarian Invasions resumed. Teutonic tribes invaded the region, the Visigoths settling in the southwest, the Burgundians along the Rhine River Valley, and the Franks in the north. In Late antiquity , ancient Gaul
7261-438: The Alps on the France–Italy border , is the highest point in Western Europe. Although 60% of municipalities are classified as having seismic risks (though moderate). The coastlines offer contrasting landscapes: mountain ranges along the French Riviera , coastal cliffs such as the Côte d'Albâtre , and wide sandy plains in the Languedoc . Corsica lies off the Mediterranean coast. France has an extensive river system consisting of
7398-457: The Atlantic Ocean. Other water courses drain towards the Meuse and Rhine along the northeastern borders. France has 11,000,000 km (4,200,000 sq mi) of marine waters within three oceans under its jurisdiction, of which 97% are overseas. France was one of the first countries to create an environment ministry, in 1971. France is ranked 19th by carbon dioxide emissions due to the country's heavy investment in nuclear power following
7535-504: The Christian Gallo-Roman culture , and ancient Gaul was renamed Francia ("Land of the Franks"). The Germanic Franks adopted Romanic languages . Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian dynasty , but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land as a private possession and divided it among their heirs, so four kingdoms emerged from that of Clovis: Paris, Orléans , Soissons , and Rheims . The last Merovingian kings lost power to their mayors of
7672-1605: The César Awards France [REDACTED] Jean-Pierre Léaud Actor France [REDACTED] Martin Scorsese Director, producer, screenwriter and actor US 2001 [REDACTED] Darry Cowl Actor, composer, screenwriter and director France [REDACTED] Charlotte Rampling Actress UK [REDACTED] Agnès Varda Director and screenwriter France 2002 [REDACTED] Anouk Aimée Actress France [REDACTED] Jeremy Irons Actor UK [REDACTED] Claude Rich Actor and screenwriter France 2003 [REDACTED] Bernadette Lafont Actress and director France [REDACTED] Spike Lee Director, producer, screenwriter and actor US [REDACTED] Meryl Streep Actress US 2004 [REDACTED] Micheline Presle Actress France 2005 [REDACTED] Jacques Dutronc Actor, singer and composer France [REDACTED] Will Smith Actor, producer, singer and composer US 2006 [REDACTED] Hugh Grant Actor UK [REDACTED] Pierre Richard Actor France 2007 [REDACTED] Marlène Jobert Actress France [REDACTED] Jude Law Actor, producer and director UK 2008 [REDACTED] Jeanne Moreau (for
7809-1102: The European Union (2002–2004) Poster (1986–1990) Producer (1995–1996) Writing (Adaptation or Original) (1976–2005) Best French Language Film (1984–1986) Short Film (1992–2021) Award ceremonies 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Honorary_César&oldid=1248763681 " Categories : César Awards César Honorary Award recipients Lifetime achievement awards Honorary titles Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description
7946-421: The Franks was known as the francisca ), although these weapons may have been named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around. In English, 'France' is pronounced / f r æ n s / FRANSS in American English and / f r ɑː n s / FRAHNSS or / f r æ n s / FRANSS in British English. The pronunciation with / ɑː / is mostly confined to accents with
8083-420: The Franks". Later kings expanded their directly possessed domaine royal to cover over half of modern France by the 15th century. Royal authority became more assertive, centred on a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility , clergy, and commoners . The nobility played a prominent role in Crusades to restore Christian access to the Holy Land . French knights made up most reinforcements in
8220-402: The French government's longtime historical association with the Catholic Church , Charlemagne tried to revive the Western Roman Empire and its cultural grandeur. Charlemagne's son, Louis I kept the empire united, however in 843, it was divided between Louis' three sons, into East Francia , Middle Francia and West Francia . West Francia approximated the area occupied by modern France and
8357-431: The Neolithic, including the Carnac stones site (approximately 3,300 BC). In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille ). Celtic tribes penetrated parts of eastern and northern France, spreading through the rest of the country between the 5th and 3rd century BC. Around 390 BC, the Gallic chieftain Brennus and his troops made their way to Roman Italy , defeated
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#17328554937148494-421: The New Wave because it created the conditions of production, and particularly the financial conditions, which allowed him to make a film like Hiroshima mon amour , his first feature film. Resnais was more often associated with a "Left Bank" group of writers and filmmakers who included Agnès Varda , Chris Marker , Jean Cayrol , Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet (with all of whom he collaborated in
8631-542: The Pyrenees and the Alps and the Jura, respectively, and to the east, the Rhine river. Metropolitan France includes various coastal islands, of which the largest is Corsica . Metropolitan France is situated mostly between latitudes 41° and 51° N , and longitudes 6° W and 10° E , on the western edge of Europe, and thus lies within the northern temperate zone. Its continental part covers about 1000 km from north to south and from east to west. Metropolitan France covers 551,500 square kilometres (212,935 sq mi),
8768-408: The Revolution. Some of the Enlightenment occurred in French intellectual circles, and scientific breakthroughs, such as the naming of oxygen (1778) and the first hot air balloon carrying passengers (1783), were achieved by French scientists. French explorers took part in the voyages of scientific exploration through maritime expeditions. Enlightenment philosophy, in which reason is advocated as
8905-461: The Romans in the Battle of the Allia , and besieged and ransomed Rome. This left Rome weakened, and the Gauls continued to harass the region until 345 BC when they entered into a peace treaty. But the Romans and the Gauls remained adversaries for centuries. Around 125 BC, the south of Gaul was conquered by the Romans, who called this region Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), which evolved into Provence in French. Julius Caesar conquered
9042-464: The Spanish government caused it to be withdrawn and it was shown out of competition. In 1967 Resnais participated with six other directors, including Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard , in a collective work about the Vietnam war, Loin du Vietnam ( Far from Vietnam ). From 1968 onwards, Resnais's films no longer addressed, at least directly, big political issues in the way that a number of his previous ones had done, and his next project seemed to mark
9179-571: The arts: with the painters who were the subjects of his early works; with writers (Eluard in Guernica , Cayrol in Nuit et Brouillard , Queneau in Le Chant du styrène ); with musicians ( Darius Milhaud in Gauguin , Hanns Eisler in Nuit et Brouillard , Pierre Barbaud in Le Chant du styrène ); and with other filmmakers (Resnais was the editor of Agnès Varda 's first film, La Pointe courte , and co-directed with Chris Marker Les statues meurent aussi ). Similar collaborations underpinned his future work in feature films. Resnais's first feature film
9316-404: The camera and entrusting most of its musical numbers to actors rather than to trained singers. There are many references to the theatre throughout Resnais's filmmaking ( Marienbad , Muriel , Stavisky , Mon oncle d'Amérique ), but he first undertook the challenge of taking a complete stage work and giving it new cinematic life in Mélo (1986), an adaptation of Henri Bernstein 's 1929 play of
9453-421: The characters express their key emotions or private thoughts by bursting into snatches of well-known (recorded) popular songs without interrupting the dramatic situation. A long-neglected operetta from the 1920s was the unexpected basis for Resnais's next film Pas sur la bouche ( Not on the Lips , 2003), in which he sought to reinvigorate an unfashionable form of entertainment by recreating its theatricality for
9590-538: The cinema such as Jean Cayrol , Marguerite Duras , Alain Robbe-Grillet , Jorge Semprún and Jacques Sternberg . In later films, Resnais moved away from the overtly political topics of some previous works and developed his interests in an interaction between cinema and other cultural forms, including theatre, music, and comic books. This led to imaginative adaptations of plays by Alan Ayckbourn , Henri Bernstein and Jean Anouilh , as well as films featuring various kinds of popular song. His films frequently explore
9727-406: The clandestine activities of left-wing opponents of the Franco government in Spain. Resnais's scriptwriter on this film was the Spanish author Jorge Semprún , himself an ex-member of the Spanish Communist Party now in voluntary exile in France. Both men denied that the film was about Spain, but when it was entered for the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966, an objection from
9864-521: The competition section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2014, where it won a Silver Bear award "for a feature film that opens new perspectives". At the time of his death, Resnais was preparing a further Ayckbourn project, based on the 2013 play Arrivals & Departures . Resnais was often linked with the group of French filmmakers who made their breakthrough as
10001-730: The constitutional July Monarchy ; French troops began the conquest of Algeria . Unrest led to the French Revolution of 1848 and the end of the July Monarchy. The abolition of slavery and introduction of male universal suffrage was re-enacted in 1848. In 1852, president of the French Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , Napoleon I's nephew, was proclaimed emperor of the Second Empire , as Napoleon III. He multiplied French interventions abroad, especially in Crimea , Mexico and Italy . Napoleon III
10138-427: The contribution of his chosen writer, whose status in the shared "authorship" of the film he fully acknowledged. He was also known to treat the completed screenplay with great fidelity, to the extent that some of his screenwriters remarked on how closely the finished film realised their intentions. (On the few occasions when he did participate in writing the script, particularly for his last three films, his contribution
10275-458: The difficulty of coming to terms with its horrors, was a central theme of his next film Muriel (1963), which used a fractured narrative to explore the mental states of its characters. It was among the first French films to comment, even indirectly, on the Algerian experience. A contemporary political issue also formed the background for La guerre est finie ( The War Is Over , 1966), this time
10412-421: The diptych of Smoking/No Smoking (1993). Resnais, having admired the plays of Alan Ayckbourn for many years, chose to adapt what appeared the most intractable of them, Intimate Exchanges , a series of eight interlinked plays which follow the consequences of a casual choice to sixteen possible endings. Resnais slightly reduced the number of permuted endings and compressed the plays into two films, each having
10549-2202: The documentary feature Shoah France 1987 [REDACTED] Jean-Luc Godard Director, screenwriter and actor France / Switzerland 1988 — Serge Silberman Producer and screenwriter Russia / France 1989 [REDACTED] Bernard Blier Actor France [REDACTED] Paul Grimault Director, screenwriter and actor France 1990s [ edit ] Year Recipient Profession Nationality 1990 [REDACTED] Gérard Philipe (posthumous) Actor France 1991 [REDACTED] Jean-Pierre Aumont Actor and screenwriter France [REDACTED] Sophia Loren Actress Italy 1992 [REDACTED] Michèle Morgan Actress France [REDACTED] Sylvester Stallone Actor, screenwriter, director and producer US 1993 [REDACTED] Jean Marais Actor France [REDACTED] Marcello Mastroianni Actor Italy [REDACTED] Gérard Oury Actor, screenwriter and director France 1994 [REDACTED] Jean Carmet Actor and screenwriter France 1995 [REDACTED] Jeanne Moreau Actress, screenwriter and director France [REDACTED] Gregory Peck Actor and producer US [REDACTED] Steven Spielberg Director, producer and screenwriter US 1996 [REDACTED] Lauren Bacall Actress US Henri Verneuil Director, screenwriter, actor and producer France 1997 [REDACTED] Charles Aznavour Actor, composer, singer and screenwriter France / Armenia [REDACTED] Andie MacDowell Actress US 1998 [REDACTED] Michael Douglas Actor and producer US [REDACTED] Clint Eastwood Actor, director, producer and composer US [REDACTED] Jean-Luc Godard (for
10686-531: The drama with which the speech of the actors would interact. In subsequent years, Resnais gave his attention to music of more popular styles. He made Gershwin (1992), an innovative TV documentary in which the American composer's life and works were reviewed through the testimonies of performers and filmmakers, juxtaposed with commissioned paintings by Guy Peellaert . In On connaît la chanson ( Same Old Song , 1997), his tribute to television works of Dennis Potter ,
10823-828: The earlier part of his career). They were distinguished by their interests in documentary, left-wing politics, and the literary experiments of the nouveau roman . At the same time, Resnais was also a devotee of popular culture. He owned the largest private collection of comic books in France and in 1962 became the vice president and co-founder of an International Society for Comic Books, Le Club des bandes dessinées , renamed two years later as Centre d'Études des Littératures d'Expression Graphique (CELEG) . CELEG members also included Resnais's artistic collaborators Marker and Robbe-Grillet. The importance of creative collaboration in Resnais's films has been noted by many commentators. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he always refused to write his own screenplays and attached great importance to
10960-659: The early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte , subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire . The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon Napoleon III 's takeover. His empire collapsed during
11097-718: The emergence of cave painting in the Dordogne and Pyrenees , including at Lascaux , dated to c. 18,000 BC. At the end of the Last Glacial Period (10,000 BC), the climate became milder; from approximately 7,000 BC, this part of Western Europe entered the Neolithic era, and its inhabitants became sedentary . After demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, metallurgy appeared , initially working gold, copper and bronze , then later iron . France has numerous megalithic sites from
11234-516: The empire, leaving England and Aquitaine to the Plantagenets. Charles IV the Fair died without an heir in 1328. The crown passed to Philip of Valois , rather than Edward of Plantagenet, who became Edward III of England . During the reign of Philip, the monarchy reached the height of its medieval power. However Philip's seat on the throne was contested by Edward in 1337, and England and France entered
11371-644: The empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France . In the High Middle Ages , France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War . In the 16th century, the French Renaissance saw culture flourish and a French colonial empire rise. Internally, France
11508-594: The ensuing uprising of European monarchies against his rule, Napoleon was defeated. About a million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic Wars . After his brief return from exile, Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo , and the Bourbon monarchy was restored with new constitutional limitations. The discredited Bourbon dynasty was overthrown by the July Revolution of 1830, which established
11645-583: The film. There was little doubt however that it represented a significant challenge to the traditional concept of narrative construction in cinema. At the beginning of the 1960s France remained deeply divided by the Algerian War , and in 1960 the Manifesto of the 121 , which protested against French military policy in Algeria, was signed by a group of leading intellectuals and artists who included Resnais. The war, and
11782-545: The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state . France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone , as well as a member of the Group of Seven , North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Francophonie . Originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire ,
11919-582: The forefront of the development of a supranational European Union , notably by signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, establishing the eurozone in 1999 and signing the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007. France has fully reintegrated into NATO and since participated in most NATO-sponsored wars. Since the 19th century, France has received many immigrants , often male foreign workers from European Catholic countries who generally returned home when not employed. During
12056-870: The four major rivers Seine , the Loire , the Garonne , the Rhône and their tributaries, whose combined catchment includes over 62% of the metropolitan territory. The Rhône divides the Massif Central from the Alps and flows into the Mediterranean Sea at the Camargue . The Garonne meets the Dordogne just after Bordeaux, forming the Gironde estuary , the largest estuary in Western Europe which after approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) empties into
12193-443: The history of cinema". In his final two films, Resnais again drew his source material from the theatre. Vous n'avez encore rien vu ( You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet! , 2012) was adapted from two plays by Jean Anouilh , and it assembled thirteen actors (many of them regular performers in Resnais's earlier films) who have been summoned by the dying wish of an author to witness a new performance their roles in one of his plays. The film
12330-523: The imagined past. These films were contemporary with, and associated with, the French New Wave ( la nouvelle vague ), though Resnais did not regard himself as being fully part of that movement. He had closer links to the " Left Bank " group of authors and filmmakers who shared a commitment to modernism and an interest in left-wing politics. He also established a regular practice of working on his films in collaboration with writers previously unconnected with
12467-404: The large cast of La vie est un roman ( Life Is a Bed of Roses , 1983), a comic fantasy about utopian dreams in which three stories, from different eras and told in different styles, are interwoven within a shared setting. The action is punctuated by episodes of song which develop towards the end into scenes that are almost operatic; Resnais said that his starting point had been the desire to make
12604-475: The largest among European Union members. France's total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land ), is 643,801 km (248,573 sq mi), 0.45% of the total land area on Earth. France possesses a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to mountain ranges of the Alps in the southeast, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in
12741-505: The life of the notorious financier and embezzler whose death in 1934 provoked a political scandal. With glamorous costumes and sets, a musical score by Stephen Sondheim , and Jean-Paul Belmondo in the title role, it was seen as Resnais's most commercial film to date, but its complex narrative structure showed clear links with the formal preoccupations of his earlier films. With Providence (1977), Resnais made his first film in English, with
12878-442: The memory of the camps than with their actual past existence. Realising that standard documentary techniques would be incapable of confronting the enormity of the horror (and even risked humanising it), Resnais chose to use a distancing technique by alternating historical black-and-white images of the camps with contemporary colour footage of the sites in long tracking shots. The accompanying narration (written by Jean Cayrol , himself
13015-538: The mind is that faculty we have to imagine what is going to happen in our heads, or to remember what has happened". He also described his films as an attempt, however imperfect, to approach the complexity of thought and its mechanism. Another view of the evolution of Resnais's career saw him moving progressively away from a realistic treatment of 'big' subjects and overtly political themes towards films that are increasingly personal and playful. Resnais himself offered an explanation of this shift in terms of challenging what
13152-633: The most-used language in diplomacy, science, and literature until the 20th century. France took control of territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes , forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile and published the Code Noir providing the legal framework for slavery and expelling Jews from French colonies. Under the wars of Louis XV (r. 1715–1774), France lost New France and most Indian possessions after its defeat in
13289-629: The name France comes from the Latin Francia , or "realm of the Franks ". The name of the Franks is related to the English word frank ("free"): the latter stems from the Old French franc ("free, noble, sincere"), and ultimately from the Medieval Latin word francus ("free, exempt from service; freeman, Frank"), a generalisation of the tribal name that emerged as a Late Latin borrowing of
13426-454: The newly established kingdoms. These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the metric system , Napoleonic Code and Declaration of the Rights of Man. In 1812 Napoleon attacked Russia , reaching Moscow. Thereafter his army disintegrated through supply problems, disease, Russian attacks, and finally winter. After this catastrophic campaign and
13563-428: The novelist Marguerite Duras a fusion of fiction and documentary was developed which acknowledged the impossibility of speaking about Hiroshima; one could only speak about the impossibility of speaking about Hiroshima. In the film, the themes of memory and forgetting are explored via new narrative techniques which balance images with narrated text and ignore conventional notions of plot and story development. The film
13700-523: The occupying French forces, as well as making him a temporary member of a travelling theatre company, Les Arlequins. He returned to Paris in 1946 to start his career as a film editor, but also began making short films of his own. Finding himself to be a neighbour of the actor Gérard Philipe , he persuaded him to appear in a 16mm surrealist short, Schéma d'une identification (now lost). A more ambitious feature-length work, Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire , has also vanished without trace. After beginning with
13837-501: The off-and-on Hundred Years' War . Boundaries changed, but landholdings inside France by English Kings remained extensive for decades. With charismatic leaders, such as Joan of Arc , French counterattacks won back most English continental territories. France was struck by the Black Death , from which half of the 17 million population died. The French Renaissance saw cultural development and standardisation of French, which became
13974-616: The palace (head of household). One mayor of the palace, Charles Martel , defeated an Umayyad invasion of Gaul at the Battle of Tours (732). His son, Pepin the Short , seized the crown of Francia from the weakened Merovingians and founded the Carolingian dynasty . Pepin's son, Charlemagne , reunited the Frankish kingdoms and built an empire across Western and Central Europe . Proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III and thus establishing
14111-617: The primary source of legitimacy , undermined the power of and support for the monarchy and was a factor in the Revolution. The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change that began with the Estates General of 1789 , and ended with the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 and the formation of the French Consulate . Many of its ideas are fundamental principles of liberal democracy , while its values and institutions remain central to modern political discourse. Its causes were
14248-504: The production designer, and the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen attached for the score. Resnais and Dauman worked towards the project for a decade before finally giving up. The screenplay for the film by Frédéric de Towarnicki was published in 2007. Resnais spent some time in America working on various unfulfilled projects, including one about the Marquis de Sade . He also published Repérages ,
14385-455: The public. From the 1980s onwards Resnais showed a particular interest in integrating material from other forms of popular culture into his films, drawing especially on music and the theatre. In almost all of his remaining films he chose to work repeatedly with a core group of actors comprising Sabine Azéma , Pierre Arditi , and André Dussollier , sometimes accompanied by Fanny Ardant or Lambert Wilson . The first four of these were among
14522-499: The recipients of the Honorary César award since its inception in 1976. Recipients [ edit ] 1970s [ edit ] Year Recipient Profession Nationality 1976 [REDACTED] Ingrid Bergman Actress Sweden [REDACTED] Diana Ross Actress and singer US 1977 Henri Langlois (posthumous) Film archivist and co-founder of
14659-521: The reconstructed Frankish endonym * Frank . It has been suggested that the meaning "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul , only Franks were free of taxation, or more generally because they had the status of freemen in contrast to servants or slaves. The etymology of *Frank is uncertain. It is traditionally derived from the Proto-Germanic word * frankōn , which translates as "javelin" or "lance" (the throwing axe of
14796-403: The relationship between consciousness, memory, and the imagination, and he was noted for devising innovative formal structures for his narratives. Throughout his career, he won many awards from international film festivals and academies, including one Academy Award , two César Awards for best director (he was nominated on eight occasions), three Louis Delluc Prize and one Golden Lion at
14933-569: The remainder of Gaul and overcame a revolt by Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix in 52 BC. Gaul was divided by Augustus into provinces and many cities were founded during the Gallo-Roman period , including Lugdunum (present-day Lyon ), the capital of the Gauls. In 250–290 AD, Roman Gaul suffered a crisis with its fortified borders attacked by barbarians . The situation improved in the first half of
15070-449: The revolt was a political failure (the Gaullist party emerged stronger than before) it announced a split between the French and de Gaulle, who resigned. In the post-Gaullist era, France remained one of the most developed economies in the world but faced crises that resulted in high unemployment rates and increasing public debt. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, France has been at
15207-415: The same name. Resnais remained entirely faithful to the play (apart from shortening it) and he emphasised its theatricality by filming in long takes on large sets of evidently artificial design, as well as by marking off the acts of the play with the fall of a curtain. After an excursion into the world of comic books and cartoons in I Want to Go Home (1989), an ambitious theatrical adaptation followed with
15344-4701: The second time) Actor and producer US 2017 [REDACTED] George Clooney Actor, director, screenwriter and producer US 2018 [REDACTED] Penélope Cruz Actress Spain 2019 [REDACTED] Robert Redford Actor, director, producer and businessman US 2022 [REDACTED] Cate Blanchett Actress and producer Australia 2023 [REDACTED] David Fincher Director and producer US 2024 [REDACTED] Agnès Jaoui Actress, screenwriter, film director and singer France [REDACTED] Christopher Nolan Director, screenwriter and producer UK / US 2025 [REDACTED] Julia Roberts Actress US External links [ edit ] Official website Honorary César at AlloCiné v t e Honorary César 1976–2000 Ingrid Bergman (1976) Diana Ross (1976) Henri Langlois (1977) Jacques Tati (1977) Robert Dorfmann (1978) René Goscinny (1978) Marcel Carné (1979) Charles Vanel (1979) Walt Disney (1979) Pierre Braunberger (1980) Louis de Funès (1980) Kirk Douglas (1980) Marcel Pagnol (1981) Alain Resnais (1981) Georges Dancigers (1982) Alexandre Mnouchkine (1982) Jean Nény (1982) Andrzej Wajda (1982) Raimu (1983) René Clément (1984) Georges de Beauregard (1984) Edwige Feuillère (1984) Christian-Jaque (1985) Danielle Darrieux (1985) Christine Gouze-Rénal (1985) Alain Poiré (1985) Maurice Jarre (1986) Bette Davis (1986) Jean Delannoy (1986) René Ferracci (1986) Claude Lanzmann (1986) Jean-Luc Godard (1987) Serge Silberman (1988) Bernard Blier (1989) Paul Grimault (1989) Gérard Philipe (1990) Jean-Pierre Aumont (1991) Sophia Loren (1991) Michèle Morgan (1992) Sylvester Stallone (1992) Jean Marais (1993) Marcello Mastroianni (1993) Gérard Oury (1993) Jean Carmet (1994) Jeanne Moreau (1995) Gregory Peck (1995) Steven Spielberg (1995) Lauren Bacall (1996) Henri Verneuil (1996) Charles Aznavour (1997) Andie MacDowell (1997) Michael Douglas (1998) Clint Eastwood (1998) Jean-Luc Godard (1998) Pedro Almodóvar (1999) Johnny Depp (1999) Jean Rochefort (1999) Josiane Balasko (2000) Georges Cravenne (2000) Jean-Pierre Léaud (2000) Martin Scorsese (2000) 2001–present Darry Cowl (2001) Charlotte Rampling (2001) Agnès Varda (2001) Anouk Aimée (2002) Jeremy Irons (2002) Claude Rich (2002) Bernadette Lafont (2003) Spike Lee (2003) Meryl Streep (2003) Micheline Presle (2004) Jacques Dutronc (2005) Will Smith (2005) Hugh Grant (2006) Pierre Richard (2006) Marlène Jobert (2007) Jude Law (2007) Jeanne Moreau (2008) Roberto Benigni (2008) Romy Schneider (2008) Dustin Hoffman (2009) Harrison Ford (2010) Quentin Tarantino (2011) Kate Winslet (2012) Kevin Costner (2013) Scarlett Johansson (2014) Sean Penn (2015) Michael Douglas (2016) George Clooney (2017) Penélope Cruz (2018) Robert Redford (2019) Cate Blanchett (2022) David Fincher (2023) Agnès Jaoui (2024) Christopher Nolan (2024) Julia Roberts (2025) v t e César Awards Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (founded by Georges Cravenne ) Merit awards Film Director Actor Actress Supporting Actor Supporting Actress Male Revelation Female Revelation Adaptation Original Screenplay First Feature Film Foreign Film Animated Feature Film Animated Short Film Documentary Film Documentary Short Film Fiction Short Film Cinematography Costume Design Editing Original Music Sound Production Design Visual Effects Special awards Honorary Award Prix Daniel Toscan du Plantier Trophée César & Techniques Médaille d'Or Retired awards Film from
15481-1182: The second time) Actress France [REDACTED] Roberto Benigni Actor and director Italy [REDACTED] Romy Schneider (posthumous) Actress Germany 2009 [REDACTED] Dustin Hoffman Actor US 2010s [ edit ] Year Recipient Profession Nationality 2010 [REDACTED] Harrison Ford Actor US 2011 [REDACTED] Quentin Tarantino Director, screenwriter, executive producer and actor US 2012 [REDACTED] Kate Winslet Actress UK 2013 [REDACTED] Kevin Costner Actor, director and producer US 2014 [REDACTED] Scarlett Johansson Actress US 2015 [REDACTED] Sean Penn Actor, director, screenwriter and producer US 2016 [REDACTED] Michael Douglas (for
15618-644: The second time) Director, screenwriter and actor France / Switzerland 1999 [REDACTED] Pedro Almodóvar Director, screenwriter, actor and producer Spain [REDACTED] Johnny Depp Actor and producer US [REDACTED] Jean Rochefort Actor France 2000s [ edit ] Year Recipient Profession Nationality 2000 [REDACTED] Josiane Balasko Actress, screenwriter, director and producer France [REDACTED] Georges Cravenne Journalist, film producer and founder of
15755-538: The second-largest behind the British Empire . Including metropolitan France, the total area reached almost 13 million square kilometres in the 1920s and 1930s, 9% of the world's land. Known as the Belle Époque , the turn of the century was characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity and technological, scientific and cultural innovations. In 1905, state secularism was officially established . France
15892-468: The southwest. Due to its numerous overseas departments and territories scattered across the planet, France possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, covering 11,035,000 km (4,261,000 sq mi). Its EEZ covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world. Metropolitan France has a wide variety of topographical sets and natural landscapes. During
16029-647: The state and reinforced royal power. He destroyed castles of defiant lords and denounced the use of private armies. By the end of the 1620s, Richelieu established "the royal monopoly of force". France fought in the Thirty Years' War , supporting the Protestant side against the Habsburgs. From the 16th to the 19th century, France was responsible for about 10% of the transatlantic slave trade . During Louis XIV 's minority, trouble known as The Fronde occurred. This rebellion
16166-502: The theories of the neurobiologist Henri Laborit about animal behaviour are juxtaposed with three interwoven fictional stories; and a further counterpoint to the fictional characters is provided by the inclusion of film extracts of the classic French film actors with whom they identify. The film won several international awards including the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and it also proved to be one of Resnais's most successful with
16303-473: The unoccupied territory. Free France , the government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle , was set up in London. From 1942 to 1944, about 160,000 French citizens, including around 75,000 Jews , were deported to death and concentration camps . On 6 June 1944, the Allies invaded Normandy , and in August they invaded Provence . The Allies and French Resistance emerged victorious, and French sovereignty
16440-399: The works of André Breton: "I hope that I always remain faithful to André Breton who refused to suppose that imaginary life was not a part of real life". In 1969 Resnais married Florence Malraux (daughter of the French statesman and writer André Malraux ). She was a regular member of his production team, working as assistant director on most of his films from 1961 to 1986. His second wife
16577-423: Was Hiroshima mon amour (1959). It originated as a commission from the producers of Nuit et Brouillard ( Anatole Dauman and Argos Films) to make a documentary about the atomic bomb, but Resnais initially declined, thinking that it would be too similar to the earlier film about the concentration camps and that it presented the same problem of how to film incomprehensible suffering. However, in discussion with
16714-457: Was invaded by Germany and defended by Great Britain at the start of World War I in August 1914. A rich industrial area in the north was occupied. France and the Allies emerged victorious against the Central Powers at tremendous human cost. It left 1.4 million French soldiers dead, 4% of its population. Interwar was marked by intense international tensions and social reforms introduced by
16851-617: Was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps . Resnais began making feature films in the late 1950s and consolidated his early reputation with Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and Muriel (1963), all of which adopted unconventional narrative techniques to deal with themes of troubled memory and
16988-461: Was a founding member of NATO and attempted to regain control of French Indochina , but was defeated by the Viet Minh in 1954. France faced another anti-colonialist conflict in Algeria , then part of France and home to over one million European settlers ( Pied-Noir ). The French systematically used torture and repression, including extrajudicial killings to keep control. This conflict nearly led to
17125-403: Was almost five years before Resnais was able to direct another film. Throughout the 1960s, Resnais was attached to direct an international production called Les Aventures de Harry Dickson , based on the stories by Jean Ray , with Anatole Dauman as producer. The project was intended to star either Dirk Bogarde or Laurence Olivier as the titular detective, with André Delvaux attached as
17262-659: Was divided into Germanic kingdoms and a remaining Gallo-Roman territory. Celtic Britons , fleeing the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain , settled in west Armorica ; the Armorican peninsula was renamed Brittany and Celtic culture was revived. The first leader to unite all Franks was Clovis I , who began his reign as king of the Salian Franks in 481, routing the last forces of the Roman governors in 486. Clovis said he would be baptised
17399-575: Was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots . France was successful in the Thirty Years' War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis XIV . The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man , which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. France reached its political and military zenith in
17536-527: Was driven by feudal lords and sovereign courts as a reaction to the royal absolute power . The monarchy reached its peak during the 17th century and reign of Louis XIV. By turning lords into courtiers at the Palace of Versailles , his command of the military went unchallenged. The "Sun King" made France the leading European power. France became the most populous European country and had tremendous influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became
17673-716: Was executed in January 1793. After another revolt in June 1793 , the constitution was suspended and power passed from the National Convention to the Committee of Public Safety . About 16,000 people were executed in a Reign of Terror , which ended in July 1794 . Weakened by external threats and internal opposition, the Republic was replaced in 1795 by the Directory . Four years later in 1799,
17810-414: Was its precursor. During the 9th and 10th centuries, threatened by Viking invasions , France became a decentralised state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, and authority of the king became more religious than secular, and so was less effective and challenged by noblemen. Thus was established feudalism in France. Some king's vassals grew so powerful they posed a threat to the king. After
17947-439: Was occupied in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944 , the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War . The current Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle . Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France . France retains its centuries-long status as
18084-574: Was restored with the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF). This interim government, established by de Gaulle, continued to wage war against Germany and to purge collaborators from office . It made important reforms e.g. suffrage extended to women and the creation of a social security system. A new constitution resulted in the Fourth Republic (1946–1958), which saw strong economic growth ( les Trente Glorieuses ). France
18221-719: Was set to impose a carbon tax in 2009; however, the plan was abandoned due to fears of burdening French businesses. Forests account for 31 per cent of France's land area—the fourth-highest proportion in Europe—representing an increase of 7 per cent since 1990. French forests are some of the most diverse in Europe, comprising more than 140 species of trees. France had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.52/10, ranking it 123rd globally. There are nine national parks and 46 natural parks in France. A regional nature park (French: parc naturel régional or PNR)
18358-440: Was shown at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival , alongside Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups ( The 400 Blows ), and its success became associated with the emerging movement of the French New Wave . Resnais's next film was L'Année dernière à Marienbad ( Last Year at Marienbad , 1961), which he made in collaboration with the novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet . The fragmented and shifting narrative presents three principal characters,
18495-399: Was shown in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival . Aimer, boire et chanter (2014) was the third film which Resnais adapted from a play by Alan Ayckbourn, in this case Life of Riley , in which three couples are thrown into confusion by the news that a shared friend has a terminal illness. Three weeks before Resnais's death, the film received its premiere in
18632-591: Was the norm in filmmaking at the time: having made his early films when escapist cinema was predominant, he progressively felt the need to move away from exploration of social and political issues as that itself became almost the norm in contemporary cinema. Experimentation with narrative forms and genre conventions instead became a central focus of his films. A frequent criticism of Resnais's films among English-language commentators has been that they are emotionally cold; that they are all about technique without grasp of character or subject, that his understanding of beauty
18769-404: Was unseated following defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and his regime replaced by the Third Republic . By 1875, the French conquest of Algeria was complete, with approximately 825,000 Algerians killed from famine, disease, and violence. France had colonial possessions since the beginning of the 17th century, but in the 19th and 20th centuries its empire extended greatly and became
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