Sur le pont d’Avignon, Franju shortest film apart from the prewar Le Metro, was shot as something of an afterthought to Le Theatre national populaire, during the fortnight in July 1956 when Franju and his crew had to wait between the two Avignon theatrical performances that were to feature in the longer film.Read More »
An intense study of the clash between medical ideals, the first full-length work from Georges Franju is a gripping examination of postwar psychiatric care, boasting a memorable cast including Pierre Brasseur, Anouk Aimée, Charles Aznavour, Paul Meurisse, and Jean-Pierre Mocky.
Mocky plays François Gérane, an aimless young man whose delinquent tendencies cause his father to have him committed to a psychiatric ward. There, under the cold command of Dr. Varmont (Brasseur), he finds himself fighting for his dignity, sanity, and freedom, barely holding on through the new-found love of his girlfriend Stephanie (Aimée) and the promise of rival Dr. Emery’s (Meurisse) more humane techniques.Read More »
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A tour of the Hotel des Invalides, and more particularly of the Army Museum and the Saint Louis Chapel. From François I’s armor to Guynemer’s airplane, to Napoleon’s and Marshall Foch’s tombs. But this is no ordinary tour,it is rather a chilling visit guided by Georges Franju and narrated by Michel Simon emphasizing – at times through biting humor -not the glory but the nonsense of wars, but their tragic aftermath.Read More »
The butler of the writer Maxime de Borrego goes to the store of an old lady and tells that his boss probably knows the location of the Templars treasure, expecting to receive a reward. The old lady is actually the ruthless criminal The Man without a Face, the master of disguise that wears a red mask. He tortures and kills Maxime without getting any answer about the location of the treasure. Maxime’s nephew, the sailor Paul de Borrego, returns from a trip and teams up with his girlfriend, her best friend, with Inspector Sorbier and his team trying to arrest the evil criminal. But The Man without a Face uses a sort of human zombies created his insane doctor and his gorgeous assistant that wears a mask and outfits similar to the Catwoman to lure the police and achieve his intent.Read More »
This Government-commissioned documentary was intended to reflect the modernisation of French industry. However, in Franju’s hands it became an ode to fire and a fascinating portrayal of industrial architecture.Read More »
An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of the animals and that of the workers in graphic detail.
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The film highlights key moments in the life and professional collaboration of Pierre Curie and Marie Curie.Read More »
Film Review
Georges Franju’s last film for the cinema was to be his second homage to the silent Louis Feuillade crime serials of the 1910s – the first being his inspired remake of Judex in 1963. Nuits rouges is a curious cinematic beast that owes as much to the adolescent American fantasy-thriller serials of the 1940s and 1960s as it does to Feuillade. It is certainly not what you would have expected from a man with a reputation as a serious filmmaker and co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française, France’s national film library.Read More »
A family goes on holiday, abandoning the little girl’s dog.
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Faithful regulars at screenings at La Cinémathèque française, the filmmakers of the New Wave received Langlois’s lessons as an inheritance and were, by their own admission, profoundly influenced by them. On the fringe of these habits and this famous movement, other directors, more fragile or isolated, also carried in them, thanks to other roundabout means, the teachings of the Cinémathèque’s founder who had, himself, briefly trod the path of apprentice filmmaker. In touch with young directors, he supported them as much as he could, showing their works, often previously unseen, and rightly considered it his duty to watch over them.Read More »