The Distribution of French Cinema to the United States

Résumé du document

In regard to the past of French Cinema and the global Cinema Market, is it possible for French Cinema to distribute profitably to the American Market? French cinema sees itself as being the great innovator in style, treating movies like a cultural heritage. The United States has always considered cinema's role to be that of an economical commodity that should be harnessed and used primarily as a means to further revenues and open doors to further production and distribution. France wants to achieve a similar goal as the US, but not at the sacrifice of its national identity through cinema. This paper shall weigh the pros and cons of French cinema throughout its history, beginning with its invention in the late 1800s, while comparing it to the development of American cinema. This should give a clear insight as to how the two cinemas have developed into completely different products, namely why American cinema became the international commodity that it is, while French cinema remained very sheltered yet innovative, leading to a much smaller audience. The paper will then enumerate the problems, which have become the obstacles to France's desire to become a viable world player.

Extraits

[...] . A. A Sad State of Affairs . B. The Myriad of Solutions Festivals Reconstruction GATT Publicity and Market Development The American Market Secession from Government Control The Artist . [...]

[...] This became the cause of the first cinema statute, which declared cinema a protected national institution. A commission was created to take full control of the licensing of both foreign and international movies, thus allowing the French State to block out all films they did not want.38 Of course not all French Cinema Industrialists agreed to the statute, or the direct interference of the government in the cinema production market; the most vehement opposition coming from the exhibitors who made a large percentage of their profit on the American movies that were now going to be banned, while producers demanded the highest restrictions on American imports Film History 38 Film History 39 Film History 9 IV.The National Era: 1930's-1980's A. [...]

[...] “L'Aller-Retour d'un Film a Succes” Cinema 72 (February 17 1988) No pg Du Château, Xavier. Indien dans la ville: La fin du rêve Américain” Cinema 72 (April 16 1996), No pg. 4-5 Lagane, Christophe. “Premiers Résultats de l'Observatoire” Cinema 72 (June 16 1996) No pg. 4-5 Augier, Agnes. [...]

[...] Either case demonstrated that what the Americans wanted from a French movie, or even of a movie in general just wasn't there. Thus, instead of helping the name of French cinema, it simply further tarnished its image as a being a cinema that wasn't always acceptable by American standards.68 Despite all these difficulties though, French cinema was still making a name 68 Cinema 72 No for itself on the other side of the Atlantic: Already several cinema halls in the United States had reserved rooms in their cinema halls to foreign films, showing either current French films among other national cinemas or retrospectives on European cinema in general of which a great portion was again dedicated to French cinema next to the classics of Italian and German cinema. [...]

[...] People's incentive to buy a DVD has also increased compared to videos because of all the extras, which adds a lot of added value than just having a video with only the movie. These two items alone make for a very big competitor to Cinema on the big screen, something which the production companies are realizing, and in order to at least make as much profit of each movie as possible, are trying to release the DVDs of movies as soon as possible, sometimes releasing the same movie on DVD several times, one differing from the other only in the amount of extras available (The movie Terminator 2 for example came out in three different versions, namely the normal edition, the Ultimate Edition, and the boxed set with both the first and second movie). [...]