Juan Monroy — Prewar Hollywood

Film Production dropped during the 1930s
- 1929: 52
- 1930: 94
- 1931: 139
- 1932: 157
- 1933: 158
- 1934: 126
- 1935: 115
- 1936: 116
- 1937: 111
- 1938: 122
- 1939: 91
Film Production was Unstable
- 285 small firms made one film
- dozens more made more than one
- Pathé-Natan broken up after its Bernard Natan was jailed for embezzling money
- Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert almost went bankrupt
Coming of Sound
- sparked French film production
- more than half of domestic market was French films
- film attendance began to rise
Rene Clair
- Sous les toits de Paris (1930)
- À nous, la liberté (1931)
- Le Million (1931)
Jean Vigo
- À propos de Nice (1930)
- Taris (1931)
- Zero for Conduct (1933)
- L’Atalante (1934)
Foreign Filmmakers in France
- German and French filmmakers moved between each country
- Many French films were reshot in German versions, and vice versa
- romantic plots
- polished technical style
- featured film and stage stars
G.W. Pabst
- Don Quixote (1933)
- Shanghai Drama (1938)
Max Ophüls
- The Romance of Werther (1938)
- based on a Goethe’s novel
Anatole Livtak
- fled Nazis in German
- made Mayerling (1936) in France
La Maternelle (1933)
- Jean Benoît-Lévy and Marie Epstein
- deals sympathetically with children
- neglected and abused children
- filmed at an actual kindergarten with non-professional actors
Poetic Realism
- not a movement but a thematic motif across films
- characters on the margins of society
  - unemployed
  - criminal
- last chance at an ideal love
- doom, disappointment, and disillusion
- many starred Jean Gabin
Julian Duvivier
- Pépe le Moko (1936)
Marcel Carné
- Quai des brumes Port of Shadows
- Le Jour se lève Daybreak
Jean Renoir
- son of painter Auguste Renoir
- La Chienne (1931)
- Boudu sauvé des eaux Boudu Saved from Drowning
- Toni (1935)
- Une Partie de campagne (1936)
- Grand Illusion (1937)
- Rules of the Game (1939)
Popular Front
- coalition united against fascism
- Parti Communuist Français (PCF)
- Socialists
- Radical Socialists
Ciné-Liberté
- formed by the Popular Front, 1936
- made films
- published a magazine
Ciné-Liberté Members
- Jean Renoir
- Marc Allégret
- Jacques Feyder
- Germanie Dulac
Ciné-Liberté Films
- La Vie est à nous (1936)
- La Marseillaise (1938)
Popular Front Political Films
- The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Jean Renoir, 1935)
- La Belle équipe (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
Vichy France
- 1138px-France_map_Lambert–93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/France_map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg/1138px-France_map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg.png
- Germany invaded France, June 1940
- Germany occupied north of France, including Paris
- Right-wing French government established in Vichy
Filmmaking in Vichy France
- Comité d’Organisation de l’Industrie Cinématrographique (COIC) controlled film industry
- application process to obtain permission
- harsh censorship under the Vichy regime
- Jews were barred from film industry
Occupied France
- no French film production allows
- ban on American and British imports
- Vichy French and German films were permitted
- French film production resumed in May 1941
- Ufa subsidiary Continental established in France
End of Occupation
- German retreat, summer 1944
- French filmmaking continued
- competition with imported American films
- decentralized structures of film continued in the postwar era