Contemporary France. News, Politics, Films, Books
On May 14, 2011, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (known as DSK), powerful head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was taken into custody at JFK just before his return to Paris. An experienced and popular leader of the Socialist Party in France, he had been about to …
In 1964, two movies were among those in competition at the Cannes Film Festival: The Soft Skin, directed by François Truffaut; and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, directed by Jacques Demy, which took the prize. The first starred Françoise Dorléac. The second starred Catherine Deneuve. They …
Review of La Pirogue (Senegal/France, 2012), directed by Moussa Touré. Review of Anna Badkhen, Fisherman’s Blues: A West African Community at Sea (New York: Riverhead Books, 2018). France was in Senegal beginning in 1677, when they seized the island of Gorée in Dakar’s harbor as …
Marie Antoinette, 1938. Directed by W. S. Van Dyke (Julien Duvivier, uncredited). Starring Norma Shearer. Marie Antoinette, 2006. Directed by Sofia Coppola. Starring Kirsten Dunst. Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux à la Reine), 2012. Directed by Benoît Jacquot. Starring Diane Kruger and Léa Seydoux. Marie …
An elderly man is standing in his small notions shop when someone comes in with a full film equipage of camera and sound and starts asking questions. The old man is sharply dressed in a suit, his World War I medals displayed in narrow bars …
There is a scene in The Blue Room when the protagonist, named Julien Gahyde in the film, pulls back the shutters in the darkened hotel and looks at the sunlit square below. It’s full of light and life, in contrast to the claustrophobic room in …
