Journeys Through French Cinema

In seeking to upgrade his own outmoded perspective on several filmmakers, Tavernier credits critic/programmer Patrick Brion and other writers for early and often championing directors who—decades after their heyday—were finally restored the respect they deserve. Tavernier revisits the oeuvres of Maurice Tourneur, whose crime tales were both bemusedly observational and authentic; Anatole Litvak, who stunned with his dynamic camera choices; Raymond Bernard, who made the groundbreaking 1932 epic Wooden Crosses on real-life WWI battlefields; René Clair, warmly chronicling a now-vanished working-class Paris; and — encoring after Episode 3 — comedy and musical specialist Jean Boyer, whose additional career as lyricist in collaboration with popular composer Georges van Parys make for tuneful rediscoveries.