Los Angeles Times Interview : Jean-Jacques Beineix : Defending the French Film Industry Against a Global U.S. Movie Market

PARIS —  The first feature film Jean-Jacques Beineix directed was the kind no Hollywood studio would have made. It had a paltry $1 million budget. No name stars. Everyone speaking a foreign language. And, of course, a first-time director at the helm.

Yet, his 1981 thriller, “Diva,” became a critical and commercial success in the United States, where it is still among the 10 most-successful foreign films. Beineix was hailed as a genius and compared to Orson Welles.

So it was only natural that the director, now 47, and still one of France’s most gifted filmmakers watched the recent world-trade talks, and especially the battle between French filmmakers and Hollywood studios, with deep concern.

Simply put, Hollywood wants the French government to level the playing field for entertainment programming by eliminating subsidies for French films and minimum quotas for French TV programming. But to the French, guardians of Europe’s only flourishing film industry, Hollywood’s efforts are an unabashed attempt to crush France’s cultural heritage. France managed to keep the whole issue out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, but the war for the big and small screens of France is far from over.

During the past year, eight of the 10 top-grossing films in France have been American. (The only two French films on the list, “Les Visiteurs” and “Germinal,” are scheduled for U.S. release later this year.)

The dispute recently reached its nadir when the French producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier suggested that the Los Angeles earthquake was a sign that God had taken the French side on the issue. (Toscan du Plantier later apologized for his “bad private joke.” Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, accepted the apology.) Although Beineix and other French actors, producers and directors have sharply criticized Toscan du Plantier’s “joke,” they remain angered by Hollywood’s designs on the French market.

The son of a Paris insurance salesman, Beineix fell in love with films as a youngster, feasting on the classic French works but also on the films of such Americans as Welles, John Huston, Woody Allen and Jerry Lewis.

Beineix studied medicine but quit school after three years to work as an assistant director on several dozen films. Since “Diva,” he has directed four films, including “Betty Blue,” a modest success in the United States.

Today, Beineix works out of an old building in northern Paris, next door to an X-rated movie house, and he recently finished several long TV documentaries. His most recent feature, “IP5,” starring Yves Montand in the late actor’s last role, made a modest profit in France, though it has yet to find a U.S. distributor. “A lot of people were interested, but nothing happened,” he said.

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Question: Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, contends that French films should compete with American films on an equal footing and let the audiences decide which films they like best. What’s wrong with that?

Answer: What Valenti is talking about is business and, business-wise, he is right. But our civilization needs something else. Our fight is to tell this (American) lobby that we need some room to express ourselves, not we as French or Italians but we citizens of the world--Japanese artists, Mexicans artists, Brazilian artists, whoever they are.

We know that the strategy of these companies is to make a profit as quickly as possible. They now see no difference between making a film and taking out an insurance policy. They want insurance for success.

But creativity is something else. You don’t have to always increase a movie’s pace, become more violent and less intelligent. We don’t have to give people what they expect instead of trying to raise their expectations.

That is why I think we are rendering an extremely important service to this business. Let’s say, it’s a kind of research. Even Hollywood needs some fresh blood. We are investing in research, and this research will help the system of filmmaking to survive.

Q: Meaning the French film industry?

A: Not just French. It is the same for a lot of artists in America. This is not a fight against America at all.

Q: But by erecting barriers to American entertainment in France, isn’t France practicing blatant protectionism?

A: It is very easy to talk about protectionism. But is it protectionism to save something that belongs to the heritage of the human community?

America has always fought monopolies. It is even in your law. So if you accuse us of protectionism, then we must accuse you of monopolizing 80% of our market.

So, we just want some room so that all the people interested in this type of creation could have some room for their own sake. And I think the system would be much smarter to help this cinema exist. If you don’t, you will slowly reduce the audience’s choices. And I think that is a big mistake.

Q: But let’s take Jean Renoir, one of France’s greatest directors. He didn’t need protection.

A: Who needed protection in that time in the business?

Q: So you think things have changed?

A: The rules have changed. We are in a position now where a foreign industry has 80% of our market and looking for 100% . . . . So I tell the Americans, be careful. You are going to lose a lot of image. The feeling of anti-Americanism is growing. And the American industry has more to lose than to win. The Japanese went too far in America, and it created a backlash. The same will happen in this country.

Q: But the fact is that the most popular films in French cinemas today are American. Do you think French filmmakers have lost touch with their audience?

A: This trade fight has nothing to do with America or Europe. It is about values, artistic points of view, independence and freedom. The cinema is a place of freedom; it is a place where people can express themselves.

Q: But what’s wrong with making films that audiences want to see? Isn’t that the point of making films?

A: Let’s say you have two products. One is selling very well, the other isn’t. Is it because the first product is better than the second or is it because the marketing is better?

The crisis of our cinema is almost an ideological crisis. The audiences do not believe in themselves anymore. So they would rather go and see an American film, which is bringing them far from their home, far from their country, and they will dream about something they do not know about.

I don’t have the feeling that our films are less interesting than the usual American film. I would say our countries have the same average of good and bad films.

Q: Then why aren’t French films more popular in the world?

A: You have to know that our language is a language spoken by maybe 1%, 2%, 3% of the people in the world. We do not sell abroad. American films do sell abroad. With this market, they can have the money for the distribution, they can spend the money to advertise, make prints, etc.

We could improve the quality of our films, of course. But much of it is purely technical and financial. A lot of people in this country have the talent to do those big American-style films. But we do not have the market. That is the problem.

We are now--and this is what I think is unfair--investing in research for a lot of talent that will work later in America.

Q: Is there some essential difference between French and American films?

A: I don’t think so. But the big American films are mainly action films, with violence and big stars. Look at “Cliffhanger.” I went to see that picture. It was entertaining, but I couldn’t help thinking, is this going to be something you are proud to leave your children?

I don’t think it is being unfair to ask this industry to spend a little bit of its money to find people like John Ford, Hemingway, Welles.

Just because these films please an international audience doesn’t mean it’s good cinema. Would you say a hamburger was a gastronomic success in the history of cooking? No, but it is a very easy way to provide the biggest number of people with the simplest food possible.

Cinema should do more than just feed people with ready-made, easily recognizable products. I expect more.

Q: So you don’t think that French cinema would survive without protection, without some government assistance?

A: Well, here I think there is a big misunderstanding. The decision of this country to take a percentage of the profits and use it to help fund the next project is an investment in the industry.

When you just consider cinema to be a product, you have a problem. If you let the market make all the decisions about pacing, actors and even good and bad endings, then it doesn’t work.

Our (French) system allows us to take some of these risks, to have first-time directors and unknown actors. “Diva” would never had been made by a studio. “Betty Blue” would never, never had been made by a studio. I find new actors all the time. That would be impossible if it had been a studio approach.

Is this hell, is this the end of the world? No, I think it is a nice system.

Q: But if films can’t survive on their own, with audiences willing to buy tickets, maybe they shouldn’t exist.

A: No, No, No. Would you say autistic children shouldn’t survive because they can’t survive on their own?

Q: Surely you’re not saying the French film industry is handicapped?

A: No. But because we are small, because obviously the rules of standardization, rough-and-tough liberalization will not allow the system to survive, we should still be allowed to render a service to the community of artists worldwide.

I think it is common sense to say you can’t treat the values of intelligence and creativity the way you do soap or soup or cars. Sincerely.

Q: What do you think about the American film business today?

A: I’ve become disillusioned. After “Diva,” I was almost ready to emigrate (to the United States) because I had the feeling that Europe was old-fashioned and decaying. But then I discovered that Hollywood was decaying, too. Not because of the people . . . but because of the mentality, the greediness.

This business is really a business, and artists have become some kind of strange, difficult beings. I thought that Hollywood was the place you could make dreams come true, where adventure was possible. But it is just bureaucratic, and it’s less and less involved in creation and creativity.

Q: You had a big success with “Diva” in the United States, and yet you have had only one other film, “Betty Blue,” distributed there. Why is that?

A: At first, Hollywood saw me as some kind of exotic puppet. I was pretty hot at the time, and they were saying, “Well, he did this ‘Diva’ for $1 million; let’s have him do another one for the same amount, but for an American audience.” An American audience? I still don’t understand what that means, but I’ve heard it a lot.*