When it comes to the most famous film archive in the world, I am afraid that the Cinémathèque Française (French Film Archive) is the first one. Founded in 1936 by Henri Langlois, it is the oldest institution in the world with the largest collection of films and related objects. To this day, the French Film Archive is not only committed to preservation and combing, but also regularly organizes various thematic exhibitions and screenings to popularize and promote cinema as an art form. Although we are accustomed to calling it a museum, the 10,000-square-meter venue at 51 Rue de Bercy in Paris has become a museum, cinema, library, archive and collection room, attracting film fans from all over the world.
Exterior of the Cinémathèque Française at 51 rue de la Bech, Paris
In recent years, the French Film Archive has also been happy to cooperate with overseas countries in various exchange activities. The exhibition of the Sino-French women's film project "She in Creation" (from now until July 13), which is currently being held at One on the Bund, and the related films that will be screened in Shanghai Film City and Shanghai Baimeihui Cinema in the next two weekends, have received great cooperation from the French Film Archive, which has loaned many works by Alice Guy, the pioneer of female cinema, Sherman Dulac, Marguerite Duras, Agnès Varda and others.
This precious collection of films was accompanied by Jean-Christophe Mikhaïloff, Head of Publicity, Outreach and Development at the Cinémathèque Française, who also travelled to Shanghai. During this period, he was interviewed by The Paper and responded to the changes in the Archive after the death of Henri Langlois, the channels for enriching the collection, the planning of large-scale exhibitions and screenings, the development of derivative cultural and creative products, and the attitude of the Archive in the face of the current anti-sexual assault movement in the French film industry.
Installation view of the Sino-French Women's Film Project "She in Creation".
【Interview】
After the death of Langlois, the size of the museum was further expanded
The Paper: When we think of the French Film Archive, we often think of one person - Henri Langlois. Do you agree with the notion that some people, such as Jacques Richard, who was a longtime assistant to Langlois, were two completely different institutions from the French Cinémathèque during his lifetime and the French Cinémathèque after his death (see Jacques Richard's dictation of Langlois: The World's Best Curator published in Xinmin Weekly No. 04, 2015?
Henri Langlois, founder of the French Film Archive
Mikajlov: There is no doubt that Henri Langlois was a pioneer in film collecting. As early as the 1930s, he was the first to consider film as an art form as important as painting and sculpture. And he believes that movies deserve to be treasured, worthy of people to learn and study, and worthy of being disseminated. This idea was very avant-garde at the time.
The French Cinémathèque can be said to have been born in a period of scientific and technological breakthroughs. At that time, sound films were born, and before that, silent films were prevalent, there was no sound dialogue, only a soundtrack. But in fact, the term "silent film" is inaccurate, because at that time movies were not completely devoid of sound, they also had music running through them. With the birth of the first sound film, The Jazz Singer, we transitioned from the silent film era to the sound film era. In the long history of cinema, from the creation of films by the Lumière brothers in 1895 to the appearance of sound films in 1927 and 1928, Langlois established a model for collecting films that can be used all over the world.
When Langlois died in the 1970s, he left the world with an unusually rich film collection. Although our venue is called the French Film Archive, it is not only a memory bank of French cinema, but also world cinema, with films from various countries such as Chinese, American, Italian, Spanish and so on. It can be said that his collection is a treasure trove of world cinema. Moreover, the collection is not limited to film films, including stills, posters, books, costumes, props and other things related to film. Today, in addition to inheriting the treasures of Langlois and preserving the memory of cinema, it is more important to popularize and convey the charm of cinema to the younger generation.
Audiovisual library in the archive
I disagree with Jacques Ricia's point of view. At the time of Langlois' death, the team at the Cinémathèque Française was still functioning normally; After his death, the museum's collection continued to be expanded. Langlois's mission is to preserve and treasure cinema and to convey the charm of cinema as an art form to the public. Moreover, the museum has received strong support from the state, with the help of many partners and sponsors, such as Chanel. This gives us the opportunity to exhibit or present the precious collections of the Cinémathèque Française around the world. In fact, after the death of Langlois, the French Film Archive received more funding, manpower, space and technical support, and the entire size of the archive became larger.
The Paper: What is the biggest challenge in turning such an institution with a strong personal label of Langlois into a state-owned institution?
Mikajlov: First of all, it's a comb of the collections in the archives. The entire archive houses about 50,000 films from around the world, most of which are film. We are committed to digitizing them all so that these works can be disseminated to the world. The biggest challenge is to preserve these collections intact. This requires a huge amount of financial support. It can only continue with the intervention of the government, especially the process of digitalization.
Another challenge is to continuously enrich the collection, which is also inseparable from space, people and money. We now have several venues in Paris dedicated to films, machines, props and costumes.
The museum is a warehouse dedicated to storing films
Film screenings are all about a specific theme
The Paper: How do you judge what kind of movies or movie-related things are worth collecting and preserving?
Mikajlov: First of all, the increase in the collection depends mainly on donations or purchases. When someone donates, we have a review panel of experts in film history and art history who use their expertise to judge whether a film or object is collectible. For example, someone might donate an older family video, but that might not mean much to the Cinémathèque. Not all surviving video materials are worthy of being collected by the archive, and it is important to know that the cost of preserving video works is actually quite high, so selection is a must. As for posters and other film-related objects, their value is closely related to the popularity of the film, the popularity of the director, and the scarcity, and we will especially examine the scarcity factor in the context of the times.
For example, our archive has hosted a retrospective of Sophie Marceau's films, both as an actress and as a director. The museum gave her a chair to symbolize honor, and there is also a chair with her name on it. Later, Sophie Marceau donated the coat she wore in the film "First Kiss" to thank the archive for enriching our collection. As a costume in a very representative film of the 1980s, it is naturally valuable.
It should be noted that film is not like sculpture, painting, or architecture, which has survived entirely through physical objects. When we're showing a movie, once the machine is turned off, the whole picture disappears. At the end of the day, it is an art form that has no physical form, but it must be preserved with the help of physical objects.
The Paper: So, how often does the French Cinémathèque hold screenings and exhibitions a year? What kind of themes inspire you to curate special exhibitions?
Mikagelov: The museum is open to the public, and about 2,000 films a year are screened, all in the form of retrospectives on a specific theme. For example, in 2014, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, we curated a retrospective of female portraits in Chinese cinema, including "The Goddess", which was filmed in Shanghai in the 1930s, during which more than 30 Chinese films were screened from the 1930s to the present.
There are also some solo film festivals that tend to focus on the career of a director, both living and deceased. This gives the public the opportunity to review each of the filmmakers' works. Sometimes there is also a retrospective of an actor. These are all activities related to film screenings.
Martin Scorsese Film Retrospective Poster, James Cameron Theme Exhibition Poster
Then there are large-scale special exhibitions, which are held about twice a year. For example, the vampire special exhibition will use vampire movies from all over the world to show various images of vampires. Another example is Agnès Varda's special exhibition, which is the first time we have a major exhibition around a well-known female director. There are also exhibitions on the theme of James Cameron, which show his creative process through his personal collection.
View of Agnès Varda's retrospective
The museum's façade pattern was specially designed for Varda's retrospective
The Paper: Many years ago, I bought an eco-friendly bag when I visited the Martin Scorcest exhibition at the French Film Archive, and I still use it regularly. At present, various museums, archives and other cultural institutions in China have also become very important to the development of cultural and creative products. Could you please share the experience of the French Cinémathèque in this regard?
Mikajlov: The eco-bag you mentioned is a good example of developing cultural and creative products around a special exhibition of a well-known director, and I remember that Scorsese himself came to Paris to inaugurate his solo exhibition. The Cinémathèque Française has its own image strategy and has been developing cultural and creative derivatives for almost 20 years. Among the cultural and creative products we have launched, one is the peripheral products developed by the French Film Archive as a brand, such as eco-friendly bags, pens, keychains and so on printed with logos. These cultural and creative products can also play a certain role in promoting the popularity of the museum.
Princess Sissi mug based on the Romy Schneider retrospective
According to the Méliès exhibition area, the eco-friendly bag was launched
French Cinémathèque keychain
There are also products that have been developed based on special exhibitions, screenings and objects from our collections. For example, we printed a T-shirt for Abel Gance's Napoleon, which has just been restored, and it has a beautiful image of light and shadow from a 1927 film. We will also develop some cultural and creative products for sale during the exhibition, such as refrigerator magnets, mugs, and knick-knacks from the Romy Schneider exhibition, and Avatar bookmarks from the James Cameron exhibition.
The development of film-derived cultural and creative products is very important. As I said before, cinema cannot exist in isolation from an entity itself. After watching the exhibition, fans often hope to have some physical objects as a souvenir.
You can't boycott an entire work because of a filmmaker's personal behavior
The Paper: This year marks the 110th anniversary of Marguerite Duras's birth. Chinese audiences know Duras as a writer, but Duras as a director is still relatively new to us. The exhibition and screening of "She in Creation" includes her "Music", how can you better understand the director Duras?
Duras's "Music" is one of the films screened in "She in Creation".
Mikajlov: Marguerite Duras was one of the most important French artists of the 20th century. Her literary work is also one of the most read in the world today. In May of this year, the Cinémathèque Française hosted a major retrospective of Marguerite Duras's filmgraphic work to promote dialogue between different art forms. The format of the retrospective exhibition is similar to the "She in Creation" project curated by Han and Tang Culture, which also combines the exhibition and the screening.
Duras has also made a number of films, some of which are directly adapted from her novels, which are largely about female identity and the quest for freedom. Her filmography is often avant-garde and political. Especially in her second film, "Destruction, She Says," her activism is vividly reflected in the title alone. Thanks to Chanel's support, the Cinémathèque Française has just completed the restoration of this work. In my opinion, this is an important work. It expresses the contemporary vision of a woman who has never ceased to question her own time, and it is necessary for us today to watch or watch this work again.
The Paper: At present, the French film industry is launching an anti-sexual assault campaign, with Gérard Depardieu, Jacques Duvalon, Benoit Jacques, André Techine, Philippe Leore, and Nils Tavergne all accused of misconduct. In the face of such a social movement, what is the attitude of the French Cinémathèque? Will their works be screened in the future?
Mikajlov: First of all, we are not judges, we are not going to judge these people. For example, "Big Nose Love", which is rooted in traditional French literature, was made into a film by director Jean-Paul Lapeno, won the César Award and was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and we will still recognize the achievements of this work itself. We cannot deprive the audience of the right to enjoy such a film. So, we're not going to stop screening the film just because it's Gérard Depardieu. After all, we can't boycott an entire work because of a filmmaker's personal behavior. At the same time, however, we will no longer honor or pay tribute to these filmmakers who are embroiled in the conflict.
The Paper
Editor: Xiang Yanhong