Invention of Cinema
French cinema is a type of cinema referring, of course, to cinema made in France and or by French people. French films were known for their links with art. Many believe that France is the birthplace of cinema because it is where film was invented. The Lumière brothers were the front runners of film industry with their inventions, which was the beginning of projected films, and their films. The Lumière brothers and George Méliès were the front runners . The Lumière brothers invented the cinematographe which allowed multiple people to watch the same film. George Méliès invented and used many techniques of filmmaking that are now commonly used by filmmakers today.
With the start of the First World War, French cinema slowed to a crawl. The Lumiere brothers concentrated on making more documentaries than anything else. This made room for new up and coming French filmmakers such as Charles Pathe who was called the "Napoleon of film" because he produced the majority of films at this time. Filmmaking started to pick up again in the 1920's with filmmakers like Rene Clair and Jean Renoir. Below is a scene from Renoir's The Rules of the Game.
Impressionism
This type of French film is often called The First Avant-Garde or Narrative Avant-Garde. This is very loosely applied to a certain group of filmmakers and their films. This film style never really had any sort of theory to it. Most of the directors of this type of film believe that it is unattainable and all you can do is theorize about theories, reach for but never actually reach. This type of film was about the directors trying to explore how people perceive reality more than the actual reality. Many of the Impressionist directors believed that in photogenie which simply meant that a film cannot be created by just the director, camera, or whoever is working the camera. It takes everyone to effectively produce a film but the poetry of the film would rely solely on the Auteur.
Other Types of French Cinema
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"French Impressionist Cinema -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 09 Oct. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Impressionist_Cinema>.