My Journey Through French Cinema

No, I'm not describing a documentary about MY viewing habits. Rather, it's a 2016 release (201 minutes in length!) where French critic turned director Bertrand Tavernier discusses his history with same:

Yes, I would be the type to be enthralled by a 200 minute documentary from a director whose films I hadn't seen before, and yes I am the type to note that I am the 1,000th person on Letterboxd to give this a rating. Still, I've known of Bertrand Tavernier for years and for even longer that country's cinema had delighted me. Admittedly, things have not been going well for the country of France as of late... and even worse, apparently their film industry has handled the Me, Too Movement in a rather abhorrent fashion. That duly noted, My Journey Through French Cinema was still the rewarding journey.

As the title would suggest, it was a personal journey as it was not a tome which presented the entire history of France and celluloid. Rather, it was how the director discovered cinema as a youth and through the progression of time, various figures inspired him and eventually he became a member of that world after starting off as a critic. Through dialogue and film clips, the viewer will be inspired to seek out many titles, no matter the difficulty in doing so. Quite a few French films have been experienced by me in my life; only some were brought up here and as I haven't even seen anything from the likes of Renoir and precious little from the likes of Jacques Becker, it's quite the world for me to theoretically do a deep dive on one day. Not too many of the motion pictures were spoiled, although two that were happened to be Army of Shadows and Le Trou; you've been warned.

I have seen criticisms that only a small part of the movie is devoted to the French New Wave, and then the majority of that focus is on Godard. While technically true, personally that country's cinema is about much more than just that small moment in time, no matter how influential it was. There are plenty of figures that also deserve attention, a task that this lengthy documentary accomplished. Learning more about the likes of Jean Gabin, Claude Sautet and Maurice Jaubert (among others) satisfied one of my esoteric tastes. Those like me will also be glad they set aside all that time to experience My Journey Through French Cinema.