One film Drazin vividly recalls is Le Signe du lion (1959), by director Eric Rohmer, a stark account of an American musician’s fall from grace and fortune in late 1950s Paris. Drazin describes the film as ‘bracingly austere compared to the mainstream British or American films I had previously been used to’. Rohmer, despite tiny budgets, clung to his artistic vision until Ma nuit chez Maud (1969) marked his emergence as a major international film-maker. Rohmer’s story serves as a kind of backdrop to Drazin’s exploration of French cinema:

But what seemed much more interesting to me was the attitude that had got Rohmer to this point, after so many years of struggle, as well as the cultural network that was able to support him when the commercial industry would not.

In his comprehensive book, Drazin, who lectures in film studies at Queen Mary, University of London, takes us through the development of the French film industry as it evolved its own particular style vis-à-vis its American counterpart. Interestingly, differences of attitude in the two countries were evident from the start.  It was the American George Eastman’s Edison Kinetograph camera which first recorded a moving image in 1889; and it was the appearance in Europe two years later of the Edison Kinetoscope, through which the image was viewed, that prompted August and Louis Lumière, both working in the family photographic business, to pursue their own experiments in capturing the moving image. While the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope were heavy and unwieldy, requiring a horse-drawn wagon to move them, the Lumière Cinematograph was not only a superior machine, but also had the advantage of being portable enough to require only one operator. Viewed through a peephole, the early Edison films captured novelty acts such as acrobats, performing animals, and circus artists, whereas the Lumière brothers had created a machine that was capable of developing a new art form. While the early American film industry developed along the lines of showmanship and novelty, the French recorded reality as it happened and drew upon the depth of their culture and traditions.

With the birth of a new industry came the desire to exploit it. Charles Pathé marvelled at the new invention, not so much because of the many wonders and possibilities for artistic growth this extraordinary new medium presented, but because it was potentially lucrative. It was Pathé’s entrepreneurship that established the business structure of the global film industry; he also realised that the American industry, with its vast audiences and budgets, would win the day.

For a time, two opposite models of film-making existed side by side in France. On the one hand was the industry, which developed as a commercial venture seeking to make a box office success from known ingredients, such as a bestselling novel or successful play. On the other was the individual film director, who sought to bring his personal vision to the screen. The gargantuan style of Hollywood film-making made it difficult for the individual or auteur to survive within its studio system; the French industry was more tolerant of both approaches to cinema.

Little known today, Julien Duvivier was once regarded as one of the greatest directors in the world. Graham Greene rated him alongside Fritz Lang. Duvivier believed that what mattered most in film-making was a good subject, be it a new script or an adapted novel. Duvivier prided himself on his professionalism and avoided any suggestion that cinema was art. After a visit to London in 1921, he concluded that the French film industry compared poorly to the English. ‘In England as in America, people realise that the cinema is an industry and not a child’s toy or a dilettante’s hobby.’ Greene’s recommendation for French cinema was an ‘Anglo-Saxon mindset, which means choosing simple, universal subjects’. In Britain years later, when Alexander Korda commissioned him to write a screenplay for director Carol Reed, Greene recalled his admiration for Duvivier. Drazin describes the resultant film, The Fallen Idol (1948), as ‘a near perfect film’. Greene’s next collaboration with Reed, The Third Man (1949), similarly owed much to Duvivier’s inspiration.

Even the most popular French film-makers attracted limited audiences in the United States and Britain. Distribution was restricted to the art house cinemas that had begun to open in the 1920s and 1930s. Increasingly, the two industries – Hollywood and the French – developed their own set of discrete characteristics.

While a general audience went to large circuit cinemas that screened mainstream Hollywood films that had the approval of the Production Code, a specialised audience saw foreign films in small theatres that did not require such approval.

Not until 1957 did the breakthrough occur. The practice of dubbing more commercial films, rather than using subtitles, certainly helped, though it was not just dubbed voices that generated the extraordinary success of Roger Vadim’s film starring his first wife, Brigitte Bardot, And God Created Woman (1956), which stormed the box office and challenged everything that French cinema had previously represented. Here was a genuine mass-audience film that was easily understood, one that offered entertainment rather than art.

By 1993 GATT trade talks negotiators were fighting over the proposed cultural exception for France’s audio-visual industries. There was a feeling in the industry that something had to be done to protect French cinema, which was fast becoming an endangered species. Director Claude Berri emerged as champion for the French industry. The adaptation of Zola’s novel Germinal was intended to be a French blockbuster. With a budget of $30 million, it was the most expensive film to be made in France. Not only were France and America arguing at the GATT talks; they were about to face a battle for film audiences.

‘Germinal is battling with Jurassic Park,’ reported The Daily Telegraph, ‘but must attract five million viewers to break even and to help stop French films from becoming cultural dinosaurs.’ The comment echoed the widespread perception of the French cinema’s essential weakness.

Even allowing for the immense appeal of Audrey Tatou, it would seem that among English speaking audiences French cinema is destined to remain an acquired taste. Hollywood will continue to offer mass entertainment; French cinema will always stand for quality and ambition. ‘Its appeal is that of the timeless over the ephemeral.’