Hitmen, Hate and Grosse Fatigue: the Search for the French Blockbuster

Abstract

The object of this chapter is to look at the various ways in which the French cinema has responded to its perceived position, after the GATT talks of 1993–4, as the ‘representative’ European film industry and, as a result of this position, ‘responsible’ for the diffusion of European culture in a medium which is still clearly perceived as having cultural influence. The challenge of GATT was received not only by the film industry proper but by all connected with audio-visual media (which is a large constituency), and also by the government, which has found itself implicated in what sometimes seems to be an affair of national pride – to prove that French films can hold their own against the American invader and even that the French industry can respond to Hollywood in Hollywood’s terms and gain access to the enormous American market. The search for the French blockbuster – the film that will impose the French industry on the mass of the national, and international, audience – has certainly taken up much time, and money and newsprint since GATT (and, to a lesser extent, previously).