The Postwar French Cinema

Abstract

in a state of chronic crisis for the last thirty years. The industry operates on a very narrow basis in France. In a country where half the population lives in the country or in small villages, there are relatively few motion picture theaters, and attendance is limited. For every Frenchman buying one movie ticket, an Englishman buys five or six, an American eight or ten; moreover, the price of admission is three to five times greater in England and America than it is in France. Before 1914, in spite of its undeveloped home market, France had a quasi-monopoly of international film trade. In 1908, according to George Eastman, founder of the Kodak enterprises, the Pathe Company alone was selling twice as many films in the United States as all the American producers put together. But the young American industry soon dominated its home market, and then eliminated French competition in nearly all foreign countries. In 1920 the big companies in Paris, playing a losing game, liquidated their agencies and studios abroad, and relied on importing American, German, and Swedish films for part of their French revenue.