Gérard Blain

We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.

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A portrait of Gérard Blain, actor and film-maker, an unclassifiable artist, a lard-head and a free spirit. This documentary, packed with eyewitness accounts and archive footage, looks back at his brief career as an actor, his stormy relationship with the Nouvelle Vague and his uncompromising work as a filmmaker. Above all, it paints the portrait of a man with an irreducible character who claims to have always hated adults and their cynicism, ever since his damaged childhood.

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Based upon Vincenzoni's biography, "Pane e cinema", the documentary traces the story of the screen play writer who invented many stories that became blockbusters throughout the world.

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A young woman who has gone over to the wrong side of the law with her new boyfriend begins having second thoughts about both crime and her new romance in this drama. Helene is an attractive 18-year-old who has fallen for Paul, a 25-year-old drifter, and one evening as they're having drinks in a cafe in the North of France, Paul decides to rob the bank across the street. Though wary, Helene agrees to help, and soon the couple is 40,000 francs richer -- and on the run from the law. The two hop a train to Marseilles, but it isn't long before Helene begins to think the robbery was a bad idea -- and isn't certain if her relationship with Paul is such a good thing either. Paul, however, isn't troubled by any second thoughts, and is very certain about his feelings for Helene -- so much so that he forces a priest to marry them at gunpoint. This is only the most recent manifestation of Paul's volatile personality, and rather than binding Helene closer to him, it only drives her farther away.

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François, perpetual rebel against society and its laws, is released after a long imprisonment, and meets up with his family and friends in Lyon. His new love for Maria, a young woman adrift, prompts him to get quick money. François will commit acts of violence that will definitely lose him.

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A "three people relationship" with a pact involving a terrible past. The pact concerns France, Anne and Pierre.

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Martin Becker, a drug addict, journeys to Colombia seeking direct access to supply but vanishes. When his mother Lore is summoned to identify his body, she discovers the corpse isn’t her son, but just someone using his passport. With the aid of adventurous pilot Blain, she uncovers a jungle-backed drug ring where addicts are enslaved by the mafia. Filmed on location in Ecuador, this crime adventure follows their perilous quest for the truth.

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Feckless aspiring architect Stéphane leaves his pregnant girlfriend for theater designer Sabine; Sabine in turn vainly attempts to overcome her violent obsession with an actor in her theater company. A game of emotional chutes and ladders ensues.

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WW2: in an occupied France, a young Jewish girl wants to become a movie star.

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Two would be producers launch a singer's career.

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A tired and alcoholic police investigator has lost his wife to a hotel owner, and former pimp, but befriends a young woman which isn't at all who she claims to be.

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Can a loving relationship of eight years go down the drain because of a single moment of carelessness? Virginie and Laurent have always treasured fidelity, but Laurent's opinions and appetites are starting to shift with the times.

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Two policemen, Franck and Rupert, intervene in a Parisian heliport where drugs are exchanged for a large sum of money. They decide to keep the loot and find themselves fighting with the mafia.

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A woman on the brink of middle age becomes bored and takes up playing cards. She becomes hooked on gambling and begins to neglect her husband and children.

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After getting painfully separated from the woman he loves, Julien leaves his apartment. He goes in search of his old friends but no one is to be found and the city is silent.

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Pierre Lentier murders an 8-year-old in horrendous circumstances. This 30-something solitary factory worker who lives on the edge of society is sentenced to death. A damning indictment of the death penalty and the manipulative behaviour of the media.

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Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

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A talk show presented by Michel Drucker

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Midi Première is a French variety show presented by Danièle Gilbert, directed by Jacques Pierre and broadcast from January 6, 1975 until January 1, 1982 on TF1. The program was generally broadcast between 12:15 p.m. and 12:55 p.m., then giving way to the 1:00 p.m. TV news. However, the broadcast schedule could change, depending on the guests, and the setting where the recording of the program was shot. Certain performances by artists who have become cult like the one where Ringo jostles with a demonstrator in interpretation (1977), that of Dalida with the title There is always a song with the soundtrack that does not start, twice, at the right speed (1978), Claude François and his Clodettes, who, in the provinces, are unable to join "the set" in order to interpret his song, the latter being taken by the crowd of delirious fans (summer 1977) . The group Supertramp performed there with the title "Dreamer" on March 8, 1975.

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Paul has been imprisoned for ten years for passing counterfeit money. He feels victimized enough, both for the prison time and for the crime which led to it; he committed the crime to give his wife the nice things she asked him for. When he discovers that she has remarried a quite wealthy man, he is outraged. However, his ire is not due to her disloyalty to him; he loved their only son to distraction, and now the boy has no knowledge or memory of him.

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Cain has been traveling for a long time throughout Europe. Back "home" he knocks at the door of his parents' trailer only to be rejected by his hateful mother, who once again blames him for his laziness and once again compares him to his brother Abel, a successful businessman and a right guy, good to his parents and stuff. As for his father, now blind and crippled, he escapes his wife by being permanently drunk and he is of no help. In disgust, Cain runs away from the place and contacts Abel, the perfect son, to borrow money from him. But, although Abel tells him he doesn't mind helping him, Cain shoots him down with a gun found in his brother's car.

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A young crook called Joë Caligula and his crew make war on a Parisian gang.

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The wife of a jet-set millionaire takes a holiday in Berlin and poses for racy photographs. These are stolen, a man is killed, and she decamps to the French Riviera with a different photographer, who may also now be in danger.

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A French resistance group free twelve soldiers from a German prison camp, but apparently there's an additional detainee among them suspected of being an enemy spy.

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A husband and wife meet three years after their formal separation, when they return to the provincial town where they once lived to pick up their divorce decree.

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A secret agent works with a scientist to recover documents outlining a new formula to make fuel.

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The love life of an aging architect used to love affairs with call girls, who in the end settles down with a girl of his class but still longs for the life he has led so far, which ends in disillusion.

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Three episodes of varying pitch and quality. In the first a maid plans the elimination of her lover's wife with him, but she doesn't enjoy the fruits of victory. In the second (The patrol) a soldier of the Foreign Legion neglects his duties for running after a prostitute. The third segment has as its protagonist a general of the belle époque that goes on a date.

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A young man who lives on scams and deceptions manages to convince a wealthy industrialist who has come from the province to finance a film. Having received an adequate advance, he begins to lead an expensive life among luxury cars and beautiful women.

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In this romantic drama, a middle-aged gambler tells a casino croupier her life story. The story is told in flashback and chronicles the woman's romantic exploits with men. Though she was involved with many men, only one really touched her heart. He was a bartender who was tragically shot and killed during an attempted robbery. She later marries and has a daughter. Unfortunately she alienates herself from her daughter when she has an affair with her daughter's fiance. Her remorse is short lived. The film jumps back to the present with the woman leaving the casino on the arm of a handsome millionaire.

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Two young men in a village in Sicily raping a girl. In the end, two skilled lawyers will succeed in getting them to complete the trial, but one, who in the meantime has fallen in love with the victim.

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The fiancée of a gangster who has been shot by the police takes an entire police station hostage, armed with a revolver and a bottle of nitroglycerine...

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The story of five girls that lose their virginity.

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An honorable man is murdered because he knew too much about the dreadful deeds of the ruling class who puts gain before any human consideration. A happy family is destroyed by this murder. The son plunges into the heart of the tragedy and finds himself facing a double mission: he must honor his dead father by making his killers pay with their own blood and re-establish family harmony.

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François, perpetual rebel against society and its laws, is released after a long imprisonment, and meets up with his family and friends in Lyon. His new love for Maria, a young woman adrift, prompts him to get quick money. François will commit acts of violence that will definitely lose him.

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Gaspard is a brilliant pupil who makes a clean sweep of all the prizes every year. He despises his family, and do not want to remain a crude peasant like them. Two businessmen, Mister Fereor and Mister Frolichein, want him to work in their factories. The former wins the contest. Gaspard is a young Turk who wants to make his way of life at any cost. He steals ideas from other young men and becomes an occasional informer. He wins his boss over and, as this tycoon has no son, he is adopted by him even though his biological parents are still alive. But unfair competition threatens Fereor's business and Gaspard is forced to marry Frolichein's daughter, Mina.

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Two teenage lovers are caught up in the thrill of forbidden love in this tragic romantic drama. Pierre (Jean-Pierre Andre) is a 16-year-old French lad who loves 14-year-old Djemila (Nadja Reski), the offspring of Algerian immigrants. Pierre's father is an Algerian war veteran who tolerates living with the immigrants at the low-income housing project as long as the two factions are separated. Djemila's older brother carries bitter hatred for the French over their invasion of Algeria. Both young lovers fall victim to the intolerance of their families when their relatives discover that the two are engaged in a passionate love affair.

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After the death of his parents, Pierre is forced to care for his younger sister Nathalie by committing petty crimes. In a recurring motif of Gérard Blain’s cinema, Pierre is taken under the wing of an older gay man, Hubert , who offers him work and financial security; but when Hubert makes advances to him, Pierre robs him and takes up with a group of radical leftists who are planning terrorist attacks. Without employment, Pierre loses Nathalie to child services and spirals into desperation, finally erupting in an act of horrific violence. An x-ray showing the largely undiagnosed sickness of its time, and a stern warning to ours.

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An aging dentist looks for a little liveliness by abandoning his wife in favor of a younger woman. When he learns that his mistress also has another younger lover, he gets jealous, but tries not to make an issue of it. In the end, he dumps her and returns to his wife, who is not about to stand for his middle-aged immaturity. She leaves him.

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Deserted by his father, and dislocated by the Second World War, Paul is a boy who wants affection and attention and cannot find it at home. For a while, he becomes the pet of some German soldiers, running errands for them. Later, he helps the Resistance, and when the Americans come to stay, he is really in his element with them.

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Paul has been imprisoned for ten years for passing counterfeit money. He feels victimized enough, both for the prison time and for the crime which led to it; he committed the crime to give his wife the nice things she asked him for. When he discovers that she has remarried a quite wealthy man, he is outraged. However, his ire is not due to her disloyalty to him; he loved their only son to distraction, and now the boy has no knowledge or memory of him.

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Philippe is an older man and an industrialist whose wife is confined to her bed. They have no children. As he is preparing to go on a vacation to the seaside, he strikes up an acquaintance with Paul, a young working-class boy, and decides to bring him along. This is Paul's first glimpse of how the other half lives, with their first-class hotels and so on. When he meets some aristocratic young people at the resort, he tries to put over the fiction that he is of their class, with poor success.

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