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L'Accompagnatrice (The Accompanist)
VHS. 1992. 111 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 015
Claude Miller / Romane Borhinger, Elena Safonova,
Richard Borhinger.
Haunting
tale of the love-hate relationship between
a shy, unsophisticated pianist and the charismatic
singer she idolizes is set against the backdrop of
WWII France.
Aimé Césaire: Une Voix pour l'histoire, Part I
VHS. 1994. 54 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 039
Aimé Césaire: Une Voix pour l'histoire, Part II
VHS. 1994. 56 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 040
Aimé Césaire: Une Voix pour l'histoire, Part III
VHS. 1994. 50 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 041
Un Air de Famille (Family Resemblances)
DVD. 1999. 105 mn. French/ English subtitles.
FF 054
Cédric Klapisch
Biting comedy about a dysfunctional family forced
to endure a dinner gathering that results in an
explosion of petty squabbling and verbal jousting.
Astérix (cartoon)
VHS.Secam. FF 044
Astérix et Cléopâtre
(Cartoon.)
VHS. 72 min. French / no subtitles FF 077
Astérix & Obélix
DVD. 1999. 105 mn. French/English subtitles
FF 061
L'Avare (The Miser)
VHS. 115 mn. FF 008
Play by Molière
Le Beau mariage
VHS.
1982. 100 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 020
La Bonne année (Happy New Year)
VHS.
114 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 006
The Bridge (Le Pont)
DVD.
1999. 92 min. French/English subtitles.
FF 068
Gérard Depardieu / Gérard Depardieu,
Carole Bouquet, Charles Berling
Convincing portrayal of the price of adultery.
Depardieu plays a middle-aged laborer whose
beautiful wife falls in love with the engineer of her
husband's latest construction job. Modest yet very
moving, The Bridge is a realistic depiction
of a
relationship torn apart.
Café au Lait
(Métisse)
VHS.
1990. 107 min. French/ English subtitles.
FF 073
Matthieu Kassovitz / Matthieu Kassovitz,
Julie Mauduech
In this audacious comedy an interracial romantic
trio comes to grips with joint parenthood.
A
beautiful,pregnant young West Indian woman has
two lovers, an African Muslim law student and a
Jewish bicycle messenger, who hate one another.
When she refuses to reveal which of them is the
father of her expected child, they are forced to get
along.
Camille Claudel
VHS.
1989.160 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 027
Bruno Nuytten / Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu
Biography of overlooked sculptress Camille
Claudel. After years of living with master sculptor
Auguste Rodin as pupil and lover, Claudel fell into
a paranoid depression when he left her. Her
disapproving family had her
committed to a
mental institution, where she wasted away for the
remaining 30 years of her life.
Les Cent et Une Nuits.
(One Hundred and One Nights)
DVD. 100mn. 1994.
French/English subtitles
FF 049
Agnes Varda
Varda's affectionate tribute to the first 100 years
of the motion picture is a sentimental and
star-studded affair. Michel Piccoli plays
"Monsieur Cinema," a hundred-year-old-man who
hires a pretty young film fan to refresh his fading
memory of the movies made during his life. This
cute contrivance allows Varda to show dozens of
clips from some of the greatest movies of
all time--Nosferatu, The General, L'Atalante,
Citizen Kane, Pickpocket, 8 1/2 and many, many
more. Then there are a multitude of cameo
appearances, with Anouk Aimee, Deneuve,
DeNiro, Leaud, Harrison Ford, Depardieu and many
others stopping by Monsieur Cinema ever so
briefly. Marcello Mastroianni has the longest
cameo, playing the old man's Italian friend.
Chacun cherche son chat
(When the cat's away)
VHS.1997.
91mn. French/English subtitles. FF 022
Cédric Klapisch / Garance Clavel
The missing cat of a beautiful, young French
fashion stylist serves to re-unite a Parisian
neighborhood in this intimate drama which features
the actual residents of the Bastille section of
Paris.
Le Château de ma mère
(My Mother's Castle)
VHS.
1990. 98mn. French/English subtitles. FF 011
Yves Robert
In the companion film to My Father's Glory, a boy
continues his love affair with the wild country of
southern France. Through frequent family visits to
their summer home, he learns to love and
understand his mother's true nature. The
heartfelt conclusion to the story by Marcel Pagnol.
Le Château de ma mère
VHS.
1990.98mn. French, no subtitles. FF
012
La Cité des Enfants Perdus
DVD.
1995. 112 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 025
Jeunet et Caro / Claude Dreyfus
This cross between a children's fairy tale and a
hellish sci-fi nightmare questions the very nature of
dreams, fantasy and the hope of a collective social
fabric. Though heavy with ambition, the fantastic
sets and backdrops, together with superb effects,
animate a truly engrossing cast of characters.
These range from a villainous pair of Siamese twins
to hitmen fleas. Amidst the tumult, children
struggle in a world dominated by crime and perverse
ambitions. Jean-Paul
Gaultier did the costumes.
The Closet
(Le Placard)
DVD. 2000. 85 min. French / English subtitles FF 075
Francis Veber / Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil,
Thierry Lhermitte, Michèle laroque
Warmly engaging comedy that shows how one
little white lie can change everything!
Cyrano de Bergerac
VHS.
1990. 138mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 009
Jean-Paul Rappeneau / Anne Brochet,
Vincent Perez, Gérard Depardieu
Based on the classic play by Rostand in which a
17th century swordsman proves inarticulate only
when it comes to expressing his love for his
cousin Roxanne face to face. Packed with
pageantry, poetry and robust performances.
Le Déclin de l'empire américain
(The Decline of the American Empire)
VHS.
1986. 102 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 019
French Canadian movie.
Delicatessen
VHS.
1991. 95 min. French/ English subtitles.
FF 072
Jeunet et Caro / Dominique Pinon, Laure Dougnac,
Claude Dreyfus.
Imagine the Coen brothers remaking Terry Gilliam's
Brazil on speed and you get the idea of this film,
set in a vaguely post-nuclear Paris. The action
unfolds in a decaying building, where a war breaks
out between a group of innocents, cannibals and
militant vegetarians.
Le Dîner de Cons (the Dinner Game)
DVD.
1998.77 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 060
Francis Veber / Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques
Villeret
A wealthy publisher and his equally prosperous
friends compete in a cruel game in which the
object is to find the sorriest, most obnoxious
guest possible. The impossibly irritating Francois
seems like a sure victory, but as the publisher's
life falls apart, he begins to feel far less superior.
Dr. Petiot
VHS.
1990. 102 min. French/ English subtitles.
FF 071
Christian de Chalonge / Michel Serrault
Macabre tale of a doctor who lured desperate Jews
into a trap. They sought to escape Nazi-
controlled
France, but this doctor tricked them and murdered
them in his own private crematorium and then stole
their belongings. Based on the true story of a
French physician.
The Dreamlife of Angels
(La Vie rêvée des anges)
DVD.1999.
French/English subtitles. FF 055
Erick Zonca / Elodie Bouchez, Natasha Regnier
Two strangers meet at work and quickly become
close friends and roommates. The seemingly more
secure of the pair reveals her devastating
insecurities when she gives herself over to an
unhealthy relationship with a cruelly insensitive
man, bewildering her roommate and leading to
tragic results.
L'Enfant sauvage (The Wild child)
VHS.
1970. 96mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 002
François Truffaut
The Wild Child is based on a remarkable journal,
the 1806 memoirs of a French physician Jean
Itard. The record begins in 1798, when a child is
found living in the forest like an animal. Dr. Itard
sets for himself the task of educating this child
who is totally alien to civilization. Shot in austere
black and white, the film achieves a depth of vision
treating a new love, freedom, the nature of
childhood and childhood's end.
Entre Nous
VHS.
FF 047
The Eternal Return
VHS.
1943. 112mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 004
La Femme de mon pote
(My best friend's girls)
VHS.
1984. 99 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 021
Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask
VHS.1995.
50 mn. English. FF 037
La Gloire de mon père
VHS.
1990. 105mn. French, no subtitles. FF 013
Yves
Robert / Philippe Caubere, Nathalie Roussel
An 11-year-old boy spends an enchanting summer
in the rugged French countryside with his family.
The experience becomes a turning point in his
young life and cements his relationship with his
father. A gorgeous film from the novel by Marcel
Pagnol.
Hate (La Haine)
VHS.
1996. 95 mn. in English FF 062
Mathieu
Kassovitz / Vincent Cassel,
Saïd Taghmaoui
Kassovitz's harsh black-and-white drama of
dispossessed urban youth is an unremitting look
at the violence, unemployment and racial hatred
that divide the young of contemporary France.
Set in a Paris suburb over the course of 24 hours,
the film is remarkable for the verve of its
authentic performances and its gritty, realistic
feel. Shot in black and white.
Hélas pour moi (Oh Woe is Me)
VHS.
1994. 84 min. Color. French
w/English subtitles. FF 018
Jean-Luc Godard / Gérard Depardieu
Fable in which divinity touches everyday life.
Godard transposes to Switzerland the Greek
myth in which Zeus inhabited Amphitryon's body
to seduce a man's wife, with surprising results.
Godardian touches like titles on the screen,
townspeople who function as a theatrical chorus
and music from Bach, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky
make this a cerebral but passionate
exploration of constancy and cinema.
Indochine
VHS.
1992. 156 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 016
Régis
Wargnier / Catherine Deneuve,
Vincent Pérez, Linh Dan Pham
This epic is set during the French occupation of
Southeast Asia in the 1930s. A plantation owner
searches for her adopted
Vietnamese daughter
Camille after the young woman falls in love and
becomes a communist revolutionary.
Jean Cocteau: autobiography
of an unknown
VHS.
1983. 58 mn. English FF 065
Jean Cocteau, one of the 20th century's greatest
eclectic artists, in a definitive portrait completed
from archival film. Cocteau relates his experiences
from earliest childhood through his life as one of
the creative circle in Paris at the turn of the
century. In an intense personal narration, he
describes his family and the inspiration he drew
from his circle of friends including Nijinsky,
Diaghilev, Renoir, Picasso, Satie, Chaplin and
others. A marvelous portrait of a great artist.
La Jetée / Occurence at Owl Creek
VHS.
FF 042
Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games)
VHS.
1952. 102 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 029
René Clément / Georges Pojouly, Brigitte Fossey
Story of two children orphaned by the war who
build a secret cemetery for animals and steal
crosses from the church yard to mark the graves.
Le Joli Mai
VHS.
1962. 180 min. French
w/ English subtitles. Documentary. FF 064
Chris Marker
Paris in May, 1962, the month the Algerian War
came to an end and France was at peace for
the first time since 1939. The first part,
"Prayer from the Top of the Eiffel Tower," is about
personal happiness and ambition; the second,
"The Return of Fantomas," concerned with social
and political issues and the relationships of people
to each other.
Le Jour se Lève (Daybreak)
VHS.
1939. 88 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 030
Marcel Carné / Jean Gabin
A factory worker is barricaded against the police
after a murder. Through a series of flashbacks he
thinks over the events that led him to kill.
Jules et Jim
DVD.1962.105
mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 056
François Truffaut / Henri Serre, Oskar Werner,
Jeanne Moreau
Love story between three friends. Their
free-wheeling friendship is suspended when Jules
marries Catherine and takes her back to Germany.
The two friends are separated by World War I,
and when they meet again after the war, Catherine
changes partners.
Keita: The Heritage of the Griot
VHS.1994.
94mn. Jula &French/English subtitles.
FF 036
L.627
VHS.
1992. 145 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 032
Bertrand Tavernier
The gritty world of Parisian drug culture is revealed
in Tavernier's cinema verité style film. L.627 is the
name of the special undercover drug squadron in
Paris. But Tavernier is not interested in a simple
"take" on the hazardous life of a drug cop. He
explores the rivalries and loyalties, and the
emotional deprivation that becomes a part of a
policeman's life as he struggles to balance truth,
justice and love in an alien urban world.
The Life of Emile Zola
VHS.
1937. 120mn. English. FF 050
William Dieterle / Paul Muni
A penetrating drama and social documentary. The
film documents Zola's struggle as a novelist, his
long friendship with the painter Cezanne
and his impassioned fight against bigotry as
evidenced by his role in the Dreyfuss Case.
Lucky Luke : La
Ballade se Dalton
VHS.
Cartoon. 82 min. French / no subtitles
Set in the American Far-West. The funny
adventures of a lonesome cowboy, dumb bank
robbers and other colorful characters.
Madame Curie
VHS.
1943. 113mn. English. FF 051
Mervin LeRoy / Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon
The celebrated story of the discovery of radium.
Maigret / Le Pacha
VHS.
Secam FF 045
Mama, There's a Man
in your Bed
VHS. 1993. 94 min. French/ English subtitles.
FF 074
Coline Serreau / Daniel
Auteuil, Firmine Richard,
Pierre Vernier, Maxime Leroux
From the creator of Three Men and a Cradle, this
heartwarming film is the story
of an unlikely
romance between a harried CEO and his
financially strapped cleaning woman who is
desperately trying to keep her five children from
going hungry. Writer/director Coline Serreau has
a lot to say about class and color differences in a
world none too tolerant of either.
A Man and a Woman
VHS.
1966.Dubbed in English. FF 052
Claude Lelouch / Jean-Louis Trintignant,
Anouk Aimée
Melodie en sous-sol
VHS.
1963. 118mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 005
Les Misérables
VHS.
1995.175mn. French/English subtitles FF 053
Claude Lelouch / Jean-Paul Belmondo
An illiterate boxer does everything he can, at great
risk to his own life, to save a desperate Jewish
family during the Nazi domination of France.
The Music Teacher
VHS.
100 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 014
Gérard Corbiau / Jose Van Dam,
Joachim Dallyroc, Anne Roussel
Just before World War I a group of opera students
gather to compete to settle a grudge between a
retired opera star and a wealthy patron. Lots of
emotional fireworks.
Nikita
DVD.
117 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 034
Luc Besson / Anne Parillaud, Tchéky Karyo,
Jean-Hughes Anglade, Jeanne Moreau
A stylish punk in which a French street junkie is
arrested and threatened with life imprisonment.
She is then allowed to leave if she agrees to go to
work for the French secret police as an
assassin.
This suspenseful film is highlighted by Besson's
stylishly decorous visual compositions and innate
sense of dramatic pacing.
Overseas
VHS.
1992. 96 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 017
Brigitte Rouan / Nicole Garcia, Rouan,
Marianne Basler, Philippe Galland.
Set in the late 40s, Overseas traces that opposite
fortunes of three wealthy sisters living in French
occupied North Africa at the onset of the Algerian
war.
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
(Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
VHS. 90 mn.
French/English subtitles. FF 007
Une Partie de campagne / La Grande Illusion
VHS.
Secam FF 046
Pierrot le Fou
DVD.
1965. 110 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 031
Jean-Luc Godard / jean-Paul Belmondo
Ferdinand one evening leaves his wife in the middle
of a boring party. He meets a girl with whom he
was in love five years earlier, and who is involved
with a gang of criminals. After Ferdinand finds a
dead man in her room, they leave Paris for a
deserted island. One of Godard's most poetic
films, full of the anguish of love. The final
murder-suicide sequence on the island is one of
the most brilliant Godard has ever created.
Purple Noon (Plein Soleil)
VHS.
118 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 033
René Clément / Alain Delon,
Maurice Ronet
Psychological thriller. A young morally bankrupt
individual is stricken with envy of his best friend.
He murders him and then takes over his identity,
even becoming the lover of his friend's girlfriend.
Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented
Mr. Ripley, Purple Noon is a startling and
disturbing film that elicits audience fascination
with a cunning "anti-hero."
Les 400 Coups ( the 400 Blows)
VHS.
1959. 99 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 028
François Truffaut / jean-Pierre Léaud
One of the landmarks of cinema, which introduced
the character of Antoine Doinel to the world, as the
12-year-old boy left to his
own devices in an
indifferent adult world.
Le Retour de Martin Guerre
DVD.
1982. 123 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 026
Daniel Vigne / Gérard Depardieu,
Nathalie Baye, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu
Dramatization of an extraordinary imposture that
took place in the 16th century and became a
legend; the husband leaves his family and years
later, returns. He re-integrates himself into the
family and community, but then serious doubts
spring up about his identity--is he the real Martin
Guerre?
Ridicule
VHS.
108 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 010
Patrice
Leconte / Charles Berling,
Bernard Giraudeau, Jean Rochefort
Satire of 18th-century French court manners in
the reign of Louis XVI. A young man, in a
noble
quest to save his hometown, becomes torn
between two beautiful women in a triangle of love
and deceipt. A beautifully detailed study of court
life, manners and wit, directed with a sense of
controlled elegance.
La Ronde
VHS.
1950. 92mn. French/English subtitles. FF 001
Max Ophuls / Simone Signoret
Love as a bitterly comic merry-go-round. A young
whore involved with a young soldier who leaves her,
setting off a chain of affairs and partners that ends
with her again. Based on the play "Reigen" by
Arthur Schnitzler.
Les Roseaux Sauvages
(Wild Reeds)
DVD.
1994. 110 mn. French/English subtitles
FF 048
André Téchiné / Elodie Bouchez
In 1962, a group of teenagers confront emotional,
sexual and political turmoil provoked by both their
own personal lives and the larger social framework
of a small provincial town affected by the
French-Algerian War. This engaging, elegaic film
captures both the fleeting nature of youth and the
profound turmoil of this intriguing stage of life.
Rouch in Reverse.
VHS.
1995. 51mn. French&English
w/ English subtitles. FF 038
Le Salaire de la peur
(The wages of fear)
VHS.
1952. 148mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 003
Henri-Georges Clouzot / Yves Montand,
Charles Vanel
An exercise in terror and suspense.
Uncertain comrades--trapped in a South American
village--who identify because they are both French
and both penniless. Desperate for a job, they
agree to drive two trucks filled with nitroglycerine
300 miles over treacherous roads. Basil Wright
called
this film "the
greatest suspense thriller of
all time; it is the suspense not of mystery but of
Damocles' sword."
La Sentinelle
DVD.1992.
128 min. French/English subtitles.
FF 069
Arnaud Desplechin / Emmanuel Salinger,
Thibault de Montalembert, Jean-Louis Richard
A medical intern is drawn into a morbid mystery
after he finds a mummified human head in his
luggage. Choosing to investigate the matter on his
own, he discovers a world of international intrigue
and becomes the target of the French Secret
Service.
A Single Girl (Une fille seule)
DVD.1996.
90 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 058
Benoit Jacquot / Virginie Ledoyen, Benoit Magimel
This intimate drama shows a day in the life of a
young Parisian woman named Valerie. Before her
first day at work as a room service waitress at a
four-star hotel, Valerie reveals to her boyfriend
Remi that she is four weeks pregnant. Shot in
real time, we follow Valerie around as she
meditates on the paths of human nature she
crosses, sometimes comic, sometimes hostile,
which lead her to make important decisions about
her future.
Small Change (L'Argent de poche).
DVD.1976.
95 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 057
François Truffaut
Small Change presents the viewer with ten boys
and girls whose adventures illustrate the different
stages of passage from early childhood to
adolescence. Some episodes are funny, some
serious, some sheer fantasy. Together they
animate the notion that childhood is often perilous
but also full of grace.
Story of Women (Une Histoire de femmes)
VHS.
1988. 110 mn. French/English subtitles.
FF 066
Calude Chabrol / Isabelle Huppert
Based on the true story of the last woman to be
guillotined in France, at the onset of WWII. A
wife-abortionist, despite the
compromises she
makes for the sake of a "better" life, is redeemed
as a true individual at the end.
Subway
DVD.
104 mn. French/English subtitles. FF 063
Luc Besson / Isabelle Adjani, Christophe Lambert,
Richard Borhinger, Jean-Hughes Anglade
Besson's stylish, neo-punkish thriller takes its
place in the subterranean corners of the Paris
subway, as Fred, a casual thief and cool rebel,
is on the run. Underground, he encounters a motley
collection of subway
denizens; a huge European
hit, and an intriguing underworld journey.
Time Regained (Le Temps Retrouvé)
DVD.
1999.158 min. French/English subtitles
FF 067
Raul Ruiz / Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich,
Vincent Perez, Emmanuelle Beart.
Based on the final volume of Marcel Proust's
Remembrance of Things. The line between fiction
and reality blurs as the author's life and work are
intertwined in a story of Parisian society and its
intricate layers of emotion and memory.
Tintin en Amérique
VHS. 30 min. French / no subtitles
FF 078
Cartoon.
Tintin: Le Lotus Bleu/Les Cigares du pharaon
VHS.
FF 043
Tintin: Le Sceptre d'Ottokar
VHS.
60 mn. FF 024
Vagabond
DVD.
1985. 105 min. French/English subtitles
FF 070
Ma vie en rose
VHS.1997.
89mn. French/English subtitles. FF 023
La Vie est belle (Life is rosy)
VHS.
1987. 85mn. French/English subtitles. FF 035
Les Visiteurs 1 / Les Visiteurs 2
DVD.
1993. 90 mn / 1998. 120 mn. French
w/ English subtitles FF 059
The Widow of
Saint-Pierre
(La Veuve de Saint-Pierre)
DVD. 1997. French / English or French subtitles
FF 076
Patrice Leconte / Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil,
Emir Kusturica
While a guillotine and an executioner are sent from
France, a convict sentenced to death on the
isolated island of Saint-Pierre strives to better
himself in the eyes of the police chief's beautiful
wife...
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