Risk-taking producers at the tail end of a wide-open period of French cinema. Jean-Pierre Rassam lavished money on filmmakers he trusted, and didn’t bother reading scripts. (He also lived a life of true excess, and claimed ties to Saudi bankers and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.) Christian Fechner had to manage a shoot with a star who had just had a heart attack and nobody wanted to insure. And producer and part-time magician Claude Berri was put to the test by Roman Polanski and the sprawling production of Tess.
The 1970s expanded the bounds of the permissible in film. There was an “anything goes” attitude — anything that could make it past the censors. Emmanuelle was emblematic of this new era. Produced by a former advertising director who picked up a lapsed option on the book of the same name, the film relished its 18+ rating and enjoyed a 12-year theatrical run. Many in the establishment looked down on these daring new films, but producers found ways to get them made—occasionally even resorting to the threat of blackmail.
Raymond Danon's hard-nosed, no-nonsense persona concealed a deep love for cinema and a flair for the theatrical. Like Albina du Boisrouvray and Serge Silberman, Danon fought for the projects he loved, knowing that no one really understands why some films hit and others flop. One of few women then producing, Albina du Boisrouvray remembers being dismissed as playing at making films. A close-up view of the working relationship between producer Serge Silberman, writer/director Luis Buñuel, and writer Jean-Claude Carrière on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.
Producers driven by a true passion for film. Mag Bodard was a woman producing films during an almost completely male-dominated era. Her financing challenges included the stereotype that women couldn’t handle money. But she stuck with projects nobody else thought would get made. Jacques Perrin championed the political thriller Z at a time when there was little appetite for serious political films, faking contracts to secure bridge financing. Alexandre Mnouchkine and Georges Dancigers even pitched in with costuming to help get projects they loved made.
“The American Way” refers to studio production, in which producers don’t need to constantly search for financing—and directors don’t necessarily get the final cut, as enshrined in French law. Jacques-Éric Strauss’s introduction to production came when Fox studio head Daryl Zanuck threw the script for The Sicilian Clan on the floor and told him it was the worst thing he’d ever read. (He financed it anyway.) Some adopted American vertical integration methods, producing and distributing while also running labs and cinemas. It was a recipe that sometimes put creative producers and corporate bigwigs at odds.
It takes nerve to forge ahead with a film when you’re broke, but it’s the kind of nerve that led to the production of some of the most successful mid-century French films. The New Wave was partly driven by producers who saw hand-held cameras and cheaper lighting as ways to save money. Breathless was a collaboration between a producer and director who were both dangerously close to bankruptcy. The Sucker went 200 million francs over budget, and producer Robert Dorfmann literally gambled the salaries of crew members to try to win enough to cover his overdrafts. Raoul Levy threatened to tear up his contract with Columbia unless the studio distributed And God created Woman in the US - a film that would turn Brigitte Bardot into a household name overnight.
During WWII, the Nazis seized the operations of any production companies that were dormant for more than six months. And since Jewish producers were unable to work, many lost everything. Robert Dorfmann and Pierre Braunberger hid out together during part of the war. Braunberger wound up interned, as did producer Anatole Dauman. After the war, Braunberger regained possession of his old office and went right back to work. The dawn of the New Wave and the production of Night and Fog—a documentary on the Nazi death camps the French government funded only reluctantly.
It takes a healthy dose of romanticism to try and build a film industry in a country whose economy is in ruins after war, but these producers were up for the challenge. Dissatisfied in Hollywood, brothers Robert and Raymond Hakim returned to France to re-launch their careers. André Paulvé was a grain broker who talked his way into his first production. Alexandre Mnouchkine parlayed fur business cash into a life in cinema. And the larger-than-life cigar-chomping Henry Deutchmeister built himself a faux 18th-century manor—complete with modular edit suites on the grounds.
