Nicolas Ripoche

Nicolas Billon analyzes the success of American popular cinema at the end of the 20th century. Film critics, academics and directors discuss these films that made a mark on audiences in the 1980s and 1990s. "Jaws" was one of the pioneers, and Steven Spielberg later became the benchmark. These films, very diverse, have propelled their main actors, such as Tom Cruise or Arnold Scharzenegger, to the rank of stars. On the technical side, the sometimes abusive use of special effects underlines the technological mutation of cinema. This documentary rehabilitates a number of films sometimes despised by critics by placing them in a historical perspective.

Nicolas Billon analyzes the success of American popular cinema at the end of the 20th century. Film critics, academics and directors discuss these films that made a mark on audiences in the 1980s and 1990s. "Jaws" was one of the pioneers, and Steven Spielberg later became the benchmark. These films, very diverse, have propelled their main actors, such as Tom Cruise or Arnold Scharzenegger, to the rank of stars. On the technical side, the sometimes abusive use of special effects underlines the technological mutation of cinema. This documentary rehabilitates a number of films sometimes despised by critics by placing them in a historical perspective.

An interview with Thelma Schoonmaker Powell about Powell and Pressburger's 1943 film THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP.

An interview with film composer Ennio Morricone discussing his music for Elio Petri's 1970 film INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION.

An overview of the life and work of legendary Japanese filmmaker Kijû Yoshida, a notable figure of the Japanese New Wave.

Director Peter Brook discusses his move from theater to film, his approach to adapting LORD OF THE FLIES, and the film's complicated production history.

An interview with film Critic Bernard Eisenschitz discussing the progression of Ernst Lubitsch's career, from the director's beginning in German silents through CLUNY BROWN, the last film he saw to completion.

Patrick Straumann's commentary "La Maison Fassbinder" is a scientific text and strongly based on French film semiotics as initiated by Christian Metz and thus indebted to structuralism in the tradition of De Saussure until Barthes and Levi-Strauss, searching in literature as well as in film recurrent topics, structural parallels, symmetries, Syntagmatic connections as well as paradigmatic variations.