I have been watching a lot of French films lately. I started by watching Bertrand Tavernier’s My Journey Through French Cinema. It’s over three hours long and is an outstanding overview by a director who knew many of the people he discusses. I started to watch his follow up Journeys Through French Cinema which is over seven hours long but stopped to watch some actual films.

For the most part, I didn’t watch films by the most famous directors such as Truffaut, Godard, Bresson and Renoir since I had seen many of their films. I concentrated on films by lesser known directors like Claude Sautet and Jacques Deray. I am partial to crime films.

I did watch a few films by my favorite French directors. I saw Robert Bresson’s early
Les Dames du bois de Boulogne (1945). This was made before his mature films featuring non-professional actors and has a great performance by Maria Casares. It’s not one of his best films and is conventional compared to his later work but it’s still worth watching.

Then there is Elena and Her Men (1956) by Jean Renoir. The best part is the performance by Ingrid Bergman. Otherwise, it’s an above average story about Elena and her many suitors. It’s in color too unlike most Renoir films.

I enjoyed La Poison directed by Sascha Guitry (1951). It has an unusual sequence showing Guitry thanking his actors. The film is about a husband and wife who despise each other and both plot murdering their spouse. It doesn’t sound like it but it’s actually a comedy. The husband is played by Michel Simon who does a great job of making a despicable character likeable.

All three are available on the Criterion Collection discs which is how I watched them. They always do an outstanding job.