During the German Occupation (1940-1944), French filmmakers struggled to create works uncompromised by economic limits and censorship imposed by the Vichy government. Remarkably, not only did many films succeed, but the best subtly supported resistance. The era saw important works by established filmmakers such as Jean Grémillon, Claude Autant-Lara and Marcel L'Herbier, but perhaps more significantly the first works of Jacques Becker, Henri-Georges Clouzot and Robert Bresson (see his classic PICKPOCKET, p. 13).

AFI Silver wishes to thank Sarah Finklea, Janus Film (New York); Gaumont (Paris); and especially Roland Celette and Estelle Carpentier of the French Embassy in Washington, DC, for making this series possible. The series is presented courtesy of Le Bureau du Cinéma, Ministère des Affaires Ètrangéres, Paris. We are grateful to Marie Bonnel, film officer of the French Consulate in New York, for organizing the tour.

Film director/historian Bertrand Tavernier, who appeared at the AFI Silver earlier this year, curated this provocative series. LAISSEZ PASSER (SAFE CONDUCT), his masterpiece about filmmakers under the Occupation, will play at La Maison Française (www.la-maison-francaise.org).

All films in this series are in French with English subtitles and are UNRATED.

AFI Member Passes will be accepted at all screenings in the Under the Occupation series.

THE RAVEN
[Le corbeau]

Mysterious poison-pen letters begin to plague the residents of a small town, alleging crimes against the recipients. These notes are signed only "Le Corbeau" (The Raven), and no one knows who the author is. But the townspeople prove all too ready to accuse one another. Clouzot's controversial classic (the film was banned for two years after the Liberation, Clouzot for four) "is as brilliantly nasty as THE WAGES OF FEAR and DIABOLIQUE or indeed anything this misanthropic filmmaker ever did."--J. Hoberman, Village Voice.

DIR Henri-Georges Clouzot; SCR Louis Chavance; PROD René Montis and Raoul Ploquin. 1943, b&w, 93 min.
NOTE: TRT for LE CORBEAU is 93 minutes, NOT the 195 minutes incorrectly listed in AFI Preview.

STORMY WATERS
[Remorques]

Tugboat captain Jean Gabin rescues mysterious Michele Morgan from a sinking ship and succumbs to her wiles, while his invalid wife, Madeleine Renaud, pines at home. A work of passion from the underappreciated Grémillon, the film was a big hit in wartime France, reuniting the stars (and screenwriter Jacques Prévert) of the 1930s classic QUAI DES BRUMES. Expats during the Occupation, Gabin and Morgan wouldn't appear on French screens again until after the Liberation.

DIR Jean Grémillon; SCR Roger Vercel, Jacques Prévert and André Cayatte. 1941, b&w, 81 min.

IT HAPPENED AT THE INN
[Goupi mains rouges]

"Jacques Becker's first masterpiece"-- Bertrand Tavernier. A murder causes the usually feuding Goupis, a rural clan of ne'er-do-wells, to close ranks on the suspect--a citified cousin recently returned to the family seat.

DIR Jacques Becker; SCR Pierre Véry. 1943, b&w, 104 min.

DOUCE

Paris, 1887: Sexual intrigue upsets the division between master and servant in the household of the Comtesse de Bonafé (Marguerite Moreno). Autant-Lara's masterpiece draws comparisons to THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and DANGEROUS LIAISONS in charting the decline of a family, and the end of an era. This print restores a sequence in which the Comtesse pays a Christmas visit to a poorhouse, counseling "patience and resignation," cut by the Vichy government's censors as "anti-French."

DIR Claude Autant-Lara; SCR Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, from the novel by Michel Davet; PROD Pierre Guerlais. 1943, b&w, 104 min.

CHILDREN OF PARADISE
[Les enfants du paradis]

This super-production involved constructing the Boulevard de Crime on the Riviera. "The GONE WITH THE WIND of the art film"-- Andrew Sarris. The film's release was purposely delayed until the Liberation. The setting is Paris, 1840. On the Boulevard, woman of mystery Arletty dallies with the great mime Baptiste Deburau (Jean- Louis Barrault), the legendary actor Frédérick Lemaître (Pierre Brasseur) and the criminal Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand)--all real people.

DIR Marcel Carné; SCR Jacques Prévert; PROD Raymond Borderie and Fred Orain. 1945, b&w, 195 min.

FANTASTIC NIGHT
[La nuit fantastique]

Spurned by his girlfriend, student Fernand Gravey finds his dreams haunted by a mysterious woman in white--the luminous Micheline Presle--whom he follows into a delirious nocturnal exploration of Paris. The whimsical NUIT FANTASTIQUE allowed silent-era master L'Herbier to indulge his taste for elaborate set design, playful camera movements and experimental optical effects.

DIR Marcel L'Herbier; SCR Louis Chavance, Maurice Henry and Marcel L'Herbier. 1942, b&w, 103 min.