Sofia Coppola’s cult classic “Marie Antoinette” and three works by Louis Daquin, a champion of the Communist Resistance during the German occupation, are among the latest restored works from French studio Pathé.
The company, whose owners Jérôme Seydoux and Sophie Seydoux are being honored at the Lumière Film Festival’s International Classic Film Market (MIFC) in Lyon, is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year, which also marks the 20th anniversary of the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Fondation.
A bastion of film preservation and the continued transmission of heritage works, Pathé has also been a strong supporter of the Lumière Festival since its establishment in 2009.
The studio is currently marking the 20th anniversary of Coppola’s film with the release of a newly restored 4K version on Nov. 25.
The film, which stars Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, comes just in time for the recently announced special exhibition at the Chateau de Versailles dedicated to the movie.
The 4K restoration is being supervised by Sony Pictures Entertainment in collaboration with American Zoetrope. It follows the late Eleanor Coppola’s new documentary on her daughter’s film, “Making Marie Antoinette.”
Pathé is also celebrating the work of Daquin, described by the Lumière Festival as “a unique figure in French cinema, for whom filmmaking and political commitment were one and the same. A member of the Resistance, a staunch communist and union activist heavily involved in defending film industry workers, he considered his craft to be an extension of his convictions.”
Part of a special Lumière Festival showcase, Daquin’s works include his 1941 film “Nous les gosses”(“Portrait of Innocence”), the story of a close-knit group of schoolchildren that can be read as a veiled call for resistance. The fest is presenting the film in its restored 2K version.
Likewise screening is 1960’s “The Opportunists” (“Les Arrivistes”), an adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s book “La Rabouilleuse” (known in English as “The Black Sheep” and “The Two Brothers”); set during the Restoration, it follows a former officer of Napoleon whose greed knows no bounds.
The Lumière Festival will present the film in its restored 4K version.
Also in the Pathé catalogue is the 4K restoration of Daquin’s 1944 drama “Premier de Cordée” (“First in Line”). Filmed primarily on location in the Chamonix Valley, “Premier de Cordée” represented a remarkable technical achievement during the German occupation of France, Pathé notes.
“Directed by a filmmaker involved in the Resistance, the film tells the story of a young man who must overcome his fear of heights to become a mountain guide. Its themes of struggle, perseverance and self-transcendence resonated strongly with audiences in occupied France.”
Pathé describes the Daquin showcase as “an opportunity to rediscover a filmmaker who captured working-class France, made films under the very nose of the occupying forces, and helped shape the institutions of post-war French cinema.
“Louis Daquin’s career was extraordinary. He directed several feature films during the German occupation while actively involved in the Communist Resistance. His films from this period bear the mark of this paradoxal situation: a left-wing filmmaker, involved in the Resistance, working under the constraints of a fascist regime.”
Speaking at the Pathé Bellecour theater in Lyon during the Classic Film Market on Friday, Jérôme Seydoux, chairman of Pathé, and Sophie Seydoux, president of the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Fondation, discussed a wide range of pressing issues, from their efforts to preserve, conserve and transmit the company’s century-long heritage to the resilience of cinema, the undeniable power of blockbusters, and the importance of education in cultivating a lasting passion for cinema among young people.
Pathé has produced such recent upscale blockbusters as “De Gaulle: Résistance,” “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Three Musketeers – Part I: D’Artagnan” — the kinds of films that are necessary to keep cinema alive, according to Jérôme Seydoux.
“It is essential that there are films that are called locomotives in France, which Americans call blockbusters. .We at Pathé said to ourselves that we are not going to make cars, we are going to make locomotives. But it’s difficult. It’s difficult because these are obviously bigger risks. These are often bigger budgets. So, you can’t make too many mistakes.”
Citing a motto from filmmaker Claude Berri, Jérôme Seydoux added, “When making a film, what matters is not what it costs, it’s what it brings in.”
Expressing his confidence in the survival of cinema, the Pathé chairman argued that despite recurring economic crises, technological shifts and the rise of home viewing, people would always seek the shared emotional experience of the big screen.
“That cinema is something that would disappear has been said since the Lumière Brothers. The Lumière Brothers, Jean-Pierre Melville, the head of Netflix, and more recently, Sylvester Stallone have announced that the cinema does not exist anymore.
“Cinema will resist, no matter what happens,” he stressed. “Cinema has always had crises. There will always be cinema, there will always be crises. And why will there always be cinema? Because today, in a society where people are very individualistic, they still have, at some point, the need to come together, to share emotions together. I am an absolutely unshakeable believer in the survival of cinema.”
Cinema will not only resist the dominance of U.S. streamers in France, it is sure to become a significant venue for platforms to launch their productions, Jérôme Seydoux added. The U.S. streamers are also natural partners for Pathé, he stressed.
“Today in France, the two main networks for the French are YouTube and Netflix. So these are two American companies. And we are going to work almost automatically with people who have money. The people who have money are the platforms. So yes, we will definitely work with the platforms. It’s mandatory.”
At the same time, Netflix will increasingly release films in theaters, he predicted. “I think they will discover that they need, what I call high fashion. When you are in the media business, you need something that shines.” For that reason, “in a short time, in a few years Netflix will make movies that will be released in theaters.”
“Not just because of the talents involved, but also for commercial reasons, for reasons that if you want to do something that is truly an event, it is difficult to make an event only on television. It will always be an event whose notoriety will be lower than that of a major film event.”
Turning to the company’s film preservation efforts and the use of digital technology, Sophie Seydoux stressed the importance of maintaining film on film.
“I am an unconditional supporter of what is called a conservation shoot, meaning that once we have restored a film, digitized it, it goes back to film. We know from here at the Lumière Festival, everywhere in the world, film is preserved for 120 years in an absolutely remarkable way. Currently, for everything that is digital, we do not know the preservation time. And above all, there are a lot of elements that can disappear overnight due to a change in technology. So, we need to be very, very careful.
“At Pathé, it’s really a golden rule. We reprint on film for all the restorations we do. There is never the slightest shadow of hesitation about it.”
Sophie Seydoux also underscored the importance of education and exposing children to films from an early age to cultivate a lasting passion for cinema. The Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation conducts specialized educational workshops centered around silent films.
“It is very, very, very important to show young people films from early childhood because it will give them this desire to continue to see films,” she said. “At the Foundation we have a very, very important educational program that is focused on silent films, since that is our specialty. We teach them what film is, we let them handle film. Handling is something that is very important.
“[Company founder] Charles Pathé was very attached to everything that was manipulation. He thought about it when he built a camera, about the cameraman’s gestures, how it should be done, how it could be improved. And manipulation is very important, so many of our workshops for children involve hands-on activities.”
