French films on Alevelfrench.com

Over the last few months I've been sifting through Amazon, Imdb and Allocinema trying to come up with the best possible offering of films for www.alevelfrench.com

We've finally come up with a formula two Truffaut films, les 400 coups and La nuit américaine.   Les 400 coups is still so incredibly fresh in many ways and the black is white is so colourful!    I just love the story within a story format of La nuit americaine which reminds me of Wagon's East which was finished off despite the death of John Candy.  Either or both of these films repays study enormously.

Alevelfrench.com/home is also the home of the Claude Berri films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources which really do need to both be viewed even if one is studying them both.   There's an element of Thomas Hardy tragedy in these Pagnol written stories-Thomas Hardy but with sunshine.   The haunting melodies with the harsh but beautiful landscapes are still a treasure so many years on.  We now have the recent fille du puisatier to tempt us as well.

The third two are from Louis Malle.  I first saw Lacombe Lucien in my first week or two at York uni and had only seen it again once.  This tale of a young peasant lad drawn unwittingly into becoming a gestapo collaborator is very thought provoking.  It was such a pleasure to revisit it and I'm sure people who have been doing Au revoir les enfants would appreciate a change with the resources on alevelfrench.com    With all the drama of the Arab spring  I decided that Milou en mai would make an an excellent second Malle film.  A little risqué in parts perhaps but this multilayered film is a masterpeace with a family tragedy playing out with the background of the mai 68 riots.   

Independent learning is often talked about but not so often practised.   With alevelfrench.com you can do a mixture of literature and language in your class without worrying about students not having enough support.  L'étranger, Un Sac de billes, Kiffe Kiffe Demain, Bonjour Tristesse, Le silence de la mer, Les petits enfants du siècle and No et moi have the same or similar exercises to the films with the same grammar covered in context.  

Reading fiction improves empathy

An article in today's Guardian newspaper reports research claiming to prove that reading a novel improves empathy.  Go to Guardian article   How does this differ from watching a film?    We are outside the goldfish bowl looking in when we watch a film.   When we read a novel we are or become the  person in the novel which maybe explains why intellectual men often cite L'étranger  (http://www.letranger.co.uk/) as the novel that influenced them most (or the stranger/outsider) and women quote Jane Eyre. 

In Kiffe Kiffe Demain (http://www.kiffekiffedemain.co.uk/ ) we join Doria in going from darkness to light in a Bildungsroman with a difference.   We share her cynicism for life in France before gradually coming to realize that actually it is doing its best to make life better for people.

In Bonjour Tristesse (http://www.bonjourtristesse.co.uk/)  we initially side with the narrator but gradually begin to recoil in horror from what she is doing to the people around her, with the dénouement leaving a nasty taste in our mouths.

In un sac de billes (http://www.unsacdebilles.co.uk/) we are the grown up parent looking back to our childhood and going back over the dangers and excitement of the second world war quickly losing our innocence.    Narrating from the perspective of many years distance with an adults wisdom demonstrates a different kind of empathy.   We are empathizing with the adult empathizing with the child he once was.  

Which ever book if it is good we immerse ourselves in the character and hence in the culture, looking outwards from the goldfish bowl.   However good a film maker is achieving empathy is never easy although Truffaut and some others have had a jolly good try.

Literary tours via Streetview

Reading is essentially a journey inside the head of the narrator, primarily.   This is where, to my mind, a novel scores over the film.   However where curiosity is aroused about the novel after a while you start to wonder what that patchily described environment is like particuarly in the case of a foreign book where you may not have visited the country.   So for instance in the case of Kiffe Kiffe demain (see resources under www.kiffekiffedemain.co.uk ) you can easily visit Livry-Gargan the town in which the novel takes place.   Just go to www.google.co.uk/maps and type in the town name.  Pull the little orange man on the zoom tool onto a blue lined street to go into Streetview mode.

Similarly for Un sac de billes (www.unsacdebilles.co.uk ) you can visit the bridge in Aire sur Adour or the various places in Nice or Menton ... an excellent way of going from the internal to external exploration.

Entre les murs

Entre les murs by François Bégaudeau is the French collège in a multicultural setting through the eyes of the teacher and related in a first person, stream of consciousness style.     Punctuated with disgruntled Dico's request to change form tutor (prof principal) and the vagaries of the staffroom photocopier the book, I hesitate to call it a novel, takes us through the school year with brevet blanc, conseil de classe, ramadan, African football cup, options choices for moving onto either bac général or bac pro all coming up for discussion.   I guess the real subject underlying the whole book is the battered and bruised French language which the teacher who teaches French is trying to get across to a disparate bunch of learners some of whom like Ming recently arrived from China are very intelligent but not going to make it soon enough.    The narrator's efforts to maintain distance from the kids themselves is valiantly upheld with his blanket refusal to be tutoyed although his own language to them sometimes appears to invite it.  Would he get a satisfactory in an English inspection-I don't think so.

I think selected parts of the book would be very useful to study particularly regarding options choices and maybe use of language.   It's an interesting way maybe also of looking at the difference between the spoken and the written language with the attitude towards verlan being covered well.    The accompanying film shows the whole situation with similar veracity.

I guess those people studying Kiffe Kiffe demain (see French A level resources at www.kiffekiffedemain.co.uk ) and even Les petits enfants du siècle (www.alevelfrench.com/home) at A2 and also during the éducation topic at AS would get a lot out of selected extracts of the the book.   Has anyone tried it?

Les émeutes

There has been much talk about poverty and poor parenting being the cause of the riots in London and other cities in the UK but how often do we truly get to find out what it feels like to be on the receiving end of grinding poverty and parenting which takes place in an environment of low paid degrading work.  Faïza Guène's low key but compelling Kiffe Kiffe Demain (see alevelfrench.com resources at www.kiffekiffedemain.com ) really rubs in our face the humiliation that those on the receiving end of state handouts and charity feel.   Guène reserves a particular contempt for those who give to charity so that they can really rub this in the faces of the recipients.    Doria, Guène's heroine lets her adolescence run its course and she finally comes to see that love will help her face most of life's battles and that actually, although humiliating, the welfare state's assistance was very helpful particularly to her mother.

The feminine side of the banlieue issues is a welcome contrast with the more aggressive masculine side seen through films such as La haine.

French literature titles

Recent events such as the riots in the UK only last week make one realize the importance of literature with concepts like the notion of responsability for crime or  evil deeds being the central point of say L'étranger or Bonjour Tristesse.  In L'étranger (see French language resources on www.l'etranger.co.uk ) Camus constructs a character who is inexorably drawn towards an action he has no wish to commit for which in his own eyes he is not responsible and does not feel particularly linked to.  In society's eyes of course it's a different matter with the prosecution making the value judgements about Meursault's background and acquaintances which a more traditional society will always make.   This has been only too evident in the aftermath of the riots.

The selfishness of young individuals, interested in their own short term sensual needs, also much mentioned as a result of the riots is central to Bonjour Tristesse (see French language resources at www.bonjourtristesse.co.uk ).  Cécile despite admiring her mentor and her father's future wife comes up with an elaborate scheme which culminates in a sequence of events which results in a dramatic and undesired conclusion-this goes back to the early 1950's.    Despite the apocalytic statements about society we can at least say that literature helps us to get inside the mind of 3rd parties so we can consider actions, causes and consequences.   The fact that we are going inside the protagonists' heads is an additional benefit-something cinema can only match very weakly-so despite some of these titles being half a century old the universality of literature holds good.

Get along to www.alevelfrench.com to find out more about the literature titles on offer and the new A*ttitudes AS level course.  

Revisions to alevelfrench.com

Some fantastic comments on the resources on www.alevelfrench.com which have been very motivating.  The materials for literature www.unsacdebilles.co.uk particularly were described by a teacher as the best he had seen in forty years of teaching.  Another described www.letranger.co.uk materials as being the best she had seen in thirty years of teaching literature-so we must be headed in the right direction.  Not wishing to stand on our laurels we decided to set ourselves the target of completing the following extras for a phase 2:-

• full markschemes
• reading/teacher guide
• questions in French
• Taskmagic exercises

This is now largely complete as we speak on the 6th July 2011 so teachers wishing to teach the eight literature titles can head off for a good holiday knowing that they have a body of materials they can use on their return to school.

We are always looking for extra materials to motivate our students and Un sac de billes has now had a bande dessinée (the second) written based on it; the first volume of two is now ready and available from the French amazon or from www.alevelfrench.com

Interesting to see that the French Culturthèque has just featured No et Moi and Kiffe Kiffe Demain on its site although not much is said.

Well the big event this week is undoubtedly the Language World Conference at Imperial College London where I shall be speaking about A*ttitudes the new AS level course.   I don't yet know how many people will be attending but hope to get some valuable feedback to take the product forward.