Heritage and creation on the go
The concept of national heritage has extended over time: at present, it includes nature, buildings, industry, local and intangible features. Directly or at a distance, the State manages or protects this rich shared capital.
The attachment of the French to their heritage is as much a civic virtue as an affective one. During the Heritage Days, the twelve million visitors head first for the buildings of government: the Elysée Palace, the National Assembly, and the Senate. But the French, via a plethora of charities, also cherish the heritage that was “built by them for them”, washing-places, chapels, village squares, thousands of private and public buildings, not to mention the eco-museums that display local working traditions. The treasures produced by the skills of French craft workers over five centuries, the cabinet-makers, upholsterers, embroiderers, goldsmiths, ceramics artists, glassworkers, already had their museum in a wing of the Louvre, the Museum of Decorative Arts. It has now been superbly renovated. Indeed, many industrial heritage sites have been turned into arts facilities: the Piscine, a sumptuous Art Deco municipal swimming pool in Roubaix, houses the Museum of Art and Industry; and a former biscuit factory in Nantes, where France’s well-loved “petit beurre LU” was made, is now the Lieu Unique theatre.
Read more: Two new World Heritage sites
The new major projects in Paris have been designed by established architects: Jean Nouvel (Quai Branly museum), Christian de Portzamparc (Cité de la Musique), Henry Gaudin (Stade Charléty). And now a new generation is being revealed and stimulated by open tender. They often work in the provinces, examples being Manuelle Gontrand and Marc Barani. The Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, which opened in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris in 2007, is said to be the largest in the world and bears witness to the continuing vitality of builders in France from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.
Encounters with the various types of creative art are now manifold. Whatever Malraux might think, the arts are now consumer objects: seven million admissions a year to the Louvre, which has now dethroned the Eiffel Tower, five million to the Pompidou Centre, three million to the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie. France hosts literally hundreds of festivals: “institutions” like the Francofolies in La Rochelle, the Printemps de Bourges, the Vieilles Charrues in Brittany, the Eurockéennes in Belfort for music, Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan for photo-journalism, and the Cinéma des Trois Continents in Nantes. And jazz festivals in Marciac, Vienne, Juan-les-Pins and elsewhere.
These new places for culture seek multi-disciplinary opening to all forms of artistic expression. Examples are the Channel, a national theatre in the former abattoirs in Calais, and the ultramodern Quai in Angers, which both opened in 2007. The Studio National des Arts at Le Fresnoy, near Tourcoing, a study and production centre, combines audiovisual expression of every type, traditional and digital.
The performing arts are served by an increasing number of theatres all over France. Drama suffers to some extent from young people’s attraction for other types of show. But production continues in the subsidised and supported private sectors. The major directors remain Patrice Chéreau, Jean-Pierre Vincent and Ariane Mnouchkine. The plays often present a world of darkness, so dark that some of the audience protested at the Avignon Festival in 2005. This festival created by Jean Vilar in 1947 continues to be the focus of innovative productions, some of them recognised, and many of them controversial. The 2007 season brought audiences and critics the work of Julie Brochen (L’Échange by Paul Claudel), Frédéric Fisbach (Feuillets d’Hypnos by René Char), Krzysztof Warlikowski from Poland and Romeo Castellucci from Italy.
Street theatre is produced by hundreds of companies, and circus has been spectacularly revived since the 1980s, when two schools opened, the aided private Académie Fratellini and the public Centre Supérieur des Arts du Cirque, at Châlons-en-Champagne. A special place in this inventory must go to Bartabas: his Zingaro troupe has toured France and the world with their dreamlike equestrian operas (most recent, Battuta). His Academy of the Equestrian Arts has been given splendid quarters in the Grand Stables of the Palace of Versailles.
Classical music, opera and lyric art are moving out of their relative isolation. The Salle Pleyel concert hall re-opened in 2007. An auditorium is being built at the Cité de la Musique at La Villette. In 1995, the Folle Journée in Nantes sought to “desacralise the classical concert”. By 2007 the success was such that this “mad day” had become a week, with over 110,000 people attending two hundred concerts. Aix-en-Provence has just opened its new Grand Théâtre Lyrique.
At the Paris Opera, where the young stars are Kader Belarbi, Aurélie Dupont and Nicolas Le Riche, the repertory has been opened up to choreographers from abroad who like working in France (Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, Lucinda Childs). The nineteen national dance centres have extended the taste for contemporary dance to audiences who appreciate Régine Chopinot, Mathilde Monnier, Philippe Decouflé and Angelin Preljocaj. Blanca Li innovates with each new ballet, drawing her inspiration from a wide range of repertories, including hip-hop, a discipline that is increasingly recognised.
5 national theatres: Comédie Française, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Théâtre de la Colline, Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Théâtre National de Strasbourg; 38 national and regional drama centres; 69 national theatre venues.
The French love cinema, and the great social event of the year is still the Cannes Film Festival. In Paris, the fans who throng the capital’s many art houses have seen the mythical Cinémathèque move with the BIFI (BIbliothèque du FIlm) to new premises in Bercy.
The French government subsidises the film and broadcasting industries. The national cinema centre (CNC) makes grants for creation, production and distribution (in the form of box-office advances) and also the preservation and restoration of films. Year in year out since 2001, French production has been around two hundred films, of which at least three-quarters originate in France. The highlight was 2006, when their market share overtook American films. Following on from Gérard Depardieu and Juliette Binoche, the new faces are Louis Garel, Romain Duris, Jeanne Balibar, Emmanuelle Devos and Marina Hands, the heroine of Pascale Ferran’s Lady Chatterley. A special mention is due to animated film, which has profited from years of subsidy. These productions are particularly appreciated outside France, as far as Japan. Examples are Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Sorceress and Azur Asmar: the Princes’ Quest, Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Minimoys and Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis.
Paris is often called the “capital of photography”, since there are so many events devoted to this art. The Maison de la Photographie continues to flourish, and the Jeu de Paume, in the Tuileries gardens, re-opened in 2004 and is now devoted to photographs. The Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles are a major annual event.
Books, too, have their special events. After the Salon du Livre in spring, the rentrée littéraire in the autumn is the busiest time of the publishing year: more than 600 works of fiction come out and the big prizes are awarded - the Goncourt, the Renaudot and the Fémina.
Book-lovers are also catered to by the Etonnants Voyageurs travel book spring festival in the former pirate port of Saint-Malo, and the national Lire en Fête promoted by the Ministry of Culture.
Second-hand booksellers in Lille © MAEE/ F. de La Mure
Resale price maintenance for books, a feature of the French market introduced by the Lang law, whereby publishers set the price, has helped to maintain a fabric of independent bookshops that find off-beat writers for their customers. How long can this system stand up to e-commerce and competition from major supermarkets? Who are the successors to Sartre, Gide and Camus? Le Clézio and Yves Bonnefoy, both touted for the Nobel prize? Marie Ndiaye and Patrick Modiano? Or perhaps the names at the top of the best-seller lists?
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Source : France 2008, La Documentation française
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