Arts & showbiz

Coming from different backgrounds, French pop video directors have given this genre its pedigree and gained international recognition by working with the greatest.

Spring ’99, and Great Britain has just unanimously elected its new pop star. While the trendy newspapers swoon, the respectable press is not to be outdone: The Guardian and The Observer will go as far as investigating his private life. His name? Flat Eric. Distinguishing features: he does not speak, measures 70 cm, has garish yellow skin and four fat fingers on each hand. Flat Eric is a rag doll. And he is the absurd hero of Levi’s new pub spots and particularly of the comical pop video "Flat Beat", a techno single with a minimal, gravelly sound that has sold 1,700,000 copies across the Channel.

This is international recognition for Quentin Dupieux, who created Flat Eric, filmed his madcap adventures and composed the music for them. His great achievement is the last episode of a saga called "French Touch", which has seen a whole load of French pop video directors making a name for themselves over the last few years in Great Britain and the United States.

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An International influence

The paradox is that the pop video, so long denigrated by Descartes’ and Godard’s native land, today is one of its cultural exports. All you have to do to realize what is going on in this unique situation in Europe is to draw up a list of French directors working for British and American stars. The Rolling Stones, Björk (six videos), Beck or the Chemicals Brothers have already brought in Michel Gondry; Neneh Cherry and Missy Elliot have danced for Jean-Baptiste Mondino’s camera; U2, Red Hot Chili Pepper, REM, Garbage or Alanis Morissette have used Stéphane Sednaoui’s services; Janet Jackson and the star of the Method Man American rap have been filmed by Seb Janiak; the Cranberries (on three occasions) and Eagle Eye Cherry have benefited from Olivier Dahan’s chic aesthetic qualities.

The list is not exhaustive. It would be simplistic, however, to consider the success of the French pop video on the basis of numbers alone, because its success is also (and particularly?) expressed in terms of influence. And not by just anybody. According to most producers, two of the major influences in the short history of the pop video have been none other than Jean-Baptiste Mondino and Michel Gondry. Mondino was, in fact, the first to establish the aesthetic values of video scripting with La danse des mots in 1974. Until that time these had been limited to the exponent’s static shot, or to the model of musicals, following the example of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983).

"Mondino, on the one hand, has incorporated the artiste’s performance into the story which the video narrates. And on the other hand, he has defined what this story was: not a linear narration, but the variation, by the direction, of an atmosphere inspired by the song", explains Georges Bermann, owner of the Midi Minuit production company, which was set up in 1986 and which dominates the French market (thanks to its English subsidiary). "The fact that Mondino exists, Bermann continues, and that he can interest the United States to such an extent, has made me want to discover and develop new talent."

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An art in its own right

In 1990, Bermann took on the young Michel Gondry on the strength of a video produced for the French pop group, the Affaire Louis Trio. "It was incredible. His work was unlike anyone else’s. There was fantasy, humour and amazing poetry." The fact remains that at the time Gondry was not able to arouse the interest of any French record company. In 1992, the Icelandic musician, Björk, came across the video of La Ville, which Gondry had directed for the underground group, Oui-Oui, and she took him on straightaway for his single, Human Behavior. The result was a marvellous animated film echoing the fairy tales of childhood - a real bolt from the blue!"Many American directors have admitted to me that at the time, they had anticipated giving up on the video, so much had Gondry raised expectations", remembers Bermann. We can confirm this. Gondry has probably raised the pop video to the level of real art. There is more inventiveness, intelligence, poetry, emotion and generosity in each of his videos than in 95% of the current feature-length films. Björk’s Bachelorette, Daft Punk’s Around the World, or IAM’s Je danse le Mia are pure gems, pervaded by the theme of childhood, constantly inverting fact and fiction, injecting an increasingly rare faith into the artistic gesture.

After Mondino and Gondry, it is possible that Quentin Dupieux’ amateurish aesthetics will gain a following. "French Touch’s" success story is therefore not about to die a death. The number of production companies has increased in four years from three to twenty or so. Alongside the pioneers such as Midi Minuit or Bandits (co-founded in 1989 by Mondino), new blood is represented, such as Ninety Nine (co-founded by Seb Janiak) devoting itself to "Black" (hip-hop, house) or Dum Dum music which, in its commitment to a more minimal aesthetic, got hold of Quentin Dupieux before Midi Minuit spotted him.

The reasons for this success have still to be understood. Money first of all. As distinct from Britain and the United States, the videos, with an average budget fluctuating between 300,000 and 500,000 francs, i.e. between approximately 45,700 and 76,200 euros*, benefit from considerable public funding. Apart from the fact that television distribution in France is not free (1700 francs or 260 euros for the M6 private music channel, and 700 francs or 107 euros for MCM), the National Cinematographic Centre (CNC) each year spends six million francs (914,700 euros) on it as a "quality subsidy" (70,000 francs, i.e. 10,670 euros, per video) given by a committee to videos already produced. There is no doubt that this financial aid has encouraged the increasing popularity of this small-scale industry.

Secondly, "unlike the United States, the directors do not come from film schools, but from schools of fine art, photography and graphic design, or they are self-taught, analyzes Hervé Humbert, of Bandits. It is the proximity between these different environments in the video industry which gives them their freshness and inventiveness".

Finally, this success also rides on the existence of a world showcase, the MTV channel, and on the success of another "French Touch": music which, from MC Solaar’s rap (the video Nouveau Western was directed by Sednaoui) to Cassius’ techno sound, is itself also gaining real recognition across the Channel and across the Atlantic.

A new generation of directors are surreptitiously making a name for themselves in France. They may well be the film directors of tomorrow, because the pop video is primarily a laboratory, offering more resources and greater vision than short films. Through it, a new aesthetic is being devised, which has already proved itself: Marc Caro (la Cité des enfants perdus), Mathieu Kassovitz (la Haine) or Agnès Merlet (l’Année du requin) started with videos before going on to tackle feature-length films. And Michel Gondry, exiled to Los Angeles, will shoot his first film in September 1999. To be continued.

* 1 Euro = 6.55957 francs.