What's at the Paris Bijou?

France has been hit by an epidemic, movie mania

In most of Europe, moviegoers are almost an endangered species. Theaters are closing, and in the past two decades the number of tickets sold has declined by staggering proportions: 88% in Britain, 82% in West Germany and 70% in Italy! But the French, of course, do things differently, and today Gaul seems to be divided into three groups: those inside a movie theater, those in line outside and those looking at the listings, wondering what they should see. In the past two years alone there has been a 41% increase in box-office receipts, and this year's receipts will total more than $600 million. Even President François Mitterrand, according to his Culture Minister, Jack Lang, manages to see at least two films a week.

In Paris, film buffs most weeks have a choice of more than 600 different titles. The highest grossers are often the big American hits like E.T., which sold 690,000 tickets in the first two weeks of its Paris run. The French are probably the most cosmopolitan fans in the world. "We will go see a Portuguese film one week and a Turkish one the next," says Marc Silvera, an official of the Centre National de la Cinématographic. "We are more open to films in other languages than the Americans or the British, and are willing to tolerate subtitles and dubbings. That makes the choice here much more diverse. There is something for everyone."

There are several explanations for France's movie mania. The simplest is the deplorable state of French television, which is vastly inferior to that in neighboring countries. "People are fleeing their homes in search of entertainment," says Daniel Toscan du Plantier, president of Gaumont, the country's biggest film conglomerate. "Everyone knows that our television is the most boring in the world. The Socialist government has programmed intellectual talk shows for Saturday night at 8:30. Even Socialist countries in Eastern Europe wouldn't dream of doing that. There would be riots in the streets."

Another reason is that, unlike Britain or Italy, France has a booming film industry of its own. Sophisticated as they may be, even the French like to see movies made at home, starring actors they can identify with. "You simply can't have a strong filmgoing climate unless you have a healthy domestic film product," says Silvera. "Britain and Italy have learned that to their distress." Though Americans are familiar with titles like The Last Metro and La Cage aux Folles, most French movies, which lean toward police thrillers, comedies and love stories, never cross the Atlantic, since distributors are convinced that they would not find an audience.

That is something that the Paris moguls would like to change, and they believe that they have found the way to do it "With cable TV, there's a whole new and very large American market out there for French films," says Toscan du Plantier. "The cable audience wants movies that are made for legitimate theater release and that are made with a quality that can't be found in the usual made-for-TV product. The cable networks need 1,000 movies a year. U.S. studios don't have the talent to satisfy such a vast demand."