In 1995, Martin Scorsese released the riveting three-part documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. In 2016, Bertrand Tavernier released the equally essential feature-length survey, My Journey Through French Cinema (notably, Tavernier cast his American associate in 1986's Round Midnight). This eight-part series takes a closer look at French cinema from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Though Tavernier, who passed away in 2021, claims he isn't a historian, he has authored several books on film, and there's a lot of history here, since it's impossible to discuss this time period without taking into account World War II, the Occupation, and the Resistance, not least since his father, writer René Tavernier, provided aid to the anti-war movement. In the series, he combines film clips with direct-address commentary, interview excerpts, and snatches of conversation with Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux.
Like Scorsese's project, he takes a personal approach but doesn't let discomfort stand in the way of admiration for controversial auteurs, like Claude Autant-Lara (The Marriage of Chiffon), who made class-conscious films in the pre- and post-war era before trading filmmaking for a position as a parliamentarian representing the virulently anti-Semitic National Front. For the most part, though, Tavernier has great empathy for his subjects, a tendency that extends to his own narrative work.
Prior to his directorial debut, 1974's The Clockmaker, he served as a press attaché and production publicist, bringing him into contact with many of these actors, directors, and craftspeople. He begins with a chapter on his "Bedside Filmmakers" and ends with his publicity work in "My Sixties." He describes Germany-born Max Ophüls (La Ronde), a bedside filmmaker, as "a companion in good times and bad." It's clear that he's revisited beloved films several times over.
Tavernier also sheds light on filmmakers both overlooked and undervalued, like Russia-born Anatole Litvak (Lilac), who spent a substantial portion of his career in the States, and actor and playwright Sacha Guitry (Quadrille), whose emphasis on witty dialogue found disfavor among the sensation-driven critics-turned-filmmakers of Cahiers du Cinéma, the magazine that helped to launch the nouvelle vague. He also throws a few curveballs when he teases out the connections between Robert Bresson, a director famed for austerity, and Jacques Tati, a director famed for absurdity.
Surface distinctions aside, he credits their close attention to sound, like the click-clack of high heels in Tati's Playtime, and ingenious sleights of hand, like the wallet-lifting methods depicted in Bresson's Pickpocket.
All told, there's nothing self-indulgent about this series as Tavernier rarely mentions his own films, other than 2002's Safe Conduct, in which he offered a recreation of the French film industry under Occupation. If anything, more mention of his filmography would have been welcome, since he worked with actor Michel Piccoli (Spoiled Children), screenwriter Jean Aurenche (Coup de Torchon), and a few of the other significant figures under discussion, but compassion combined with scholarship was always his stock in trade. Highly recommended.