The Artist’s success demonstrates strength of French film

Last week, the 84th Academy Awards demonstrated the growing success of the film industry in France, as The Artist took home five Oscars including Best Picture whilst Jean Dujardin (pictured) picked up Best Actor . This is the first time either of these awards have been won by French cinema, a testament to the success of their government’s effort to provide investment for domestic films.

In an age when we are surrounded by the latest technologies, with TVs of ever-increasing screen sizes gracing disproportionately small living rooms, it’s so easy to watch a film from the comfort of our own home that it seems the thrill of going out to see a film on the big screen is wearing off. The internet has enabled illegal downloading of all the latest films, taking away the main selling point of cinema-going. In truth, fewer people are paying to go to the cinema, or for films once they have been released on DVD. Any film not involving the biggest stars or not part of a popular franchise seems to struggle right now and as such, the incentive for film-makers to continue in the industry is gradually wearing thin.

Yet, the amount taken in ticket sales in France last year was €216 million, the highest since 1967. Rather than churning out the big blockbusters, French filmmakers have instead been able to produce riskier, less profitable works, such as The Artist, that the critics actually celebrate.

As Sarkozy was quick to boast, one reason for France to defy the trend is the system that provides investment for French filmmakers. Unlike other countries where arts, particularly the film industry, are left to be swallowed up by the ravaging jaws of a free-market economy, the film industry in France is heavily subsidised by the state and, as such, French cinema is flourishing. Last year, the state provided €1.5 billion towards French filmmakers. Much of the investment comes from a 12 percent tax on cinema tickets, an idea which ensures that success in the industry can breed further success later on. TV companies are also obliged to invest in films, receiving no share of the profit but exclusive rights to broadcast the film in return. Canal+, for example, provides around €200 million a year towards the industry, €3.2 million of which went towards The Artist.

It’s not just French films that are benefitting. Both Martin Scorcese’s Hugo and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which won an additional six Oscars between them, had received money from the French State due to the films’ connections with the country. Foreign films get a rebate of 20 percent of their expenses in France, as long as the film is partially shot there.

As is to be expected, critics say that the public funding is only providing a safety net, allowing films to be made that should never have come into existence and that the free-market economy would otherwise have eradicated before the idea was suggested. Perhaps that’s true; certainly almost half of the French films made are scarcely shown to the public.

By supporting the ‘riskier’ films, however, as much as some may go wrong, there is also the potential for some to go so right, as we’ve seen.

By not providing any funding at all, the result is an industry producing exactly what the public want to see, rather than what the film-makers genuinely believe is good. Whilst we all know that the ‘consumer is king’, there seems something dispiriting about the idea of the industry pandering to the tastes of the modern consumer that seems to think trashy comedy is among the only genres actually worth paying for.

Whether the idea of subsiding arts is something that should be copied in countries across the world is hard to say. For now, France securely stands as the second-largest exporter of films after America, and easily the largest in Europe. As the French bask in the glory of having won the Best Picture Oscar for the first time, it seems that this year has been a good advertisement for the potential of subsidisation to fight against the evils of the digital age.