jean renoir Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I saw Michael Moore's Sicko (1 screen) yesterday. But rather than talk about Moore's good points and bad points, or the nature of propaganda, or the broken health care system, or liberals vs. conservatives, I'd like to pick one small moment from the film and expand upon it. After surveying the French health care system and finding it good, Moore asks why the American government and American media want us to hate France so much. "Is it because they're afraid we'll like it?" he wonders?

He has a point. The anti-France sentiment of the last decade or so is based mostly on stupid insults and jokes about surrendering (see last year's brain-dead Flushed Away for an example). It's the type of stuff the class bully comes up with and everyone just goes along. But if we stop for a moment and use our common sense, the French have it pretty good. Aside from the free health care depicted in Sicko, and their apparent longevity (despite their taste for wine, cigarettes and fatty foods), they've got one of the most beautiful cities in the world, great food, landmarks, music, and some of the finest filmmakers in the world.

• James Aljian (c.1932-2007) - Vice President of finance for MGM Studios in the 1970s and then for MGM/UA in the early 1980s. He died of cancer April 12, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• Dick Arnall (1944-2007) - British animator who worked on Yellow Submarine and produced the BAFTA-nominated shorts A is for Autism and Home Road Movies. He died of pneumonia as a consequence of a brain tumor February 6. (Guardian)
• Nair Belo (1931-2007) - Brazilian actress who appears in Heart and Guts and Alberto Cavalcanti's Simon the One-Eyed. She died of heart disease April 17, in Rio De Janeiro. (Globo)
• Ariane Borg (1915-2007) - French actress who appears in The Phantom Wagon. She died April 16, in Couilly-Pont-Aux-Dames, Seine-et-Marne, France. (IMDb)
• Kitty Carlisle Hart (1910-2007) - Actress best known for starring alongside the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera. She also starred opposite Bing Crosby in She Loves Me Not and Here Is My Heart and appeared as herself in Hollywood Canteen. After more than forty years away from the movies, she made appearances in Radio Days and Six Degrees of Separation. She was also the widow of Moss Hart. She passed away following a battle with pneumonia April 17, in New York City. (MSNBC)
• Jean-Pierre Cassel (1932-2007) - French actor (pictured) who worked with many of the great masters of cinema. He starred in Melville's Army of Shadows, Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Renoir's The Elusive Corporal, Clément's Is Paris Burning? and multiple films by Chabrol and by de Broca. He also appears among the ensemble casts of Superman II, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Murder on the Orient Express, Prêt-à-Porter, the upcoming Asterix at the Olympic Games and the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers and its follow-ups, The Four Musketeers and The Return of the Musketeers. His son is actor Vincent Cassel, with whom he appears in Matthieu Kassovitz's Café au Lait and The Crimson Rivers. He died April 19. (Playfuls)