French Culture: Dead, but a lot less dead than Hollywood

http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2008/01/french-culture.html

Link: Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG: French Culture Strikes Back.

"For a country whose culture has been proclaimed dead, France did not do badly in Hollywood's Golden Globes. The award for best foreign language movie went to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) and its réalisateur, Julian Schnabel, won best director. Marion Cotillard (picture above) won best actress in a musical for her role as Edith Piaf in La Môme (Released abroad as La Vie en Rose). Yes, Schnabel is a New Yorker, but the film, in French, has a cast of French stars and is based on a French best-seller.

"This offers an occasion to update the polémique that followed Time magazine's obituary of Gallic creativity last month (The post here has drawn over 310 comments so far). Rather than treating Time's piece with lofty silence, official France has hit back, in the form of a broadside from CulturesFrance, the state agency responsible for conveying French civilisation to the world...."