Paul from Paris

Each generation differs from its predecessors, and parents have always worried about their progeny.

From my vantage point in Paris, I see that young Europeans are startlingly democratic. They’re egalitarian, and militant in their egalitarianism, skeptical of or hostile towards differences in station. They’re also more interested in forging horizontal bonds, connections among peers or cohorts, than in vertical or hierarchical relationships.

At the Lycée Jean Lurçat, a high school in Paris’s 13th arrondissement, students were unhappy with their English teacher, Claudine Lespagnol, age 58, with 8 years’ seniority at the school. The root of the problem seems to have been Ms. Lespagnol’s prohibition against using cell phones during class. (For clarity’s sake, the professorial objection was to cell phone use, not possession.) Students complained collectively to the principal and sought a change in teacher. Their request was denied.

Students then drafted and sent a group letter on behalf of the class. The letter read (my translation):

Re: Suggestions from the class

Madam,

Further to the collective letter of our grievances, we unfortunately were unable to get a favorable reply from the principal for a change of teacher. We want you to understand that, with your negative attitude towards the class, you’re wasting lots of time, making disrespectful remarks, trying desperately to have us listen to your class. It is true that many of us allow ourselves to be distracted in class by electronic accessories or our friends. But this kind of situation happens everywhere in everyday life. We think you take yourself too seriously when you yell at us when we are distracted; that causes a negative reaction among some of us. We therefore advise you to change your attitude, and to stop making remarks whenever one of us has a phone in his hands. It’s a waste of time. If you continue with the same attitude towards the class, the problem will go on and on, and each Monday you’ll suffer the consequences. We hope to spend an appropriate Monday with you after Autumn Break. If this is not the case, and if there’s no effort on your part to change, we’ll only have a few words to say: FUCK YOU.

Sincerely yours,

The Senior Class

The reaction? Nothing happened. A month went by, and teacher anger rose to a boiling point: the teachers walked out one Friday afternoon. Then the media took notice and publicized the affair. Only then did education officials take note. One came to the class to brand the letter “unacceptable” and “cowardly”, but also to say that “there’s no such thing as collective punishment”. The French education minister has announced an investigation to discover the author(s) of the letter.

I don’t want to read too much into a single incident, but three things strike me here:

1. The students turn the tables on their teacher, using the kind of language that a teacher might use to correct a student. I see this less as impertinence than as egalitarianism.
2. The teacher is supposed to compete (against cell phones and friends) for attention; a good teacher is one who can win students’ attention. I see this less as consumerism than as an acknowledgement of multitasking or a “noisy” world.
3. Authority prefers not to know that any of this is going on. Its sympathies ultimately lie more with the students than with the teacher. By contrast, the media reaction seems to have been uniformly negative towards the students (although no one seems to have asked Claudine Lespagnol for her story).

France subsidizes and protects its media. Is this a bad thing? Taking two American films as a guide, I think the answer is, “not in the way you might have thought”.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, opened concurrently in France and in the USA. (It opened wide in France on Wednesday, and in the USA on Friday.) In its opening week in the US, the picture took in $142.8 million at the box office. In France, the picture was seen by 2,318,559 moviegoers in its first week. (American statistics look at cash receipts; French statistics look at the number of tickets sold.)

On both sides of the Atlantic, New Moon is a tremendous success. The story I’m eager to hear is how the producers (or distributors) built up so much interest to swarm theaters on opening day. I suspect this story will read as a case study for a “flatter Earth”.

In France, the first Twilight picture sold 2,772,499 tickets in its entire theatrical release; a respectable showing, but a world part from the New Moon wave. Something happened to turn a success into a social phenomenon.

Also in France, I suspect that critics have been too hasty to brand the interest in the picture as the exclusive preserve of female teens. I find that awareness of the picture nears 100%, and moviegoers include males and females of all ages.

New Moon remains more an exception than the rule. The French market is heavily regulated, with all sorts of exhibition windows written into law. Video can follow theatrical release by 4 months. But a pay TV window opens 10 months after theatrical release, and free TV only 22 months after theatrical release. Free VOD is tolerated only 4 years after theatrical release.

The observant reader will have noted that the key date is the French theatrical release. Here arises a huge problem: the French theatrical release often trails the US (or other home market release) by a long time.

To demonstrate this point, I picked a random film doing well in American theatrical release: “Couples Retreat”, a comedy with Vince Vaughn. This picture opened in the US on October 9. It opened in the UK on October 14. But it hasn’t opened in France yet. It won’t, until March 10, 2010. What does the French distributor gain from such a delay?

For this picture, there’s no compelling reason to synchronize the US and French releases. But all sorts of perverse effects follow from the French delay: I’ll be able to watch this picture on an airplane before I can see it in a theater in France; the American DVD will be released (and promoted) well before the French version; and French VOD viewers will be tempted to access this picture from the US, simply because the French version will not be on the market.

The Conseil d’Etat, France’s supreme court in administrative matters, invalidated the visa granted for the motion picture “Antichrist”.

All motion pictures released theatrically in France must carry a visa. In plain English, the visa sets the film’s rating. In France, as in Europe generally but unlike the US, ratings are decided by government, not by a trade association. “Antichrist” held a visa allowing projection for viewers age 16 and over (but forbidden for viewers under 16). The age requirement was justified by the picture’s “violent climate”.

Several groups –Promotion, Action for human dignity, The departmental union of family associations of the Rhône, The evangelical protestant committee for human dignity (all names in English translation)– petitioned the French administrative courts to annul the visa for “Antichrist”. If I follow the petitioners’ arguments, they argued that “Antichrist” should have been forbidden for viewers under 18 (comparable to an American NC-17 rating), or even classified as pornography or inciting violence (comparable to an American X rating).

The Conseil d’Etat sided with the petitioners, but not for the reasons they had argued. In its decision, the French supreme court held that the rating authorities failed to give a reasoned decision: branding the picture as having a “violent climate” does not explain enough to justify the age limitation.

Today’s ruling has the effect of stripping “Antichrist” of its visa. Without a visa, the film cannot be exhibited in France.

Is this censorship? Certainly not.

Nothing prevents the film from applying for and receiving a visa. The Conseil d’Etat did not ban the picture, and the French culture ministry has intimated some sort of temporary measure until a properly reasoned visa is issued.

“Antichrist” certainly has generated controversy. The petitioners in today’s action object to the picture. They are not alone. “Antichrist” won an “anti-prize” from the Ecumenical Jury at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, which judged the picture egregiously misogynist and an apology for burning witches at the stake.

Directed by Cannes regular –and Golden Palm winner– Lars von Trier, “Antichrist” stars Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who won the 2009 Cannes Best Actress award.

Can this critical acclaim be squared with critical and public admonition?

For this critic, the picture and the Cannes jury perpetuates a tradition of shock as art. Whether here’s anything behind or beyond the shock is another matter.

The United Nations declared November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The date was not chosen at random. It’s commemorative, in memory of Patria, Minerva, and Marie Teresa Mirabal, three sisters from the Dominican Republic.

Born into a prosperous family, the Mirabal sisters opposed the sanguinary, repressive dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Their opposition continued despite mistreatment, arrest, and the incarceration of their husbands.

On 25 November 1960, after visiting their husbands at the La Victoria prison in Santo Domingo, Trujillo’s henchmen killed the Mirabal sisters and their driver in a field.

The Mirabal murder did not stifle opposition to the Trujillo dictatorship, and Trujillo was assassinated the following year. In an oddity or irony of history, he was interred at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Tony Musulin, a 39-year-old armored car driver, disappeared on November 5. He literally disappeared: when his colleagues returned from a branch of the French national bank, Musulin was gone, together with his vehicle.

What caused the disappearance? A kidnapping? Banditry?

No, Musulin had taken the money –11.6 million euros, in cash, in small denominations– and run. The armored car was soon recovered nearby, but Musulin was nowhere to be found.

The authorities started looking. A few days later, they found about 9 million euros in a self-storage locker that Musulin had rented. But Musulin remained missing, along with 2.6 million euros.

On November 16, a man parked a motorcycle in front of the Monaco police headquarters. He presented himself –Tony Musulin– and said he was wanted by the French police and wanted to turn himself in. The Monaco authorities would have been happy to oblige, but in an Inspector Clouseau moment it turned out that the French authorities had only asked foreign countries for information about Musulin, not his actual apprehension outside France. Later that day, Musulin went to the Jardin Exotique and crossed over into France, where he could be arrested.

Musulin is keeping to himself and has not been particularly talkative. He is keeping mum about the 2.6 million euros that have not been accounted for. He has been charged with theft, which under the French penal code carries a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment and 45,000 euros.

Here’s the first remarkable aspect of Musulin’s exploit: he does not face lengthy punishment. French law does not punish theft more harshly when stolen property is valuable. And in Musulin’s case, there are mitigating factors: this is his first offense, and he voluntarily turned himself in. He could conceivably be sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, and with time off for good behavior be released after 9 months.

Authorities are also investigating Musulin for possible insurance fraud in connection with the disappearance of his car –a Ferrari– last May. But even if he were convicted of that offense, which carries a 5-year prison term, he would serve out that sentence concurrently with a theft conviction.

Of course, even a day’s incarceration is punishment. Deprivation of liberty is serious. But this case makes clear that French law reserves serious punishment for violence or threat of violence. French law punishes robbery –where violence is used– more harshly than theft, where it is not. Musulin hurt or threatened no one. He used no weapon. He didn’t even damage the armored car.

The second remarkable aspect of the Musulin affair is its uncanny resemblance to a 2004 French movie, Le Convoyeur. In a case of life imitating art, the movie depicts theft by an armored car driver. Its tag line: “1,000 euros a month, 1,000,000 euros in each bag”.

This disparity, I think, accounts for much of the public fascination with the Musulin case. Armored car personnel are not well paid in France, despite the risks they take daily. Viewed from a certain angle, theft can look like a kind of class struggle or revolutionary uprising.