The Death of French Culture

From ARTINFO - Veteran Time magazine correspondent Don Morrison wrote in last week's issue that French culture has become parochial despite it being state subsidized, sparking vindictive responses from the France's culture establishment, the BBC reports.

Morrison wrote that most recent French films appeal only domestically, that few new novels today find publishers outside France, that London and New York are now more important visual centers than Paris, and that current French pop stars are unknown to most Americans.

Le Figaro, a right-wing French daily, reacted with a list of recent French cultural successes, including an Edith Piaf biopic, the electronic group Daft Punk, and architect Jean Nouvel.

Others in the French arts establishment followed suit, variously arguing that that the American view of French arts is oversimplified, that Morrison was confusing culture and entertainment, that classics aren't necessarily bestsellers when they launch, and that numbers and money can't measure art.

On the other hand, the BBC reported, France has nothing to replace popularity as a benchmark for artistic success except the "self-serving" arguments of the "elite" itself.

MIAOW!

Comments

[simon]

mmnnnnn.... I don't know... Sylvie Guillem visits Australia to dance, Emilie Simon songs are played often on radio here, Jane birking (who really is working Gainsbourgs poems)..visits here....

Are these not "French"?

I do agree that french TV is "americanised" and the computer age dilutes a lot of street culture...

But I still think french culture is alive and well

[simon]

BIRKIN!!!!! sorry (typos)!

[GulleyJimson]

I am soooo out of the loop but it seems to me that culture (exceptional work) is at an ebb in every corner of the world. But, this too shall pass.

[suzanne]

Maybe in retrospect it will look better

[suzanne]

According to the Guardian "Our national love of tackiness is killing culture" - When one of Britain's top film-makers feels he has no artistic home at the BBC, we should be worried about its future http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2224555,00.html?dm_i=192327133#article_continue

[GulleyJimson]

I've been in the 'art scene' or at least kept up with it since 1975 and I'm having a hard time finding anyone or anything that moves me. Marvin Puryear is the exception and I hate sculpture. I love what Jennifer Bartlett did while in Paris though I've never seen it but in photographs. There must be others but they get drowned out by the noise.

[simon]

I can tell you that Australian culture is pretty dead. So when I visit Paris I guess from my perspective culture is alive..

love of Tackiness true here as well

[GulleyJimson]

"that few new novels today find publishers outside France, that London and New York are now more important visual centers than Paris, and that current French pop stars are unknown to most Americans."

That was true 50 years ago. Ask any French artist. Dom's must have been sleeping under a rock the last half century.