French Cinema Champion Urges Continued Support for Midnight Movies

This Monday brought the news that Patrick Brion, the iconic host of “Cinéma de minuit,” will soon cease to provide voice-over and select films for the cinephile’s show, which has been broadcast on France 3 for nearly half a century. AlloCiné reached out to the film historian to gather his thoughts and delve into the reasons behind this decision.

AlloCiné: Let’s start with cinema: your journey with Cinéma de minuit will conclude on December 20th with the airing of “César” by Marcel Pagnol. I presume you chose this film, as usual for the show, but why this one in particular?

Patrick Brion: We’re ending with the Marseille trilogy because one of Pagnol’s great strengths was his ability to write, direct, and produce films that were true auteur films with significant attention to script, as you know, and also popular films. (…) Pagnol was very close to the audience. So I had many films to choose from, but this particular one suited France 3 for various reasons.

One might have also expected a film by Julien Duvivier from you…

I considered it! Interestingly, in the press release from France 3, they announced “César” by Julien Duvivier, which was a bad look. It’s a bad sign… [Note: the press release has been corrected since].

I believe there are plenty of films to be shown, so it absolutely must continue. It’s no secret, I am 82 years old, and at France 3, I was an anomaly. (…) Administratively, it began causing them issues. Not for me, but for them. So…

I’ve hosted the show since 1975, and we’ve managed to air several hundred films but there’s still work to be done, especially as knowledge of classic cinema is fading. In this area, I am extremely pessimistic. Books on cinema don’t sell well. DVD sales are down, and film re-releases in theaters are a disaster: American companies are freezing the release of all their films, both on DVDs and on TV, because they don’t care… So it’s very concerning.

Considering there is no dedicated platform for heritage cinema.

None.

As the head of Cinema at France 3, you were in charge of both Cinéma de minuit and the prime-time film broadcasts. How difficult was it to find film copies for the evening show?

The copies shown were taken from the original negatives. There were two types of films. For French films, when they were from small producers, they didn’t have the resources to do the work needed to produce a copy. Without a contract with France 3, they couldn’t finance the copy or pay the rights holders. (…) I had a lot of problems [with the rights holders of] films by Duvivier, to be able to rebroadcast La Belle équipe or films like that. It was extremely difficult.

With American companies, it’s a bit different. They don’t care about old films; they don’t make money from them, and the idea of digging up a negative gathering dust under layers of paperwork is a nuisance to them. I had to push them. So when I bought a Clint Eastwood film for 8:30 PM from Warner, I could at the same time ask them to make an effort to sort out copyright issues and get me a decent copy of a film directed by William A. Wellman or Raoul Walsh from the 1930s. It was a big opportunity.

I recall for The Hands of Orlac, the marvelous film by Karl Freund with Peter Lorre, the rights had completely lapsed. MGM told me: “I’m not at all interested in renewing them.” I had to call the French rights holder since it’s originally a French novel, and it was settled that way. Today, it’s completely over. On TV, no one will ever do it, and among the distributors, we are – and it’s not at all a criticism – seeing a new generation of people who do not know their catalog.

In this challenging context, do you know how Cinéma de minuit will continue into 2025 and who might host it after you?

I have no idea. I wish them luck, because it’s necessary. There’s a lot of work to be done, especially since outside of Arte, no one is doing it. There are films to be re-aired. I have children and grandchildren, and I assure you there’s work to be done.

I belong to the generation that naively believed that by advocating in Cinematheques and Film Clubs in the late 1950s, by banging on the table and saying “Fritz Lang is a great filmmaker, so is Raoul Walsh”, it was accomplished. It was for a while, but the torchbearers are gone. I speak in magazines. There’s work, we must take up the cause again.

Finally, a complete copy of a silent western by John Ford was discovered a few days ago in Chile. Have you heard about it?

Ah no, I hadn’t heard. That’s wonderful. I hope, though I’m not sure, that my successors will air the film!