It's a matter of fact that the HB/Noir in France gave some
top writers and
excellent novels, especially since the sixties. Also, the
critics there have
real flair, even if they make mistakes from time to
time.
However there is a major problem, with very few exceptions:
no English
translation for most of them...
Culprit could be more the UK mainstream publishers than the
American ones,
as UK is normally the vehicle for European languages novels
to reach USA.
We have seen the same problem with the Belgian/French
successful comics
productions that never made it to UK (except Tintin, Asterix,
the Smurfs
and episodically Luky Luke) as the British publishers felt it
mostly unfit
for the UK market. Ironically the Belgian/French comics were
a hit in ALL
the other countries of Europe and as far as Japan,China,
Indonesia..etc
To top this, since the 70's, the American publishers
neglected HB and Noir,
and we are not sure anymore that today mainstream publishers
can identify
new works of value in popular literature of any genre in
their own country,
not speaking of new American authors of real value. The Best
Seller list is
their God, Goal and justification...
We all know the result!
So even if I could give recommendations about French or other
HB authors
from Europe, it will be a theoretical exercise as the English
translations
probably do not exist. Unless one reads French...
But the American public is certainly missing something of
value.
As for Cinema, I agree with Mark that there are very good
HB/Noir films made
in France- the directors he cites are amongst the best,
especially Melville;
but here, most of the best French films were distributed in
USA, on the
contrary of the novels.
As for jerry Lewis, his fame in France was mainly due to the
best of his
films directed by Frank Tashlin, at the time, and that found
a very good
support by the critics of the famous"Cahier du Cinema" or
"Cinema 63" , end
of the fifities- early sixties. I think that what was
appealing in these
days was the iconoclastic view of Tashlin of the daily
American way of
life... in this much more "conservative" era, as were the end
of the fifties.
Stallone??? Is he so well acclaimed in France...? I
doubt.
But, hey: nobody's perfect...
E.Borgers
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.