Contemporary French families in Etienne Chatiliez’s films

Abstract

Acknowledged as a leading advertising director in the 1980s, Etienne Chatiliez has staged French families successfully, first in TV commer-cials, then in comic films.' His work exemplifies the way in which the theme of the family has regained popularity in French cinema over the last two decades, after relative neglect by New Wave directors and virtual absence from the "cinema du look" films in the 1980s.2 In his three feature films to date, La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille (1987), Tatie Danielle (1990) and Le Bonheur est dans le pre (1995), Chatiliez offers contrasting portraits of French families—bourgeois and poor, Parisian and provincial, industrial and rural, and also explores the effects of changing social environments and identities on family relations.