Help!

[ali_babble]

So, if you had to do a 20 minute presentation on anything from French culture, be it a film, a personality, an author, a director anything really although it has to be serious, what would you do it on? Bear in mind that my partner for this project is Chinese so she'd have to be into it too. Plus, there are loads of other people in my class, and we'

Comments

[apple4b]

Oh God ! Hard task !
I should say... Victor Hugo and his "Les Misérables"... (related to someone we do know well ! ;D ), which is very famous... and related to French Culture...

But, now you are at Aix, you could take Cézanne (but it's too much obvious !) or Marcel Pagnol, a local writter and a director too, who told lot of simple stories, but with so beautiful humen being worths.
I really like this author, as for his books or his films, even if they're rather old !

Or, of course, you could talk about this famous film "Amélie Poulain" ?!...
I think your chinese "colleague" knows about it ?!...

Good luck, anyway ! To you both !

PS : and forgive me if there will be some delay in my answers... My connection just works in a crappy way !
One day it works, and the following day, it doesn't ! :((

[ali_babble]

Oh yes, everybody who's studied French recently must have seen Amélie. It's a great film but they're probably all sick of it!

Ah, Victor Hugo. That would be great if I'd actually read Les Misérables! But I was thinking of something along those lines. You know the famous painting by Delacroix - Liberty Leading the People - that reminds me of Les Misérables so I might do something on that.

I've never heard of Marcel Pagnol; he sounds interesting so I will look him up.

Thanks so much for all your advice! ;D

You're QUITE welcome ! ;)

[apple4b]

Oh yeah !!!! I know this painting !!!! It's beautiful... and you're right !!! So related to Hugo's Misérables !!!!
You can see a very young boy behind the woman symbolising the Liberty, and this boy could be Gavroche !

I neither didn't read (entirely) "les Misérables"... Such a HEAVY book !!!! ;)
The pupils in the school where I work studie this book, but a lighter version, of course !

I only read "Notre Dame", which is a beautiful story ! Very sad and so dramatic story... But I enjoyed to read it !

I think your choice is very good one !!!!
Is your Chinese friend is OK for it ?!

Re: You're QUITE welcome ! ;)

[ali_babble]

I don't know if she'll be okay with it. I'll have to ask her. In any case we'll do something on a French artist, but there are quite a few so I'll have to write a big list of names!

[scarlett_0]

I don't know enough about French culture to actually give any suggestions. Sad but true.

Are you in France for school. Because I was thinking you were Irish. Am I totally wrong????

[ali_babble]

No, you're not wrong! I'm Irish, but I'm studying in France for a year as part of my course.

[mooncove]

Have you decided on your topic yet? Yeah, reading Les Mis would be a daunting task unless you're a speed reader. I don't know a whole lot about French culture either, not enough to come up with a range of topics for a presentation anyway. What about someone like Marcel Marceau though? He reminds me of Geoffrey in a way because didn't Geoffrey go to mime school? Or what about a whole presentation on mime since the most famous mimes all seem to be French? Also, here are a couple of fansites on French actors done by my friend in Montreal (who mysteriously dropped off the face of the web almost two years ago, since which I haven't been able to contact her):

http://www.geocities.com/baddi_99/guybet/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/cinephilia2/brasseur/
http://www.geocities.com/cinephilia2/funes/

[ali_babble]

Hey, thanks for the suggestions! Marcel Marceau is definitely someone I'll have to do a bit of research on in my own rtime. We actually ended up doing it on Marcel Duchamp, because he's a bit different and somewhat humorous. Took me hours of work, though, because my partner knew nothing about it, so I had to explain things to her before trying to tackle the job of explaining it to the class. It was tough and took me hours, but I managed.

Don't you hate it when people just disappear like that? There used to be about 3 regular male posters on the Geoffrey Rush IMDb and now they're nowhere to be seen. It's a shame because they were really nice and we had some interesting conversations.

I haven't heard of the first two actors, but I know Louis de Funes. He was in a lot of comedy films in the 70s, of which I remember seeing 2; Rabbi Jacob and La Folie des Grandeurs. My mum thinks he was hysterical; I guess I'm from a different generation, but I can still appreciate some of the humour.