Germinal
Inauguration Special > Eat the Rich!
•
2h 31m
Directed by Claude Berri • Drama • With Renaud, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou • 1993 • 160 minutes
Winner of France’s prestigious César Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design, this epic film is based on the novel by Émile Zola.
During the Second Napoleonic Empire (the mid-19th century), Etienne Lantier finds employment as a coal miner in the northern French town of Montsou. He immediately encounters misery and degradation in the appalling conditions of the mine. There he meets men as unscrupulous as Chaval and, conversely, as generous as Maheu. In fact, a whole range of suffering humanity, laboring under the curse of capitalism. One day the decide to go on strike.
“The overall effect of the movie is much the same as the effect of Zola's novel: To present a time and place so realistically in fiction that the audience will be able to share the experience.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Up Next in Inauguration Special > Eat the Rich!
-
Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes
Directed by Jerry Blumenthal,Gordon Quinn • Documentary • With Leon Golub • 2004 • 80 minutes
Kartemquin Films completes its chronicle of the work and times of the American artist, Leon Golub. Begun in 1985, the film ends with Golub's death in 2004, taking us from searing images of interrogation...
-
Art and Oligarchs
Directed by Tania Rakhmanova • Documentary • 2010 • 52 minutes
A popular trend among Russian oligarchs is to purchase works of art. Why? It's a way to get into the Kremlin's good graces, to gild their image...and to cover up the origin of their fortunes, often acquired in the shadow of post-Sovi...
-
The Outsider
Directed by Christophe Barratier • Drama • With Arthur Dupont, François-Xavier Demaison, Sabrina Ouazani • 2018 • 117 minutes
Before the subprime mortgage crisis began unfolding in 2008, causing chaos in world markets and misery among millions of homeowners, another financial apocalypse was alre...
