Buying a French wine can often be intimidating for those without an intimate knowledge of the language on the label. Unlike New World wines which often focus on the grape varietal used to make the wine, French wineries have typically relied on their place of origin and other information on the label to tell the consumer a story about the liquid contents in the bottle. In theory, a French wine label tells [ . . . ]
Full Story at: How to decode a French wine label | The Chronicle Herald
When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France’s then-president François Mitterrand mourned the loss of “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire,” the man who had “elevated song to the level of art.” In a career spanning five decades, Gainsbourg embraced everything from chanson, mambo and yé yé to rock, reggae and electronica, incorporating lyrics that were in turn profound, witty or provocative and at times utterly obscene. Frequently employing ingenious wordplay that would give the lyrics two, if not three different meanings his compositions remain wholly original and uniquely out of time [ . . . ]
More at: BBC – Culture – The erotic songs lost in translation
Anne Wiazemsky, a French novelist and New Wave actress who appeared in seven films directed by her husband, Jean-Luc Godard, died on Thursday in Paris. She was 70.
Ms. Wiazemsky expressed few regrets, though she recalled that when she was first cast by Bresson in “Au Hasard Balthazar,” she replaced an actress who had already been selected for the role.
“She lost the film because of me,” she said, “and I still feel a pang of regret for that unknown girl.” [ NYTimes 10/5/17 ]
[PARIS] French winemakers will produce the smallest vintage in 60 years after spring frost hit vines in Bordeaux, summer storms caused grape rot in Champagne and drought shriveled grape bunches in the country’s southeast.Wine volume will fall 19 per cent to 36.9 million hectolitres this year, equivalent to about 4.9 billion bottles
Source: France to make least wine in 60 years as frost, rot hit grapes, Consumer – THE BUSINESS TIMES
It’s an uncomfortable irony that, after her life has ended, Anne Wiazemsky risks being seen as a bystander in her own story. In Michel Hazanavicius’s enjoyable but somewhat facetious new film Redoubtable, Wiazemsky, played by Stacy Martin, is depicted as a wry observer in her marriage to Jean-Luc Godard – the straight woman to his tormented clown. | More: Anne Wiazemsky: a haunting, humane star who helped France discover itself | Film | The Guardian
The French writer and actress Anne Wiazemsky, who famously wrote a best-selling account of her short marriage to New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, died of cancer in Paris on Thursday, her family said.
“Anne died this morning. She had been very sick,” her brother Pierre Wiazemsky, an actor, told AFP.
Wiazemsky, 70, made her screen debut as an elfin 19-year-old in “Au Hasard Balthazar”, Robert Bresson’s classic 1966 film about a mistreated Christ-like donkey, before meeting Godard — then at the height of his fame — a year later. They married during the shooting of his 1967 film “La Chinoise”, in which Wiazemsky plays a member of a Maoist revolutionary cell.
Her grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist François Mauriac, opposed the marriage to the radical maker of “Breathless” and “Contempt”, who was 17 years her senior. But the French student uprising and strikes of May 1968, in which Godard became a major player, overwhelmed them.
More at : Anne Wiazemsky, French writer, actress and Godard muse, dies at 70 – France 24
