FRENCH HAIL BEST OF FILM WITH CESAR

Despite occasional protests about the invasion of American culture, there is an enormous admiration for Hollywood within the French movie industry and among the French public, as evidenced in the French Academy of Cinema Arts and Technicians annual 11th annual Cesar awards.

Producers of the ceremonies Saturday night made no attempt to hide their imitation of the American Oscar ceremonies. In a nationally televised show from the Palais des Congres in central Paris that lasted from 8:30 p.m. until just before midnight, celebrities from the movie industry read out the lists of five nominees in each category and then opened a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winner. A big band played Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” to open and close the show.

The Cesar for best movie of the year went to “Trois Hommes et Un Couffin” (Three Men and a Cradle), a light comedy that has scored a spectacular and surprising success on the French market.

The movie, which also is a nominee for an Oscar as the best foreign-language film of the year, was directed by Coline Serreau and produced by a little-known company whose phone was cut off for nonpayment of bills just after the movie was completed for a little more than $1 million seven months ago.

But fortunes changed soon after that, and the producer, 32-year-old Jean-Francois Lepetit, recently announced that he has signed an agreement with Walt Disney Productions to produce an English-language version of the movie that has a simple plot about three fun-loving bachelors bringing up a baby left on their doorstep. Serreau will direct it with English-speaking actors.

The Cesar for best foreign-language film went to Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Although the comic subtlety of Allen’s language is not easy to follow in French subtitles, he is a great favorite of French intellectuals and movie critics.

The Hollywood presence was real as well as imitative. A special Cesar was awarded to actress Bette Davis, who received a standing ovation from the audience, provoking cries of “Sit down!” from photographers trying to take her picture. Actress Olivia de Havilland, who lives in Paris, made the presentation, speaking in French. Danny Kaye, speaking English with a French accent, handed out the Cesars in the technical fields of editing, photography, sound, decoration and costume. Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas also presented Cesars.

Davis, whose movies will be shown in a retrospective of her work at the French Cinematheque, told the audience, “I am part French.” She said that her mother was descended from a French Protestant family that had changed its name from Lefevre to Favor in the United States. She also told Costa Gavras, the Greek-born director who works in France, “Anytime you have a role for a nice, old crazy lady, send for me.”

A confusion in the announcement of the awards from Kaye was caused mainly by his associate, actress Brigitte Fossey, who read the nominations out of order. But Kaye gallantly took all the blame. “Anytime you want an American to screw up your awards,” he said, “call on me.”

The Cesar is a heavy, squat, expressionistic sculpture that looks somewhat like a wrecked car that has been squashed together in a junkyard. Recalling that Davis had won two Oscars, De Havilland told Davis, “Judging by its weight, I would say that one Cesar is worth two Oscars.”

The ceremonies came at a somewhat troubling time for the French film industry. Many artists are incensed over the government’s recent decision to grant a license for France’s first private television channel to a company that interrupts its presentation of movies with commercials. Although the three government channels show commercials, they never break into any program but bunch them between the shows.

The evening was filled with barbed remarks about the new private channel, which began operations a few days ago. Robert Enrico, the president of the 3,000-member French Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques, opened the ceremonies by proclaiming his “protest against the mutilation of our films” on the private channel. In a parody designed to show the French public what was in store for them, the academy show, which was televised on a government channel, ran a few minutes of an old Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan movie and interrupted it at the most suspenseful moments with commercials.

On top of this, there is ongoing concern within the industry about the marketing of French movies. France ranks second to the United States as an exporter. But the sales of French movies abroad in 1984 covered only 65% of the cost of importing foreign movies into France. On top of this, the French share of sales on the French market dropped from 50% in 1984 to 41% in 1985.

In a recent analysis of the industry, the Paris magazine Le Point attributed export problems to a lack of aggressive marketing, a depression in the film box office in other countries like Germany, the overproduction of French movies and the decline of French influence in the world.

Countering this pessimism, “Trois Hommes et Un Couffin” has evoked a good deal of optimism in the industry. It has outdrawn all U.S. movies on the French market. For this reason, the movie was a favorite to win its Cesar. But there was a good deal of drama anyway when Serreau failed to come forward to accept the Cesar from the distinguished French actors Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud. Serreau was acting in a play in a Paris theater, but she entered the auditorium at the last minute and rushed to the cameras to accept the award just before the show went off the air.

In other awards, Christopher Lambert won the best actor Cesar for his portrayal of an obsessed, underworld lover in “Subway,” Sandrine Bonnaire won the best actress Cesar for her portrayal of a young dropout from society hopelessly seeking freedom in “Sans Toit Ni Loi” (Without Roof or Law), and Michel Deville won the Cesar for direction of “Peril en La Demeure” (Peril in the Household), a dark film of bizarre adultery and murder.