France’s Film Appetite Has Distinct U.S. Flavor

The French are going to more movies than ever--but it seems they are choosing Hollywood blockbusters over intimate dramas in their native tongue.

Le Figaro newspaper reported Thursday that 1998 attendance figures for French films were the worst for a decade, partly because of the overwhelming success of “Titanic,” and also because a host of French movies flopped.

“Why French cinema is sinking,” headlined the paper, with a photograph of a scene from “Titanic.”

The newspaper quoted figures from the National Cinematographic Center showing that French movies accounted for less than 30% of the 170 million moviegoers in France this year.

James Cameron’s “Titanic” alone grabbed 13% of viewers, while Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” and Robert Redford’s “The Horse Whisperer” were word-of-mouth box-office successes, it said.

Despite the huge success of French comedies “Le Diner des Cons” (“The Dinner of Idiots”), “Les Couloirs du Temps” (“The Halls of Time”) and “Taxi,” the French cinema has “run out of steam,” Le Figaro wrote. The three comedies attracted 23 million viewers.

Industry officials blamed the domestic film attendance skid on the nation’s economic woes, not the quality of French films.

They have high hopes for a feature-length movie based on comic-book character “Asterix,” starring Gerard Depardieu, that will be released in February.