A Two-Way Rue du Cinema

These are tough times for Gallic pride. It’s not enough that McDonald’s outposts in Paris are jampacked, now French cultural sensibilities are all atwitter because one of the nation’s most lauded films last year -- “A Very Long Engagement” -- was partly financed by les americains from Warner Bros.

This sent French cultural elites into a deep, Kafkaesque denial. Prodded by jealous rival producers, a court outrageously decreed that the motion picture isn’t really French.

Never mind that the World War I epic was based on a French novel and shot in France in French by a French director with a French cast and crew. The Centre National de la Cinematographie -- which channels public funds to French studios to make French movies -- can now snub “A Very Long Engagement” because of the taint of laundered Bugs Bunny money. The court decision is being appealed.

At stake in all this cultural protectionist maneuvering is a subsidy payment of nearly $5 million. The movie, thanks to its American investors, was one of the most lavish French productions ever made, with a budget of $45 million. It has earned only about $6 million at the box office in the United States, as opposed to $35 million in France. Presumably those French audiences watching Jean-Pierre Jeunet direct Audrey Tatou (both of “Amelie” fame) in “Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles” thought they were watching a French film.

Plenty of critics were fooled by this American impostor as well. The film was nominated for 12 Cesar awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars. The recognition bolstered Jeunet’s case that his movie was as French as a fine Burgundy.

French moviemakers obsess over boxoffice reports that the CNC publishes each month because the numbers always add up to a sobering reality -- nearly half of France’s ticket sales go to Hollywood blockbusters. Sad proof that the film industry isn’t what it used to be in the land that gave cinema fans Renoir, Godard and Truffaut.

It’s hard for us to quibble if the French, who have reason to be traumatized by the decline of their cultural influence in the world, want to use taxpayer subsidies to prop up their cinema. But the globalization of the entertainment business can be a two-way street, and Parisian cultural bureaucrats have to accept that in some years, some of the best French movies might be financed by foreigners. Indeed, they should welcome that, instead of discriminating against these foreign investors.

We wish the backers of the film a not very long appeal. And a successful one.