An Italian proverb is formal: “He lupo loses il pelo ma non il vizio.” “ Translation: aging, “The wolf loses its hair but not the vice”. Considered a predator ready to fall on the cinema when it was launched in France in September 2014, the Netflix platform no longer arouses quite the same fear.
A dialogue opened which led to the negotiations underway today, on the investment obligations of the platforms in the hexagonal production and the chronology of the media.
The detractors of Netflix remain, but many of them now qualify their fears and their criticisms. This is because along the way, the platform has shown good will and put in place a policy more able to adapt to the French context. Tuesday March 30, Netflix announced around twenty new productions “made in France” for 2021 in order to continue, according to its officials, “The creative and cultural anchoring in France” of the platform.
The firm, created by Reed Hastings in 1997, had already caused general surprise in January by announcing that it was becoming a partner in the restoration of the Napoleon (1927), by Abel Gance, a river film of more than seven hours, refurbished for the celebrations of the bicentenary of the death of the Emperor of the French.
Editorial repositioning
Frédéric Bonnaud, the owner of the Cinémathèque française, is full of praise. “This is a very intelligent and very useful prestige operation on their part. There are not that many companies interested in safeguarding heritage. The world of cinema has now understood that Netflix participates in its ecosystem; For its part, Netflix understood that it was better to be a partner than to pass for a raptor. “
Another example of this editorial repositioning: the agreement signed in April 2020 with the producer, broadcaster and theater operator MK2 for the distribution of part of its catalog – i.e. around fifty films among the 800 it contains. It materialized with the arrival on the American platform of twelve feature films by François Truffaut. To which will be added, over the months, films by Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, David Lynch, Alain Resnais, Emir Kusturica, Michael Haneke or Xavier Dolan, and key works such as Modern times (1936), by Chaplin, and The Young Ladies of Rochefort (1967), by Jacques Demy.
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