The Films of Claude Chabrol and Jacques Becker We are pleased to present touring films by these two great French directors in our "Springtime in France" series. We thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris and the French Consulate General of San Francisco for their support. We wish to thank Emmanuel Delloye, Cultural Attaché, San Francisco; and Janine Deunf, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We also thank Dennis Bartok and the American Cinematheque for their collaboration. Prints are from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, except where otherwise noted.Claude ChabrolSaturdays in May and JunePerhaps no director has so successfully wedded genre to an intellectual cinema as has Claude Chabrol; his thrillers are built on a cold geometry of psychological insights. Chabrol is considered the godfather of the French New Wave, in part because his was the first of the films by Cahiers du Cinéma critics, in part because he used his early success to help finance the work of other fledgling directors. But even his beautifully realized New Wave films carry the seeds of tensions he incorporated into the policiers that would dominate his oeuvre from then on. He is often compared to Hitchcock (on whom he co-authored an important study) and to Lang. Like Hitchcock, Chabrol finds the mundane the most useful source of suspense and irony, and never imagines that killing is a simple task. Like Lang, he knows that everyone is guilty. If Chabrol had not been a filmmaker, perhaps he would have been a mathematician, working out the infinite variations of the sexual triangle as it intersects with murder. (Viewers will note the recurrence of characters named Charles and Hélène, usually a bourgeois couple, who will inch toward violence under the influence of a more hedonistic outsider, Paul.) But critics re-evaluating his career see him also as a cinematic Balzac (an author he quotes frequently in his films), as he dissects the uneventful lives of unremarkable people who are only too glad for some tragic relief. Point-of-view is the key to the distance, suspense, and, occasionally, compassion that his films uniquely combine. Chabrol is a consummate craftsman whose appeal is more in the telling than the told.Marcel Pagnol"With Marcel Pagnol, making a film is first of all going to Marseilles, then eating some bouillabaisse with a friend, talking about the rain or the beautiful weather, and finally if there is a spare moment, shooting..."-FernandelEnjoy Pagnol's Fanny Trilogy at PFA and dinner à la provençale by Cafe Grace in the museum's sculpture garden. Three-course dinner begins at 5 p.m., prix fixe $35. Call Cafe Grace at (510) 548-4366 for dinner reservations. (Our last Pagnol dinner sold out, so please call early!) SATURDAY MAY 15, 1999