Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cannes & St-Tropez
With the Cannes Film Festival taking off after WWII, French cinema started to diversify.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) eschewed realism with two masterpieces of cinematic fantasy:
La Belle et la Bête
(
Beauty and the Beast
; 1945) and
Orphée
(
Orpheus
; 1950).
Nouvelle Vague
(New Wave) directors made
films without big budgets, extravagant sets or
big-name stars; many also seemed to have a
penchant for the Côte d'Azur. Roger Vadim
turned St-Tropez into the hot spot to be with
his
Et Dieu Créa la Femme
(
And God Created
Woman
; 1956), starring Brigitte Bardot.
Jacques Démy's
La Baie des Anges
(
The Bay of Angels
; 1962) is set in Nice, while
François Truffaut filmed part of
La Nuit Américaine
(
The American Night
; 1972) in the
Victorine studios, the Niçois hinterland and the Vésubie Valley.
Cinema buffs should download the CinePaca app. It
lists some 50 films shot on locations across
Provence-Côte d'Azur and includes clips of the
film in the location and interviews with the actors.
Contemporary Cinema
Provence and the Côte d'Azur continue to inspire and play host to hundreds of films.
Action-packed movies such as
The Transporter
(starring Jason Statham) and the
Taxi
tri-
logy (by Luc Besson, complete with a home-grown rap soundtrack) take place on the
Riviera and Marseille respectively; James Bond drops by Monaco in
GoldenEye
; while
cult comedy
Bienvenu Chez les Ch'tis
tells the story of a Provençal public servant being
relocated - shock horror - to northern France.
Cannes' eponymous film festival (
Click here
)
also guarantees that the limelight of '7th
art' keeps shining bright on the region.
Architecture
From old stone villages built on hillocks to cutting-edge glass design: this region covers a
fabulous architectural spectrum.
Antiquity
Although there is plenty of evidence suggesting the region was inhabited several thousand
years ago, early populations left little in the way of architecture. It was the Massiliots
(Greeks) who, from 600 BC, really started building across Provence; the Romans
however, took it to a whole new level. Their colossal architectural legacy is a real high-
light of travelling to the region, from amphitheatres to aqueducts, arches to temples and
baths.
