In Focus - Discover France: Experience the Best of France - page 739

Other directors have found an audience by employing shock tactics. Enfant ter-
rible Gaspar Noé ruffled feathers with his violent films Irréversible (2002) and Into
the Void (2009), while Jacque Audiard's tough 2009 prison drama, Un Prophète ,
narrowly missed out on an Oscar for Best Foreign Film at the 2010 Academy
Awards.
The major success of recent years, however, is undoubtedly Bienvenue chez les
Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks; 2008), a warm-hearted comedy, directed by Dany
Boon, that debunks grim stereotypes about the industrialised regions of northern
France. Grossing an astonishing US$194 million in France and $245 million world-
wide, it's the highest-grossing French film of all time.
Literature
France has a long and distinguished literary tradition, and regularly features in the
top ten of the world's best-read nations. With its illustrious roll-call of epic novelists,
experimental poets and existential thinkers, it's also little wonder that France has
been awarded more Nobel Prizes for Literature than any other country.
Early Literature
The earliest surviving examples of French literature are the epic lyrical poems writ-
ten during the early medieval period, most of which were based around allegorical
tales and mythological legends (courtly love and King Arthur were particularly popu-
lar subjects in early French literature). Chrétien de Troyes (12th century), Pierre de
Ronsard (1524-85) and the mischievous François Rabelais (1494-1553) were
among the most important writers of the period, while the influential prose writer
Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) penned essays on topics ranging from cannibals to
public drunkenness.
The 18th century was dominated by one of France's greatest writers and philo-
sophers, Voltaire (1694-1778), a key figure of the European Enlightenment.
Through a prodigious output of novels, plays, poems, essays and political pamph-
lets, Voltaire tirelessly championed the values of freedom, equality and civil liberties
for everyone, not solely for the ruling elite. His writings subsequently played an im-
portant role in the development of the fundamental principles of the French Revolu-
tion a century later.