"Le cinema de papa " belongs to the series of films which depicts the director's memories ,although the order was not chronological ,except for the first one,generally considered the best : childhood in WW2 "le vieil homme et l'enfant" , the marriage ("Mazel Tov ou le mariage , the military service ("le pistonné" ) , his apprenticeship in the world of cinema (this movie) and the first time you fall in love ("la première fois" generally looked upon as his nadir) .
This one begins in 1946 , and depicts the life of a Jewish family just after the war (therefore ,it's the follow-up to "le vieil homme et l'enfant" ) ; but it avoids certain details (which will be revealed in the first (fiction) film of sonny , a good trick perhaps inspired by Duvivier 's "la fête à Henriette"(1952).
For Berry was primarily a cine buff : his hero was Jean Marais (an extract of "le château de verre " by René Clément is included) ,and he longed to become an actor ; his meeting with a director de l'Académie Française (although his name is not mentioned , it 's René Clair ,of course) is a failure ,his first effort leading to a 7- second appearance in a cheap dud are discouraging ; undaunted ,the young man is hired by the Columbia Company (no less) and his pidging English gives the funniest scenes of the movie: it turns an earnest resistance movie into a farce ("alibi" is the same word in both languages but the pronunciation differs ).
He then becomes a screenwriter , but his role is stolen by a handsome actor ,cast against type (in the sixties ,Gerard Barray was Jean Marais 's alter ego , a king of the swashbuckler ) ; but it's when he makes his own father the hero of his first work (hence the mysterious title ) that he hits the big time (Yves Robert was also the father in "le pistonné").
It's a pleasant entertaining movie,with a tendency to navel-gazing (one can forgive,for at the time ,Berri was not yet the tycoon (director/producer) he would become )
A note about the title : it gives its name to the French cinema before the Nouvelle Vague,when it was a la mode to despise it ;now this opinion is phased out and ,thanks to reissues on DVD , the cinema de papa is upgraded ;quite rightly so.
