FRANCE Crusader for the Arts here was nothing modest about’ the idea, and when the 350 cultural super- stars finally left Paris last week after a glittering two-day conference on Creation and Development, it was clear that there had been nothing modest about their de- liberations. Lodged in luxury hotels at the expense of Frangois Mitterrand’s Socialist government, the high-powered conven- tioneers gathered in the Sorbonne’s ven- erable amphitheater to ponder their curi- ous subject: cultural solutions to the world’s economic crisis. Under frescoed portraits of Diderot and Voltaire, luminaries ranging from Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Novelists Norman Mailer and William Styron and Actress Sophia Loren debated such topics as state control of the arts and the unemployment crisis. In between they supped at the Foreign Ministry and lunched with Mitterrand. So dazzling was the cast that even the stars sometimes seemed overwhelmed. Said Film Director Francis Ford Coppola: “The people here are incredible. It’s like a college—a very good college.” The meeting, Italian Theater Director Giorgio Strehler con- cluded grandly in his summation, had provoked awareness “of the need to create a new place for research, for creation, for hope.” But while rhetoric flowed freely, the conference fell notably short on produc- tive debate. In his closing address Mitter- rand called for a New Renaissance, claiming that “the originality of the French idea lies there, at the intersection of technology and creativity.” From such high-minded but vague declarations the colloquium often descended into special pleading and ideological posturing. Nov- elist Mary McCarthy called on the French government to permit , Poland’s Radio Solidarity to broddcast in France. Feminist Kate Millett deplored the “se- | vere lack of representation of , women” at the meeting (85 out of 350). U.S. cultural “imperi- alism,” particularly in the form of the internationally popular TV show Dallas, was repeated- ly attacked. Not a few guests foundered on the generalities and the pretension. The gran- diose talkathon, hinted one American participant, mainly “reflects how many people are still willing to accept a free ticket to Paris.” Such spectaculars have be- come a hallmark of France’s lavish new investment in the arts, and the personal signature Flamboyant Minister Jack Lang draws mixed reviews Lang with Actress Sophia Loren Jack Lang, 43.* Dapper in his close-cut suits, possessed of boyish good looks and dark curls that seem to stir women, Lang has ambitious plans for the arts in Socialist France. “Our goal,” he says, “is to trans- form all of France into a cultural work site.” The transformation of the budget has been dramatic. In 1981, under President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the Ministry of Culture received $500 million, or .47% of the national budget; this year the figure has *Although the usual French spelling is Jacques, Lang’s birth certificate actually says Jack—proba- bly the result,-he says, of Anglo-Saxon influences pervading France i in 1939, Approved For Release 2001/0 WerltlA-RDP96-00788R000100240026-8 1 shot up to $1.05 billion, .78% of the total. (In contrast, Washington allocates only $500 million, or .06% of the federal bud- get, to the arts.) But Lang’s campaign to rejuvenate France’s cultural life has also depended on vengeful attacks on US. cul- tural “imperialism” that even many French intellectuals find embarrassing. Whatever the merits of Lanp’s efforts, they have certainly been visible—and au- dible. Last year, for example, he decided that the French should mark the summer solstice with a national “musical festival” in which everyone would simultaneously pluck, pound, tingle and bow musical in- struments as church bells rang and neigh- borhood salsa bands played. Right on cue, 5 million French joined in an exuber- ant celebration that banged on from 8:30 p.m. until well past midnight. Lang has filled the once empty courtyard of Paris’ staid Louvre museum with exhibitions of new Frerich fashions, displayed to the thump of disco rhythms. A troupe from the Comédie Frangaise has played in the Paris subways. Still to come are an ambi- tious new “people’s” opera house for the Place de la Bastille, a new ballet school for Marseille and a dance conservatory for Lyon. And, seemingly everywhere, there is Lang himself: listening to the rau- cous new-wave bands, paging through displays at the annual comic book exhibi- tion at Angouléme, inspecting Grenoble’s art museum. Lang’s evangelizing has boosted him to fourth place in popularity among the Mitterrand Cabinet’s 35 ministers. That appeal, however, is due in part to his often gratuitous attacks on U.S. influences. For two years in a row, Lang has bypassed the American film festival at Deauville, a ma- jor annual event, to visit more obscure French art projects in provincial towns. In a burst of chauvinism that seemed cal- culated to stir- Third World sympathies, Lang called, at a UNESCO conference last summer, for a crusade against U.S. cultur- al “imperialists” who “want to impose a uniform way of life on the en- tire planet.” In response, Lang prescribes government subsi- dies for local talent, and favot's requiring that 60% of films broadcast on French televi- sion be French produced. His attacks on American films, which dominate French televi- sion and movie houses, have astonished many cultural lead- ers in France. They argue that American influences s have stimulated French cre- » ativity. Replies Lang: “All I’m doing is recognizing that the North American film industry is large and penetrates the Eu- ropean market. So who’s de- claring war on whom?” His polemical style comes naturally. A lawyer by train- 34 of Mitterrand’ s flamboyant and Americans In Paris: Director Arthur Penn, Novelists Styron and Mailer popular Minister of Culture Deterjore ting into g 2 g i ing, Lang founded the experi- TIME, FEBRUARY 28, 1983