It is significant that Bertrand Taverniere films have been paid little attention by the more important contemporary film critics/theorists: his work is resolutely ?realist,? and realism is under attack in critical quarters. Realism has frequently been a cover for the reproduction and reinforcement of dominant ideological assumptions, and to this extent that attack is salutary. Yet Taverniere cinema demonstrates effectively that the blanket rejection of realism rests on very unstable foundations. Realism has been seen as the bourgeoisie?s way of talking to itself.
