How to write French film titles

[Kinsayder]

This is a translation from a piece of French Wikipedia, about where the capital letters should go in French film and book titles, which might help to clarify something I have often found puzzling myself:

1. The general rule is that only the first word of a title takes an initial capital (with the obvious exception of proper nouns):

• Autant en emporte le vent ;
  Faut pas prendre les enfants du Bon Dieu pour des canards sauvages ;
  Une saison en enfer ;
  De l'esprit des lois ;
  Du côté de chez Swann ;
  Mon oncle.

2. If the title forms a complete sentence, only the first word takes an initial capital:

• La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu ;
  Le soleil se lève aussi ;
  La vie est un long fleuve tranquille ;
  Qu'elle était verte ma vallée.

3. If the title begins with an adjective placed before the noun, then the noun also takes an initial capital:

• Tristes Tropiques.

4. If the title begins with the definite article (le, la, les) and it does not constitute a complete sentence (as in rule 2):

• 4.1 The first noun takes a capital letter :
  • Les Misérables,
    Les Liaisons dangereuses,
    L'Ami du peuple,
    L'Homme qui rit,
    La Liberté éclairant le monde.
  4.2 If the title is a list, each noun takes a capital letter :
  • Le Loup et l'Agneau,
    La Belle et la Bête,
    Le Renard, le Loup et le Cheval.
  4.3 If adjectives and/or adverbs come between the definite article and the noun, then they are also capitalised:
  • Le Grand Meaulnes,
    Le Petit Chaperon rouge,
    Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry,
    La Grande et Belle Histoire de Caliméro,
    Les Cinq Dernières Minutes.

5. When there is a double title, the preceding rules apply to each part :

• Le Barbier de Séville ou la Précaution inutile ;
  Émile ou De l'éducation.

6. If the author has chosen an unusual typography for his title, it is preferable to respect it: e.g., eXistenZ rather than Existenz.

(This is Wikipedia, remember, so not necessarily the last word on the subject.)

[Matt]

As someone who participates in the cataloging of films for libraries, I find this immensely helpful (and discover that I'd been doing it all wrong, too!).

[Knappen]

Great stuff.

I will start working on my 3000 titles excel list tonight.

[Gropius]

4.3 If adjectives and/or adverbs come between the definite article and the noun, then they are also capitalised:

• Le Grand Meaulnes,
  Le Petit Chaperon rouge,
  Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry,
  La Grande et Belle Histoire de Caliméro,
  Les Cinq Dernières Minutes.

This rule seems to be the most inconsistently applied: for instance, I have found references on French websites to Godard's Le Petit Soldat but also Le petit soldat. If the Wiki editors are using some style manual, I suppose they must know what they're talking about though.

[Kinsayder]

And IMDb has Le Petit soldat. The Telerama Cinema Guide, which I regard as very scholarly and reliable, seems to be consistent with the Wikipedia guidelines. The Larousse Film Dictionary avoids the issue by capitalising everything.

[domino harvey]

This is fantastic, thank you so much

[zedz]

Great resource. I thought I knew how to do this, but it's much more complicated and eccentric than I realised (I was working only with 1, 3 and 4). Who knew they had different capitalisation rules for definite and indefinite articles?

For Italian, I'm pretty sure it's an unwavering "first word only" capitalisation rule, unless a proper noun is involved (e.g. La dolce vita, Il vangelo secondo Matteo), but I stand to be corrected. Can anyone vouch for other languages?

[Gropius]

For Italian, I'm pretty sure it's an unwavering "first word only" capitalisation rule, unless a proper noun is involved (e.g. La dolce vita, Il vangelo secondo Matteo), but I stand to be corrected. Can anyone vouch for other languages?

Yes, I believe this is the same for Spanish as well (e.g. El ángel exterminador). I think it may at one stage have been the case for French actually, but I'm not sure about the history of capitalisation.

[denti alligator]

Hm. The copy of Roland Barthes's Le plaisir du texte I'm currently reading doesn't follow the rule above (which would make it Le Plaisir du texte). Cover, spine and title pages have plaisir in lower case. This is a major publisher, too (Editions de seuil). Strangely enough, in the back of the book, under the "books by same author" list, there is a critical edition of the same book listed as Le Plaisir du texte.

Rulz schmulz.

The German rule is easy: Always capitalize first letter. Then follow regular rules of capitalization in German (i.e. only substantives, nothing else).

Still: rulz schmulz.

[Kinsayder]

Who knew they had different capitalisation rules for definite and indefinite articles?

I think the justification for this may be that definite articles in titles are sometimes lost through elision: e.g., "Le réalisateur des Visiteurs du soir" rather than "Le réalisateur de Les Visiteurs du soir". Whereas indefinite articles never are: "Le réalisateur d'Un chant d'amour". When indexing by title, definite articles are usually ignored, indefinite articles are not: Les Visiteurs du soir goes under "V"; Un chant d'amour under "U".

Another issue involves capital letters in surnames. The position of the first capital generally determines what letter the name should be indexed under: e.g., Antoine de Caunes should be indexed under "C", Vittorio De Sica under "D", Denys de La Patillière under "L", Erich von Stroheim under "S", Lee Van Cleef under "V"...

[MichaelB]

Another issue involves capital letters in surnames. The position of the first capital generally determines what letter the name should be indexed under: e.g., Antoine de Caunes should be indexed under "C", Vittorio De Sica under "D", Denys de La Patillière under "L", Erich von Stroheim under "S", Lee Van Cleef under "V"...

I don't think I've ever seen Lars von Trier indexed under T - even though the "von" is completely fake!

[Kinsayder]

The BFI database has him as "TRIER, Lars von", but notes his akas "TRIER, Lars" and "VON TRIER, Lars". All the French reference books I've checked (Larousse, Laffont, Telerama) have him under "T".

[Gropius]

The BFI database has him as "TRIER, Lars von", but notes his akas "TRIER, Lars" and "VON TRIER, Lars". All the French reference books I've checked (Larousse, Laffont, Telerama) have him under "T".

I was just trying to look up this subject (surnames with prefixes), and found a cataloguing guide from the Yale Music Library, which complicates the matter further. Apparently 'Von Trier' would be filed under 'V' if he were Afrikaans, but 'T' if Dutch or, as is the case, Danish.

[swo17]

I only recently discovered this thread and realized to my horror that I've been doing capitalization of French titles all wrong for years! A quick question in case anyone knows, with regard to rule 4.2: "If the title is a list, each noun takes a capital letter." What if it's a list followed by a prepositional phrase? For example, is it La Naissance, la Vie et la Mort du Christ or is only 'naissance' capitalized?

[knives]

Christ is kept capitalized, but everything else isn't.

[swo17]

Well at the very least, 'naissance' is also capitalized, isn't it?

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Since it is in effect a list should it not conform to how you have written it above with Christ remaining capitalised as well - coz he's like God innit.

[knives]

No. For example Clouzot's Les diaboliques doesn't capitalize the D or Chomet's L'illusionniste doesn't capitalize the I. Here's the poster for The 400 Blows to give an idea.

[Gregory]

I hadn't read this thread before, either, and I'm not sure it makes much sense to me. These are just Wikipédia's own rules for capitalization, not what all of France adheres to, right? It may be the predominant style, but certainly not universal. In every other country I'm familiar with, each institution, publishing house, etc. follows its own house style or manual of choice, and there is always inconsistency among them (not only capitalization but handling of names with "Von," and infinite other questions of style). This is why I think what denti is saying below is correct.
Also, when French titles are rendered in an English text, completely different rules may apply.
I was recently editing something that mentioned L'Age d'Or and normally I'd write it that way with a lowercase 'd', but the overall style for that book was to capitalize each word in a title, so we went with "L'Age D'Or".

Hm. The copy of Roland Barthes's Le plaisir du texte I'm currently reading doesn't follow the rule above (which would make it Le Plaisir du texte). Cover, spine and title pages have plaisir in lower case. This is a major publisher, too (Editions de seuil). Strangely enough, in the back of the book, under the "books by same author" list, there is a critical edition of the same book listed as Le Plaisir du texte.

Rulz schmulz.

[swo17]

No. For example Clouzot's Les diaboliques doesn't capitalize the D or Chomet's L'illusionniste doesn't capitalize the I. Here's the poster for The 400 Blows to give an idea.

Going by the first post, all the examples you mention knives should in fact have the noun following the definite article capitalized. I don't think that 400 Blows poster is very helpful as they've clearly kept all letters in lowercase for aesthetic reasons.

I should perhaps point out that up until a day ago, if you told me that anything other than the first word and any proper nouns were supposed to be capitalized in French titles, I would have smacked you in the face.

[knives]

I suppose if we were to go by the posters there would be no rules it seems.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

French websites are split 50/50 between Les Diaboliques and Les diaboliques.
If you want a real mindfuck have a look at Gaumont's upcoming list here-
http://boutique.gaumont.fr/fr/preco_5_G ... bluray.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tenia]

Usually, we would either put no capital at all, or just for the first name, like Les tontons flingueurs, or Les Tontons flingueurs, but I would say that, as a all, we would rather use no capital at all and go for Les tontons flingueurs, since "tontons" is a common name and has absolutely no reason to be with a first capital.

[TMDaines]

I only recently discovered this thread and realized to my horror that I've been doing capitalization of French titles all wrong for years! A quick question in case anyone knows, with regard to rule 4.2: "If the title is a list, each noun takes a capital letter." What if it's a list followed by a prepositional phrase? For example, is it La Naissance, la Vie et la Mort du Christ or is only 'naissance' capitalized?

The phenomenon of "title case" doesn't exist in most other Western languages. It exists only in English and, I believe, Portugese (though it's frequently ignored). It certainly doesn't exist in French, Spanish, Italian or German. In most languages it should just be the first letter of the first world capitalised and then normal rules in the language apply, hence all nouns will still be capitalised in German. Obviously, like in English, the author may style his title in a manner that contravenes these general rules.

Needless to say, looking at cover art and posters isn't the best bet. They'll be as they wish. A lot of it will be the English language influence.

[Documaniaque]

Here's the rule used by a serious French film history journal in their instructions to authors: http://1895.revues.org/349" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Pour les titres français, l'initiale du premier mot est en capitales (majuscules), sauf lorsqu'il s'agit d'un article défini ; dans ce cas, la majuscule est mise au premier substantif (nom), ainsi qu'à l'adjectif qui le précède (Germinal, Une femme au bain, la Lutte pour la vie, le Bonheur perdu, l'Éternel Amour)."

The first letter of the first word is capitalized, except when it's a definite article; in this case the capital is moved to the first noun, as well as the adjective which preceeds it.

Seems to be a simpler rule set than above; though I'm too tired right now to compare and decide if in effect they say the same thing...