Louis Malle

Louis Malle (October 30th 1932 with Thumeries - November 23rd 1995 with Los Angeles) is a Cinéaste French.

Biography

Beginnings

Born with Thumeries in the Northern in 1932, Louis Malle is resulting from an big family of industrialists of sugar (it is the grandson of Henri Béghin, founder of the sugar mark Beghin-Say). It grows in the medium of the upper middle class and crosses the Occupation in various catholic boarding schools (of which one that it will evoke later). As of the 14 years age, it is initiated with the realization with the camera 8mm of his father. He thinks of studying political sciences with the Université of Paris, but it is at this time that its career of scenario writer decides. He is thus registered with IDHEC.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau research then a young assistant to carry out documentary on sea-beds; one proposes to him students of IDHEC and it chooses Malle. Several months of work on the Calypso lead to the Monde of Silence (1955). Their work receives a Palme of Gold.
Sur turning, Louis Malle bursts the tympanums at the time of a diving, it will not be able to thus complete work of this type more. The projects which will follow, films and documentary, readily less consensual and will be approached with a critical eye.

It is then the rise of the New wave but Malle will never belong to this movement, it will develop its own way in parallel, only, according to its clean motivations.
It carries out its first feature-length film at 25 years, Ascenseur for the scaffold (1957) with Jeanne Moreau in which it shows its passion for the Jazz (with an original soundtrack of Miles Davis). Follow the Lovers (always with Jeanne Moreau) in whom it attacks the middle-class, then the adaption of a news of Raymond Queneau, Zazie in the subway (1960), light and enthusiastic film, and Will-o'-the-wisp (1963), film on the depression and the suicide…

Polemic and exile

Of return of its voyage, it makes a film which causes an outcry: the Breath in the middle .
Il evokes there the incestueuse relation (even romantic) between a mother and her son; this topic is treated without any moral judgment, which will be a constant at the realizer, it does not have there the innocent ones and not culprits, the life is much more complex. It is to the spectator to make his own judgment, not with the realizer to impose it to him.

Three years later, it is on another topic that it causes a controversy. In Lacombe Lucien (1974) it describes the slow progression of an young man désœuvré in collaboration. There still, it does not carry any judgment, the collaborationist is not a monster, it is just human and fact of the errors. The press and the critics show it then all evils, they consider its film wretched and reproach him for not having lived rather hard the war. With most extremely of the polemic, it decides expatrier with the the United States. It turns inter alia, to La Nouvelle-Orléans, Small the with the young person Brooke Shields and, with Hollywood, Atlantic City (1980), with Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, in which it tells the mishaps of one gangster to the retirement and his neighbor in the city of the casinos.

Dedication

When it returns to France in 1987 is to stick to the topic which had made it leave: the Occupation.
Ce will be then the dedication of its career, Au-revoir the children . In a catholic college under the occupation, a boy resulting from the middle-class discovers that one of his/her comrades is Jewish. A friendship is built between the two but will not be able to prevent a fine tragedy.

In this film, Louis Malle shows that of which he remembers the war. The history is partly autobiographical, it was pilot of a similar situation at the time of its childhood, a young Jew had been hidden in his boarding school then discovered by the Gestapo and off-set. He will say besides that this topic haunted it since always and that it is this tragic history which had brought it to the cinema.

This film takes again also certain elements of its preceding polemical films; of Lacombe Lucien it takes again the collaborationist " in spite of lui" , of the Breath in the middle , it takes again the fusional relation between the mother and the son. There still there does not judge anybody, it are no goods nor the malicious ones, just a certain fate. This film will be a triumph and will receive several rewards.

Will follow the comedy Milou in May then Fatale and finally the adaptation of the part of Anton Tchekhov Vanya, 42e street (1994).
He dies of a Lymphome the November 23rd 1995 with Los Angeles; he had married with the American actress Candice Bergen in 1980 (its first marriage with Anne-Marie Deschodt had lasted of 1965 to 1967), he had three children.

Documentary

During his career, the realizer alternated purely fictional films and the documentary ones.

Documentary the most known for which he collaborated is without question Le Monde of silence (1955). Co-realized with Jacques-Yves Cousteau, it is its first real track records for which it will become Scaphandrier.

Fifteen years later it will film the poverty of the peasants of India for Calcutta, phantom India (1969). This experiment would have made him hesitate to return to the fiction.

It decides to film another form of poverty, that of the French workers, plunged in a daily precariousness of a Citroen factory in Rennes, it is too human Humain (1973). He will film then the American poor population in God' S Country (1985) then the Continuation of the happiness ( And the Pursuit off Happiness , 1986), in which he will film the individuals that he had followed one decade earlier.

Rewards (nonexhaustive)

Catalog of films

First French period

American period

Second French period

External bonds

  • Official site
  • All video files concerning Louis Malle on the site of the INA, ina.fr
  • Biography
  • Biography of Louis Malle and her mother (see: famous characters)

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