Happy Birthday, Jean Vigo! Born today in 1905, this French film director had helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s. His work influenced French New Wave cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Among his credits, Vigo is best known for directing the forty-seven-minute 1933 French black and white comedy/short film 'Zéro de conduite' ('Zero for Conduct') and the 1934 French black and white romance/drama film 'LAtalante', also released as 'Le Chaland qui passe' ('The Passing Barge'),
Vigo had a brief career encompassing only four films, all of which were shot during the beginning of the sound era, but only one of which was full-length.
The former is a film that was controversial in France for its depiction of an educational system in crisis. It focuses on a group of boys who are fed up with their overzealous repressive teachers and devise a rebellion.
Colin (Gilbert Pruchon), Caussat (Louis Lefebvre) and fellow classmates are aware that their school is planning a shindig, but they're not of a mind to cooperate. Frustrated by the scolding and punishment doled out by their teachers, the boys come up with a plan to interfere with the event.
The latter tells of capricious small-town girl Juliette (Dita Parlo) and barge captain Jean (Jean Dasté). They marry after a whirlwind courtship, and Juliette comes to live aboard his eponymous carnal barge, L'Atalante.
As they make their way down the Seine, Jean grows weary of Juliette's flirtations with his all-male crew, and Juliette longs to escape the monotony of the boat and experience the excitement of a big city. When she steals away to Paris by herself, her husband begins to think their marriage was a mistake.
According to his personal life, Vigo was married and had a daughter, Luce Vigo, who later became a film critic in 1931.
Three years later, Vigo passed du to complications from tuberculosis in Paris, France on October 5, 1934. This was after he had contracted it eight years earlier. Vigo was 29.
Three years later, Vigo passed du to complications from tuberculosis in Paris, France on October 5, 1934. This was after he had contracted it eight years earlier. Vigo was 29.
Even among cinema’s legends, Vigo stands apart. The son of a notorious anarchist, Vigo had a brief but brilliant career making poetic, lightly surrealist films before his life was cut tragically short.
Like the daring early works of his contemporaries French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic Jean Cocteau ('Beauty and the Beast', 'Orpheus') and Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, Vigo’s films refused to play by the rules.
Vigo's critical acclimation of the poetic beauty of this pivotal film artist, which came posthumously, has been nearly unanimous.
Vigo had been active from 1930–1934.
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