Happy Birthday, Louis Malle! Born today in 1932 as Louis Marie Malle, this French screenwriter, producer and film director was the most unpredictable of filmmakers. His eclectic films were noted for their emotional realism and stylistic simplicity.
Malle first gained recognition as a member of his country's New Wave movement of the 1950s. He would later go on to direct films of great breadth and variety, consciously avoiding the temptation to repeat himself.
Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries, Nord, France. Years later, during World War II, Malle attended a Roman Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau.
As an eleven-year-old he witnessed a Gestapo raid on the school, in which three Jewish students, including his close friend and a Jewish teacher, were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz.
The school's headmaster, Père Jacques, was arrested for harboring them and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. Malle would later address these events years later in his autobiographical film.
As a young man, Malle initially studied political science. This was before turning to film studies at École Nationale Supérieure des Métiers de l'Image et du Son, (formerly known as the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, or IDHEC).
Malle later worked as the co-director and cameraman for Jacques Cousteau on the pioneering 1956 French/Italian documentary film 'Le Monde du silence' ('The Silent World'). The film premiered at the 9th Cannes Film Festival that same year and won the Palme d'Or.
Also, during 1956, Malle assisted French film director Robert Bresson ('Diary of a Country Priest', 'Pickpocket', 'Au Hasard Balthazar', 'L'Argent') on his feature.
This was his 1956 French black and white war/drama film 'Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut ('A Man Escaped or: The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth').
Bresson put Malle in charge of the lead actor's spoons, rope, hooks, and other escape implements, saying "Since you come from documentary, you take care of the props." This was before Malle made his first feature two years later, when he would be twenty-four.
The following year, 'The Silent World' won an Oscar for Best Documentary, Features. This occurred at the 29th Academy Awards in late March 1957.
One year later, Malle directed his second feature. This was the 1958 French black and white romance/drama film 'Le amants' ('The Lovers'), starring French actress, singer, screenwriter and director Jeanne Moreau.
Upon release, Malle's film caused major controversy due to its sexual content, leading to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case regarding the legal definition of obscenity.
In 1964, during the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Jacobellis v. Ohio, a theater owner was fined $2,500 for obscenity.
The decision was eventually reversed by the higher court, which found that 'The Lovers' was not obscene and hence constitutionally protected.
However, the court could not agree on the definition of "obscene", which caused then Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to utter his "I know it when I see it" opinion, perhaps the most famous single line associated with the court.
The phrase is now considered a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters.
The following year, Malle married his first wife. This was French actress and writer Anne-Marie Deschodt. However, they were divorced two years later.
A couple of years after, Malle visited India. While there, he made the 1969 French seven-part documentary television miniseries L'Inde fantôme: Reflexions sur un voyage (Ghost India: Reflections on a Trip or Phantom India).
Later that same year, Malle directed the 1969 French Eastmancolor documentary film 'Calcutta'. Although shorter, the film wasn't released in cinemas until November 1971.
Concentrating on real India, its rituals and festivities, Malle fell afoul of the Indian government, which disliked his portrayal of the country, and its fascination with the pre-modern.
Because of this, the government consequently banned the BBC from filming in India for several years. Malle later claimed that his documentary on India was also his favorite film.
Earlier that same year, Malle had written and directed the first film of which he is best known. This was the French/Italian/West German drama/comedy film 'Le souffle au cœur' ('Murmur of the Heart').
This loosely plotted coming-of-age tale follows the life of a nearly fifteen-year-old Laurent Chevalier (Benoît Ferreux) as he stumbles his way over the burgeoning swell of adolescence in 1950s Dijon, France post-World War II.
After having his first sexual experience with a prostitute and dodging the lips of Father Henn (Michel Lonsdale), Chevalier contracts a case of scarlet fever.
When the fever leaves him with a heart murmur, Chevalier is placed in a sanatorium, along with his over-attentive and adulterous yet affectionate Italian mother Clara (Lea Massari).
The film was screened at the 24th Cannes Film Festival in May of that same year, and was a box office success in France. It was later released to the United States in October, where it received positive reviews.
The following year, 'Murmur of the Heart' earned Malle his first (of three) Oscar nominations for "Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced".
However, the film did not win. However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 44th Academy Awards in mid-April 1972.
Malle likes to call 'Murmur of the Heart' "my first film". In fact, it was his eighth feature, but the first one he scripted on his own. It was also, he felt, his "first happy, optimistic film".
Eight years later, Malle directed the second film of which he is best known. This was the 1980 American crime/drama film 'Atlantic City'.
During September 1980, Malle married his second and final wife. This was American actress and former fashion model Candice Bergen. They had one daughter together, Chloé Françoise Malle, in November 1985. Bergen would remain married to Malle until his death.
Two years after the release of 'Atlantic City', the film received five Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Burt Lancaster), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Susan Sarandon), and Best Screenplay.
However, the film didn't win. This occurred at the 54th Academy Awards in late March 1982.
Five years later, Malle wrote, produced, and directed the third and final film of which he is best known. This was the autobiographical 1987 French war/drama film 'Au Revoir les Enfants' ('Goodbye, Children').
It premiered at the 44th Venice Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion.
Set in 1943, the film tells of Julien (Gaspard Manesse), a student at a French boarding school. When three new students arrive, including Jean Bonnett (Raphael Fejto), Julien believes that they are no different from the other boys.
What Julien doesn't know is that the boys are actually Jews who are evading capture by the Nazis.
While Julien doesn't care for Jean at first, the boys develop a tight bond -- while the head of the school, Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), works to protect the boys from the Holocaust.
One year later, 'Au Revoir les Enfants' won seven César Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Writing, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound, and Best Production Design. This occurred at the 13th César Awards in mid-March 1988.
The following month, the film was nominated for two Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Screenplay. However, it did not win. This occurred at the 60th Academy Awards in mid-April 1988.
Just as his earlier films (most notably 'The Lovers') helped popularize French films in the United States, 'My Dinner with Andre' was at the forefront of the rise of American independent cinema in the 1980s.
Over a career over nearly four decades, Malle had enriched cinema that had taken him from the peripheries of the French New Wave to the vanguard of American moviemaking.
Many of Malle's features tended to be very personal affairs that focused on some form of societal exclusion, and on more than one occasion he rejected opportunities to work in Hollywood so as to have more time to lavish greater attention on his individual projects.
Years later, his efforts had indeed paid off. By the time of his death, Malle was hailed for his invaluable contributions to both French and world cinema.
In the early 1990s, Malle was the President of jury at the 46th Cannes Film Festival in May 1993.
Two years later, he passed from lymphoma at his and Edgar Bergen's (his father-in-law) home in Beverly Hills, California. This occurred on November 23, 1995. Malle was 63.
In April 1996, Malle was voted the 40th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
In 2003, 'Atlantic City' was among the twenty-five motion pictures added annually to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation.
Malle is sometimes associated with the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) movement. However, his work does not directly fit in with or correspond to the auteurist theories.
These applied to the work of such filmmakers during this movement including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and others.
Also, Malle had nothing whatsoever to do with the Cahiers du cinéma. However, his work does exemplify some of the characteristics of the movement, such as using natural light and shooting on location.
Among his credits, Malle is also known for directing 'Elevator to the Gallows' (1958), 'Lacombe, Lucien' (1974), and 'My Dinner with Andre' (1981).
One of the most consistently innovative, renowned and risk-taking filmmakers of his generation, Malle directed a number of critically acclaimed films both in his native France and the United States, but rarely received the attention that his work commanded.
From undersea documentaries to romantic thrillers; from exposés on poverty to extended dinner conversations, Malle's work could hardly have been more diverse, challenging and worthy of the highest praise.
Malle eventually became one of France’s most renowned directors both at home and internationally. He was known for the variety and breadth of his work as a feature filmmaker and a documentarist, as well as its frequently controversial subject matter.
Although often associated with the Nouvelle Vague directors, Malle’s debut preceded the arrival of the movement and he is often considered to be a traditionalist rather than an iconoclast in matters of style.
Malle had been active from 1953–1995.
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