Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in the pharmacy that his father ran in Paris. At the age of six he goes to the cinema for the first time, and since then he has become a regular at the theater that belonged to his uncle. Passionate about literature since he was little -which will be noted later in the multiple literary references in his films-, he spent World War II in the town where his grandmother lived. There he manages to found a cinema in a garage.

Claude Chabrol married a woman of good social position, Agnés Marie-Madeleine Goute, with whom he had two children, Jean-Yves and Matthieu, who would eventually become the composer of the music for his films. His wife’s fortune allows him to live comfortably, and without economic needs, he decides to dedicate himself to writing about cinema. He begins to publish in the mythical magazine “Cahiers Du Cinema”, for the first time with the review of Singing in the Rain . With another of the great collaborators of the publication, Eric Rohmer , he publishes “Hitchcock devant le mal”, a book that was definitive in vindicating the value of the cinema of the master of suspense.

After founding his own production company AJYM Films, Chabrol made his film debut with El bello Sergio, one of the key tapes of the Nouvelle Vague. In his second job, The Cousins , where there was already a “Charles” victim and a “Paul” executioner. These characters will be repeated in his films, and since The Third Lover , from 1961, there used to be a Hélène, always played by Stéphane Audran , in which the goodness of Charles and the evil of Paul are mixed. Even in movies where they are not called the same, the scheme is maintained.

Although his films are usually quite similar, the truth is that Chabrol was a prolific director, shooting at least one film a year, when he wasn’t shooting two. Some of his titles had a great impact, such as The Tiger perfumes himself with dynamite , The Butcher, A Women’s Affair , Madame Bovary , The Ceremony , etc. She almost always tends to criticize the upper class families of the provincial level.

He also had an intense activity as a theater director, wrote some novels and was known for his taste for good food. In fact, he forbade sandwiches on set and used to offer memorable banquets. He has an affair with the aforementioned Stéphane Audran that causes his wife, Agnés, to file for divorce.

When it seemed that Chabrol was entering a period of decline, he directed the excellent No Va Más , from 1997, which won the Golden Shell in San Sebastián and received the Best Director Award. Since then he entered a new youth, directing films of great interest, such asIn the heart of the lie , Thanks for the chocolate , The flower of evil (2003) , or Drunkenness of power , his last round work. His last works were the crime film Bellamy and two episodes of the series Au Siêcle de Maupassant .