louis malle

Louis Malle was born on October 30, 1932 in Thumeries, in the north of France, the fifth of seven children of a wealthy family, a type of background that he would frequently address in his filmography. Although he began studying political science at the Sorbonne University in Paris, his taste for cinema led him to the IHEC, the prestigious Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (Institute for Higher Cinematographic Studies, which would later change its name to La Fémis), a school public cinema through whose classrooms the best of French filmmakers have passed.

His first important job couldn’t have started better. At just 23 years old, he made with Commander Jacques-Yves Cousteau the impressive documentary of the underwater depths The world of silence(1956), Palme d’Or at Cannes and Oscar for best documentary. His talent was unquestionable, since that same year he served as Robert Bresson ‘s assistant director in A Convicted Man Escaped . Thus, with such a stupendous visiting card, he was able to direct his first fiction feature, the shocking thriller, film noir show, Elevator to the Gallows , a true lesson in mastery of film language, with Hitchcockian suspense, jazzy soundtrack -Malle always loved this music-, and clever pairing of Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet . With her he would repeat that same year in Los amantes, where she composes a bourgeois dissatisfied with her marriage. Already in 1960 she continued to change register with Zazie in the subway , a surreal humor film about a girl who discovers the world of adults in the subway, an omnipresent theme in her later filmography.

Although a contemporary of the promoters of the nouvelle vague, the truth is that Malle lives in no man’s land. Neither is he with these young iconoclasts who want to reinvent film writing and advocate auteur cinema -and that François Truffaut was captivated by Zazie- , nor can he be classified among the academic directors that they insult. Known above all for his fictional stories, Malle will never leave the documentary he had tackled with Cousteau, and likewise delivers an extremely interesting look at the world’s most important cycling event – Vive le Tour (1962) -, which delves into exotic India with power – Calcutta and The Ghost India , from 1969-, or in the deep America –God’s Country (1986)-. Even halfway between documentary and fiction can be considered the exciting experiments My Dinner with André (1981), a conversation about life, death and theater between stage professionals Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn , or the preparation of the performance from Chejon’s play “Uncle Vanya” in Vanya on 42nd Street (1992).

Although it is difficult to point to stylistic constants in Malle’s cinema -the director likes to change-, it is nevertheless clear that he likes to delve into the darkest traits of the human psyche: murder for money, adultery, suicide, Incest, denunciation, collaborationism, child prostitution, are themes present in titles already mentioned and in El fuego fatuo (1962), A breath in the heart (1971), Lacombe Lucien (1974) and La pequeña (1978). This last film, which made Brooke Shields known , marks the beginning of his American stage, although he had previously shot the rare and surreal The Unicorn (1975) in English. There he metSusan Sarandon , with whom he would maintain a relationship, and with whom he shot the stupendous gangster movie Atlantic City (1980), where he shared the lead with Burt Lancaster .

Malle explained that “when you work on a script, the plot itself is not difficult. You say that happens and then that, which ends up maybe leading to this. And you make the dialogue as plausible as you can. But you must find the note, the correct key to your story. If you find it, everything works, if not, you risk it.” The filmmaker’s films are always very personal, but none was more so than the masterpiece Goodbye, Boys.(1987), a true filmic exorcism of his inner demons, in which he certainly found the correct narrative key in looking at one of his favorite themes, the end of childhood. The film, based on a traumatic personal experience of the director, takes place in occupied France, in a school run by friars, who hide several Jewish boys among their students. It is a marvel of delicacy, a hymn to friendship, an acknowledgment of everyday heroism, and a confirmation of the ephemeral condition of so many beautiful things. The film gave him the Golden Lion in Venice, a festival that had already recognized his films Atlantic City and The Lovers .

Malle would still return to the bourgeois environments in Milou in May (1990), with the backdrop of May 68, and the scandalous themes in Herida (1992), a mixture of sex and high-voltage politics. Titles without the strength of the aforementioned Vania on 42nd Street , where she collaborated with David Mamet . She closes her filmography with a film, The Bay of Hate , where she returned to her origins in the documentary, as she realistically painted the difficulties of the Vietnamese fishing community with the local population on the West coast of the United States.

Malle’s romantic relationships have been numerous. Before the appointment with Sarandon, he was married to Anne-Marie Deschodt between 1965 and 1967. He had a son with the German Gila von Weitershausen , and with the Canadian Alexandra Stewart . Finally, in 1981 he married Candice Bergen in 1981, who gave him a daughter, and with whom he remained until her death, which occurred on November 23, 1995 due to lymphoma.