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Claire Denis
Director / Screenwriter
1948 - 
Born April 21, Paris, France
Key Production Countries: France, Germany
Key Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Romance, Family Drama
Key Collaborators: Agnes Godard (Cinematographer), Gregoire Colin (Leading Player), Jean-Pol Fargeau (Screenwriter), Alex Descas (Leading Character Player), Arnaud de Moleron (Production Designer), Nelly Quettier (Editor), Stuart Staples/Tindersticks (Composer), Isaach De Bankole (Leading Player), Vincent Gallo (Leading Player), Bruno Pesery (Producer)

Recommended: U.S. Go Home [TV] (1994), Friday Night (2002), The Intruder (2004)^, 35 Shots of Rum (2008)^, White Material (2009)
Worth a Look: No Fear, No Die (1990), I Can't Sleep (1994), Nenette et Boni (1996), Beau travail (1998)*
Approach with Caution: Chocolat (1988)
Duds: Trouble Every Day (2001)
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section; ^ Listed in TSPDT's 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films section.

Links: [ Amazon ] [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Wikipedia ] [ The European Graduate School Biography ] [ Kinoeye Feature (2003) ] [ The Guardian: Claire Denis Interviewed by Jonathan Romney ] [ Errata Interview (2004) ] [ Film Comment Interview (2005) ] [ Senses of Cinema Interview (2002) ] [ Screening the Past Article (2006) ] [ Reverse Shot Article (2009) ]
Books: [ Claire Denis (Contemporary Film Directors) ] [ Claire Denis (French Film Directors) ]
 
No Fear, No Die (1990)Beau Travail (1998)Friday Night (2002)The Intruder (2004)
 
     
  "So its clear, I think, how far certain running ideas in French cinema - evident in the thirties and hurried forward in the New Wave - are still being pursued. Claire Denis reminds one not just of the wonder of French cinema, but of its sense of history." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)  
     
  "A provocative director whose films offer richly textured, contemplative examinations of cross-cultural tensions and alienation, Claire Denis is one of French cinema's most distinctive and humanistic storytellers. A prolific filmmaker who is more concerned with the drive of her characters rather than the plot that weaves them together, she has been dubbed by one critic as one of the only current French directors who "has been able to reconcile the lyricism of French cinema with the impulse to capture the often harsh face of contemporary France."" - Rebecca Flint Marx (All-Movie Guide)  
     
  "Aside from their striking visual quality and formal dexterity, Denis' films exude tender affection for, and solidarity with, a range of everyday people – exiles, immigrants, sexual transgressives and alienated urban dwellers – who thrive on the margins of society. At the same time, much of her work questions the self-serving assumptions and prejudices of the dominant white European culture." - Damon Smith (Senses of Cinema, 2005)  
     
  "If filming means you have to control everything I'd shoot myself. You already have to control the framing, the colors, the costumes, the sets and all that. But that's done before, the control's done before. What I like during filming is that these are moments when you have the right not to reply and to let things happen. Before the shoot, after the shoot, you have to account for everything." - Claire Denis  
     
 
Please note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we haven't seen include Towards Mathilde (2005).
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"A white liberal director who spent her formative years living in colonial Africa, Claire Denis is one of the most original and daring directors to emerge from France. What she seems to be attempting, and frequently achieving, is a phenomenological, almost existential, cinema. Her ambition is, in her words, "to capture moments... pieces of time." There is an almost anthropological interest in minutiae - gestures, faces, surfaces - as her camera zeroes in and lingers long on pinpoint details. Denis self-deprecatingly puts her meditative style down to the fact that she is a "a bit slow." - Lloyd Hughes, The Rough Guide to Film

 
 
Top 250 Directors
21st Century Top 50
100 Essential Directors (Pop Matters)
● The Wild Bunch... 50 of the Movies' Maddest Visionaries
Ranked 3rd on Film Comment's list of the 25 Best Directors of the Decade (2000-2009)
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Chantal Akerman
Michelangelo Antonioni
Jean-Jacques Beineix
Bernardo Bertolucci
Catherine Breillat
Manoel de Oliveira
Bruno Dumont
Vincent Gallo (External Link)
Julio Medem
François Ozon
Jacques Rivette
Wim Wenders
 
Claire Denis's Favourites
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Do the Right Thing (1989) Spike Lee, Germany, Year Zero (1947) Roberto Rossellini, The Home and the World (1984) Satyajit Ray, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) John Cassavetes, Late Spring (1949) Yasujiro Ozu, No, or the Vain Glory of Command (1990) Manoel de Oliveira, La Notte (1961) Michelangelo Antonioni, Nouvelle vague (1990) Jean-Luc Godard, Pickpocket (1959) Robert Bresson. Source: Sight & Sound (1992)
 
 
 
         
         

 

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