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Louis Malle |
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Director / Screenwriter / Producer |
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1932 - 1995 |
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Born October 30,
Thumeries, France |
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Key
Production Countries: France, USA |
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Key Genres: Drama,
Romantic Drama, Coming-of-Age, Period Film, Crime |
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Key
Collaborators: Suzanne
Baron (Editor), Jeanne Moreau (Leading
Player), Vincent Malle
(Producer), Wallace Shawn (Leading Character Player), Henri Decae (Cinematographer),
Bernard Evein
(Production Designer), Hubert Deschamps (Character Player), Maurice Ronet (Leading Player), Susan Sarandon
(Leading Player), Andre Gregory (Leading Player) |
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Highly
Recommended: Elevator to the Gallows (1957), Atlantic
City (1980)*, Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987)* |
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Recommended:
The Thief of Paris (1967), Murmur of the Heart (1971), Lacombe,
Lucien (1974)*, Alamo
Bay (1985) |
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Worth a Look:
The Lovers (1958), Zazie dans le Metro (1960), Le Feu follet (1963)*, Spirits of the Dead (1968)
[co-directed by
Federico Fellini and
Roger Vadim], My Dinner with Andre (1981),
God's Country [TV] (1985), Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) |
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Approach with Caution: Damage (1992) |
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Duds: Pretty Baby
(1978) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Strictly
Film School: Louis Malle ] [
BBC Feature ] [
Roger Ebert Interview (1972) ] |
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Books:
[
Malle
on Malle ] [
The Films of Louis Malle: A Critical Analysis ] [
Louis Malle (French Film Directors) ] |
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"A
critic remarked of one of Malle's last films that it was lovely
to look at, but lacked narrative drive. That was not always true
of the rich variety of work turned out by this French director,
but it became increasingly so since the early 1970s... Malle made
a gloriously wide variety of films, underlining his own attempts
to escape categorization and his denial of the 'auteur' theory."
-
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999) |
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"As the cresting new wave battered at the restrictions of
conventional narrative technique, Malle created a personal
style, sexual and emotional which was to sustain him while
flashier colleagues failed. Of the new wave survivors, he is the
most old-fashioned, the most erotic, and arguably, the most
widely successful... If
Truffaut turned into the
René Clair of the new French cinema,
Malle may yet become its
Max Ophüls." -
John Baxter
(International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers,
1991) |
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"Although
he began to work at the same time as the New Wave directors, he
was a speculative, conventional talent: sophisticated and
polished, but moving rather aimlessly from one subject to
another, only rarely discovering more than entertainment in his
films. Too often, his choice of material was overambitious or
fashionable, and his working out of human situations
melodramatic. At worst, he had a taste for glossy, commercial
packages that masquerade as artiness, and it seemed reasonable
to regard him as the successor to such proficient but shallow
directors as
Autant-Lara and
Duvivier." -
David
Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)
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"A workmanlike director who is always competent and sometimes
brilliant. His Lacombe, Lucien (73) is a humanistic
masterpiece of the 1970s, another Open City." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"Filmmakers
don't work for posterity. We create with celluloid and chemical
pigments that don't last very long. They fade away. In 200 years
there will be nothing left of our work but dust." -
Louis Malle |
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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 A Very Private Affair (1962), Viva Maria!
(1965), Calcutta (1969), Humain, trop humain (1972), Black Moon (1975),
Crackers (1984), and Milou en mai (1989). |
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