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Jean Vigo
Director / Screenwriter
1905 - 1934
Born April 26, Paris, France
Key Production Country: France 
Key Genres: Short Film, Drama, Documentary
Key Collaborators: Boris Kaufman (Cinematographer), Louis Lefevre (Leading Player), Jean Daste (Leading Player), Maurice Jaubert (Composer)

Highly Recommended: Zero for Conduct (1933)*, L'Atalante (1934)*
Recommended: À propos de Nice (1929)
Worth a Look: Taris (1931)
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section.

 
 
 
Links: [ Amazon[ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Derek Malcolm's Century of Films: L'Atalante ] [ World Cinema Directors Profile ]
Books: [ Jean Vigo ] [ Jean Vigo (French Film Directors ]
 
Zero for Conduct (1933)L'Atalante (1934)A Propos de Nice (1929)Taris (1931)
 
     
  "French film-maker who, after a traumatic childhood, made three feature films which, though unsuccessful in their day, have had a profound effect on directors all over the world... There is little doubt that Vigo would have gone on to become one of the dominant figures of the French cinema had he lived. His wife died, also of tuberculosis, five years later." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999)  
     
  "L'Atalante is a masterpiece of mood and characterization, and, along with Zéro de conduite, it guarantees Vigo's status as a great director. But he was not granted that status by the critical community until years after his death. Because of the vagaries of film exhibition and censorship, Vigo was little known while he was making films. He received nowhere near the acclaim given to his contemporaries Jean Renoir and René Clair." - Eric Smoodin (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)  
     
  "Few other directors with such a short filmography have had such a profound influence on other film-makers as Jean Vigo. The son of an anarchist who died in prison in 1917, Jean Vigo inherited his father's anti-authoritarian ideas." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)  
     
  "Truly a poet of the cinema, Vigo's early death ended what probably would have been a brilliant career. He made only four films, but they stand as a valuable body of work which reflects a profound, if cynical, humanism and a complex sense of fantasy." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
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"An anarchist's son, Vigo was one of cinema's finest poets, able to transcend mundane reality with his unique blend of lyricism, wit, sensuality and surrealism. His distaste for authority, injustice and inequality was balanced by a love of individuality, innocence and independence... Vigo's imagery could be fantastic, experimental, grotesquely funny, or dreamily erotic. It was, however, always imaginative and rapturous, imbued with a passion for film. Tragically, he died at 29, having made only one full-length feature; nevertheless, he remains one of cinema's greatest, most influential masters." - Geoff Andrew, The Director's Vision

 
 
Top 250 Directors
Robin Buss' Top 10 Directors
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Lindsay Anderson
Luis Buñuel
René Clair
Jean Cocteau
Louis Malle
Jean Renoir
François Truffaut
Dziga Vertov
 
 
 
         
         

 

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