Serge Bourguignon Movies
Serge Bourguignon is a distinguished French director. After studying at the prestigious IDHEC from 1948-50, he worked as an assistant director. Soon after, Bourguignon began directing documentary shorts and traveling the world gathering material for upcoming films. In 1960, one of those films, Le Sourire, won him a prize at Cannes. Two years later, the filmmaker won an Academy Award for "Best Foreign Language Film" in 1962 for his feature film debut Sundays and Cybele. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1969
- PG
Serge Bourguignon, the auteur of the 1962 Academy Award winner Sundays and Cybele, doesn't quite come up to the standard set by that earlier film in Picasso Summer. Based on a Ray Bradbury story, the film concerns vacationing couple Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux. Enchanted by the works of Pablo Picasso, Finney and Mimieux trek through the length and breadth of Europe to meet the great artist himself. Their odyssey concludes on a melancholy note, but not before an engaging animated sequences wherein Picasso's paintings come to life, as it were. Filmed in 1969, Picasso Summer was long withheld from release; in fact, most filmgoers didn't get to see it until it began making the TV rounds. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1967
Too old to be a gamine yet not old enough for matronhood, Brigitte Bardot is the ideally cast leading lady of Serge Bourguignon's Head Over Heels. Bardot plays a thirtysomething beauty who finds herself torn between two desirable lovers. The film's alternate English-language title, Two Weeks in September, symbolically conveys the ambience of the film: Bardot is loved by a man much older than herself, and in turn falls in love with a man much younger than herself. All of the characters are old enough to know better than to enter into a menage a trois, yet this little fling may be the last chance for true happiness for at least two of the participants. Director Bourguignon collaborated on the bittersweet script of Head Over Heels, which was originally released in France as A Coeur Joie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Laurent Terzieff, (more)
- 1965
Director Serge Bourguignon coadapted the screenplay for The Reward from a novel by Michael Barrett. Efrem Zimbalist Jr., usually cast on the right side of the law, is here a fugitive from American justice hiding from a murder rap in Mexico. Zimbalist and his girlfriend Yvette Mimieux try to avoid those who'd like to collect the $50,000 dead-or-alive price on his head. Police chief Gilbert Roland captures Zimbalist alive, promising to divvy up the reward with his men. But the police officers greedily turn on each other, leaving the audience to sort out for themselves just who's the real "bad guy" hereabouts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max von Sydow, Yvette Mimieux, (more)
- 1962
Sundays and Cybele (original French title: Les Dimanches de Ville D'Avray) stars Hardy Kruger as a former bomber pilot. Emotionally shattered by a tragic wartime incident, Kruger goes into semi-seclusion in a small Parisian suburb. He is drawn out of his shell by 12-year-old orphan girl Patricia Gozzi. The nuns in charge of Patricia bless the relationship, assuming that Kruger is the girl's father. A warm, chaste friendship develops between the older man and the bright-eyed girl, culminating in their mutual decision to spend Christmas together in a nearby woods. Unfortunately, nurse Nicole Courcel, suspecting that Kruger is a pedophile, calls the police--a move that can only result in disaster for all concerned. Based on a novel by Bernard Eschasseriaux, the exquisitely photographed Sundays and Cybele won the 1962 Best Foreign Film Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hardy Kruger, Nicole Courcel, (more)
