Maurice Pialat Movies
Once described as the true heir to Jean Renoir's legacy, French filmmaker Maurice Pialat is noted for his brutal, insightful portraits of the less savory aspects of family life and French society, as well as for his ability to evoke unusually powerful and realistic performances from his actors regardless of their professional status. Pialat, who is known as one of his country's more "difficult" directors due to both his subject matter and on-set clashes, was born in Puy-de-Dôme but raised in Paris after the age of three. He started out as a painter and jack-of-all-trades and did sporadic work as an actor. In the late '50s, Pialat became fascinated with cinema, and he got his start making short films, notably L'Amour Existe (1961), which won a prize at the Venice Festival.After spending much of the '60s working in French television, Pialat made his feature-film debut in 1968 with L'Enfance Nue (Naked Childhood), a cinema verité-style drama utilizing nonprofessional actors. A study in New Wave realism that was relentless in its focus on the unglamorous realities of life, the film won Pialat international acclaim. His subsequent work continued in the realist vein, with very rare excursions into the genre realm (Police [1985], Sous le Soleil du Satan [1987]). Some of Pialat's more notable films include Loulou (1980), a study of middle-class ennui and the liberating benefits of hooliganism; À Nos Amours (1983), which focused on the emotionally problematic life of a promiscuous teenager (Sandrine Bonnaire); Under the Sun of Satan (1987), a religious moral drama that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes; and Van Gogh (1991), a nearly three-hour look at the last year of the painter's life. A frequent collaborator with actors Gerard Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire, Pialat also worked as an actor in both his films and those of other directors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 2007
This documentary details the life and career of French director Maurice Pialat through interviews with the filmmaker, and excerpts from his own films, as well as those that influenced him. With probing insights into Pialat's hopes, fears, and motivations, the film seeks to understand how each of his films sprung from his unique perspective. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- 2004
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Henri Langlois was, in many respects, the ultimate film fan. In 1936, at the age of 22, Langlois became (along with Jean Mitry and Georges Franju) one of the founders of the Cinémathèque Française, a theater and museum devoted to preserving the history of the motion picture. Initially a tiny operation financed by private funds, the Cinémathèque, with time, grew into Europe's most important film archive, collecting and preserving prints of rare films from all over the world and protecting many rare gems of the French cinema from destruction during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Langlois' enthusiasm for sharing the treasures of his collection with others helped spawn a film-crazy generation who created the French New Wave of the '50s, and in time, the French government acknowledged the importance of the Cinémathèque's work by financing their endeavors. In 1968, the French minister of culture, André Malraux, responded to Langlois' difficult personality and sloppy bookkeeping by pulling the government's financing of his projects, which led to an international outcry leading to the shutdown of the Cannes Film Festival by activists and film buffs. The Cinémathèque's funding and Langlois' leadership were later restored, and in 1973, his work in film preservation was honored with a special Academy Award. Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinémathèque is a documentary which chronicles the life, times, and passions of the legendary archivist and includes interviews with his friends, contemporaries, and colleagues -- including Claude Berri, Claude Chabrol, Jack Valenti, and Daniel Cohn-Bendit. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henri Alékan, Jo Amorin, (more)
- 1996
In a Brussels courthouse, notoriously brutal killer Julius Mandenne stands trial for dismembering a woman and cryptically painting the letter "s" on a wall with her tongue. Attending the gruesome trial are his four illegitimate off-spring, none of whom knew the other existed. With grim Gallic humor, this serpentine tale follows what happens when the four team up to learn more about their enigmatic sire. The now-grown children couldn't be more different. Forty-four-year old Parisian barmaid Sylvette loves life and free-love while 41-year-old Sophie is utterly bourgeois and uptight. Twenty-eight-year old Susan is a radical American feminist who wants to be an actress. After their father is sentenced to 20-years in jail, the threesome encounter their half-brother Sandro who at 39, works as an auto mechanic. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anémone, Nathalie Baye, (more)
- 1995
In this French drama, a selfish father disrupts the life of his four-year-old son to make himself feel better. The boy, Antoine, is the result of the much-older Gerard's union with young Sophie. Soon after conception, the relationship withers and she goes on to live with Jeannot, who helps raise her child. Meanwhile Gerard finds a new lover and also continues having a mistress on the side. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Géraldine Pailhas, (more)
Running nearly three hours, Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh is a leisurely paced look at the famous painter's final year. Pialat's portrait differs from many other films in that he shows Van Gogh (Jacques Dutronc) as being reasonably sane and he focuses on the everyday events of the painter's life and art. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Dutronc, Alexandra London, (more)
- 1987
A slow, complex and involving tale of a French priest and his moral trials and tribulations, Under the Sun of Satan is adapted from the Georges Bernanos novel of the same name. Father Donissan (Gerard Depardieu) struggles to save the soul of the 16-year-old pregnant woman Mouchette (Sandrine Bonnaire) in this allegorical drama. She is the mistress of a married politician, but she carries the child of a poor nobleman. Mouchette shoots and kills the nobleman when he refuses to run away with her, and the emotionally tortured Donissan flagellates himself with a chain and despises his superior Menou-Serais (Maurice Pialot). This dramatic struggle of good versus evil took the Golden Palm Award for Best Film at the 1987 Cannes Festival. The selection was not without controversy, as the verbal protests of the audience led to an obscene gesture from the miffed director. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire, (more)
- 1984
- NR
This strange crime-cum-romance story starts out with the ordinary work-a-day life of Mangin, an apparently straight-and-narrow cop (Gerard Depardieu), and then segues into a love story after he meets Noria, a beautiful Arab woman (Sophie Marceau) who has just been arrested during a drug raid. Mangin grills her, but his buddy, a lawyer of dubious ethics named Lambert (Richard Anconina), gets the woman released. Enamored almost from the beginning, Mangin begins to pursue Noria and soon finds himself faced with making the ethical decision to arrest her -- or not. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, (more)
Director, co-writer, and star Maurice Pialat brought his typically unblinking New Wave style and interest in socially aberrant behavior to this psychological drama, winner of two Cesars (the French equivalent of the Oscar) for Best Film and Most Promising Young Actress (Sondrine Bonnaire). Bonnaire plays Suzanne, a 15-year-old girl who has become sexually promiscuous with anyone who will have her, despite her lack of affection for any of her lovers. The only boy she refuses is Luc (Cyr Boitard), whose feelings for Suzanne are sincere. When Suzanne's beloved father (Pialat) abandons his increasingly neurotic wife (Evelyne Ker), Suzanne's depression and lack of direction deepen. While her mother becomes a screeching mental case, her brother Robert (Dominique Besnehard) begins beating her, although he also harbors a disturbing attraction to Suzanne. In the denouement, Pialat depicts the devastating long-term results of Suzanne's abusive upbringing. Pialat draws powerful performances from his cast, with no finer example than the riveting acting Bonnaire -- in only her second film. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat, (more)
Maurice Pialat's character study eschews traditional plot development in its examination of the power of sex and passion to overturn class restrictions and social conventions. Isabelle Huppert is Nelly, a middle-class Parisian housewife, married to possessive husband Andre (Guy Marchand). When she meets street thug Loulou (Gerard Depardieu), her middle-class respectability is thrown out the window and she leaves Andre for Loulou. Loulou, who has no job and resorts to robbery to survive, is more than willing to live off Nelly's money. But Andre won't give her up and, in the mind-set of a middle-class bourgeois, tries to convince her to return. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1979
In this grim slice-of-life film, the dead-end future of a number of young French teenagers living in a northern mining town is closely examined. Some lapse into debauchery, others enter into loveless marriages. A few even stay the course and get their diplomas, which qualify them to do the same meaningless jobs they would be doing without diplomas. One or two flee to Paris, and try their luck in that rat race. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sabine Haudepin, Philippe Marlaud, (more)
- 1974
This film reveals the thoughts and observations of a good-natured young man as he lives through situations which would crush someone less accepting. The boy is being brought up in the country by his grandmother, and Daniel (Martin Loeb) is seen showing off amiably for his friends. Soon his long-absent mother (Ingrid Caven) takes him back into her life, now that she has a steady new man, and sends him to be apprenticed with a bicycle repairman instead of having him continue with school. Daniel accepts this, though he would rather go to school. Here, too, his easygoing manner wins him friends and it appears that all will work out well. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Loeb, Ingrid Caven, (more)
- 1973
When cancer strikes the mother of the family in this French film, everyone in the family expresses a previously invisible caring and tolerance of the others. The father has always been a bit of a drunk, and is forever chasing younger women. Despite that, he and his wife care for each other, and he tends attentively to her in her last days while remaining unchanged in character. The son and daughter-in-law, whose marriage is somewhat sterile, have similarly penetrating interactions with the dying mother. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nathalie Baye, Hubert Deschamps, (more)
- 1972
This powerful romantic drama examines the final period of a long and ultimately unhappy affair. Jean (Jean Yanne) is an unpleasant, domineering man. Though he still lives with his wife, their marriage has been over for a long time. For six years, Jean has had an affair with the much-younger Catherine (Marlene Jobert). The dynamic of their relationship is moving it toward disintegration also, but Catherine resists it. Scenes of alternating recriminations and reconciliations unveil the anatomy of their breakup. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlène Jobert, Jean Yanne, (more)
Claude Chabrol directs the tense psychological thriller Que la Bête Meure (This Man Must Die). When his young son is the victim of a hit-and-run car accident, writer Charles Thenier (Michel Duchaussoy) is determined to find the killer. Obsessed with avenging his son's death, he carefully records his thoughts in a diary. He travels to Paris and meets actress Helene Lanson (Caroline Cellier), who is a prime witness to the accident. After they start up a love affair, he discovers that the driver of the car was her brother-in-law, Paul Decourt (Jean Yanne). Paul also owns the auto repair shop that fixed up the car after the accident. Believing Paul is the killer, Charles befriends his son Phillipe Decourt (Marc Di Napoli). As it happens, Phillipe also wants Paul dead for his own reasons. Charles manages to get invited to the family's seaside home in Brittany in order to finally get his revenge, but things don't work out according to plan. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Duchaussoy, Caroline Cellier, (more)
- 1967
A 10-year-old boy feels unwanted when his mother places him in a home for wayward children. He goes to a foster home where a family of workers finds him to be too much for them. When the unruly child discovers the family plans to give up on him, he drowns their daughter's cat in retaliation. He is sent to another home where he is cared for by an elderly couple. The boy takes to the woman, a kindly grandmother who reaches out to the disturbed boy. His deliberate disobedience lessens somewhat in his new environment, but he is arrested after throwing bolts at cars from a bridge. The boy tries to overcome his mother's rejection and struggles to boost his self image in this childhood drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Tarrazon, Linda Gutemberg, (more)
