Louis Malle


Louis Marie Malle was a French filmmaker who worked in France and Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "difficult to pin down", his works often depict provocative or controversial subject matter.
Malle's most famous works include the crime thriller Elevator to the Gallows, the romantic drama The Lovers, the World War II drama Lacombe, Lucien, the period drama Pretty Baby, the romantic crime film Atlantic City, the dramedy My Dinner with Andre, and the autobiographical Au revoir les enfants. He also co-directed the landmark underwater documentary The Silent World with Jacques Cousteau, which won the 1956 Palme d'Or and the 1957 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Critic Pauline Kael once wrote that the common quality of Malle's films was the "restless intelligence one senses in them".
Malle is one of only four directors to have won the Golden Lion twice. His other accolades include three César Awards, two BAFTAs, and three Oscar nominations. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1991.

Life and career

Early years and education

Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries, Nord, France, the son of Françoise and Pierre Malle. He was part Jewish, but raised as a Catholic.
During World War II, Malle attended a Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau. As an 11-year-old he witnessed a Gestapo raid on the school, in which three Jewish students, including his close friend, and a Jewish teacher were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. The school's headmaster, Père Jacques, was arrested for harboring them and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. Malle depicted these events in his autobiographical film Au revoir les enfants.
As a young man, Malle studied political science at Sciences Po from 1950 to 1952 before turning to film studies at IDHEC.

Career

Malle worked as co-director and cameraman with Jacques Cousteau on the documentary The Silent World, which won an Oscar and the Palme d'Or at the 1956 Academy Awards and Cannes Film Festival, respectively. He assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped before making his first feature, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud in 1957. A taut thriller featuring an original score by Miles Davis, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud made an international film star of Jeanne Moreau, at the time a leading stage actress of the Comédie-Française. Malle was 24 years old.
Malle's The Lovers, which also starred Moreau, caused major controversy due to its sexual content, leading to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case about the legal definition of obscenity. In Jacobellis v. Ohio, a theater owner was fined $2,500 for obscenity. The Supreme Court overturned the decision, finding that the film was not obscene and hence constitutionally protected. But the court could not agree on a definition of "obscene", with Justice Potter Stewart famously saying, "I know it when I see it".
Malle is sometimes associated with the nouvelle vague, but his work does not directly fit in with or correspond to the auteurist theories that apply to the work of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, and others, and he had nothing to do with Cahiers du cinéma. But Malle's work does exemplify some of the movement's characteristics, such as using natural light and shooting on location, and his film Zazie dans le Métro inspired Truffaut to write Malle an enthusiastic letter.
Other films also tackled taboo subjects: The Fire Within centers on a man about to commit suicide. Critic Pauline Kael said it should have solidified Malle's reputation in the U.S. as a great film director but suggested that its commercial failure may have been due to distribution issues. Le souffle au cœur deals with an incestuous relationship between mother and son, and Lacombe, Lucien, co-written with Patrick Modiano, is about collaboration with the Nazis in Vichy France during World War II. The latter earned Malle his first Oscar nomination, for "Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced".

Documentary on India

Malle visited India in 1968, and made the seven-part documentary series L'Inde fantôme: Reflexions sur un voyage and the documentary film Calcutta, which was released in cinemas. Concentrating on real India, its rituals and festivities, Malle fell afoul of the Indian government, which disliked his portrayal of the country, in its fascination with the pre-modern, and consequently banned the BBC from filming in India for several years. Malle later said his documentary on India was his favorite film.
Calcutta never opened in New York.

Move to the U.S.

Malle later moved to the United States and continued to direct there. His later films include Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, My Dinner with Andre, Crackers, Alamo Bay, Damage and Vanya on 42nd Street in English; and Au revoir les enfants and Milou en Mai in French. Just as his earlier films such as The Lovers helped popularize French films in the U.S., My Dinner with Andre was at the forefront of the rise of American independent cinema in the 1980s.
Towards the end of his life, cultural correspondent Melinda Camber Porter interviewed Malle extensively for The Times. In 1993, the interviews were included in her book Through Parisian Eyes: Reflections On Contemporary French Arts And Culture.

Personal life

Malle was married to actress Anne-Marie Deschodt from 1965 to 1967. He later had a son, Manuel Cuotemoc Malle, with German actress Gila von Weitershausen, and a daughter, filmmaker Justine Malle, with Canadian actress Alexandra Stewart. From mid-1977 until early 1980, he was in a relationship with Susan Sarandon.
Malle married actress Candice Bergen in 1980. They had one child, Chloé Françoise Malle, on 8 November 1985. Malle died of lymphoma, aged 63, at their home in Beverly Hills, California, on 23 November 1995.

Works

Film

Short film
YearTitleDirectorWriterNotes
1953Crazeologie
1954Station 307Also cinematographer
1968William WilsonSegment of Spirits of the Dead

Feature film
YearTitleDirectorWriterProducer
1958Elevator to the Gallows
1958The Lovers
1960Zazie in the Metro
1962A Very Private Affair
1963The Fire Within
1965Viva Maria!
1967The Thief of Paris
1971Murmur of the Heart
1974Lacombe, Lucien
1975Black Moon
1978Pretty Baby
1980Atlantic City
1981My Dinner with Andre
1984Crackers
1985Alamo Bay
1987Au revoir les enfants
1990May Fools
1992Damage
1994Vanya on 42nd Street

Acting credits
YearTitleRole
1962A Very Private AffairA journalist
1969A Very Curious GirlJésus
1992La Vie de Bohème

Documentary film

Television

As himself
YearTitleNote
1994Murphy BrownEpisode "My Movie with Louis"

Accolades