Alexandre Astruc
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
Astruc was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, an Officier de l'Ordre du Merite and an Officier des Arts et des Lettres.
"The cinema is quite simply becoming a means of expression, just as all the other arts have done before it, and in particular painting and the novel. After having been successively a fairground attraction, an amusement analogous to boulevard theatre, or a means of preserving the images of an era, it is gradually becoming a language.
Biography
The son of journalists, Alexandre Astruc grew up on the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre, was one of the youthful literati surrounding the philosopher in the St Germaine-des-Pres cafes, espousing a new French culture that demanded new representations in fiction and film. After publishing his first novel "Les Vacances" in 1945 and beginning his career as a journalist and film critic, he carved out his niche in the small library of worthwhile film theory . His short article "The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo" in L'Ecrain Francais argued that film should "write" in its own language as opposed to that of the theater or literature. Astruc got his first taste of filmmaking, assisting directors Marc Allegret and Marcel Acherd in the late 40s, but his own highly anticipated films were slow in coming. Aside from a couple routine 16mm shorts, it was 1952 before he directed the 45-minute long, critically-acclaimed "Le Rideau cramoisi/The Crimson Curtain," a 19th Century mystery tale reduced to a set of unforgettable images and a soundtrack containing no dialogue whatsoever.
Astruc adapted (with Roland Laudenbach) his first feature-length film, "Les Mauvaises recontres/The Bad Liaisons" (1955), from a contemporary crime novel set in Paris intellectual society, and though he filled it with complex and almost abstract visual effects, his treatment of its human story was cool and remote, a criticism that would follow him throughout his career. His reputation as a filmmaker rests on his next two films, "Une Vie/End of Desire" (1958), considered by most his best work, and "La Proie pour l'ombre/Shadow of Adultery" (1961). The former featured "impressionistic" color photography by Claude Renoir and music by Roman Vlad and seemed finally a distillation of what he had meant by using the cinema as "a means of writing," while the insistent emotionalism of his leading lady Maria Schell warmed his customary coldness. In the latter, more personal, modestly-budgeted movie, Astruc seldom permitted himself "the image for its own sake" but managed to construct a haunting film by standing back from his characters and viewing them objectively without losing his involvement in them.
Astruc's repeated commercial failures doomed his feature filmmaking career, bringing an end to his exploration of crises in marriage and love on the big screen. He would make two war pictures, "La Longue marche/The Long March" (1966) and "Flammes sur l'Adriatique/Flames Over the Adriatic" (1968), and the second one, made with the full cooperation of Marshall Tito's Yugoslav military, marked his last feature to date. He acted in Roger Vadim's "La Jeune fille assassinee/The Murdered Girl" (1974) and co-directed (with Michel Contat) a documentary on his early mentor, "Sartre par lui-meme/Sartre by Himself" (1974), but his reputation as box-office "poison" has confined him to directing for the small screen. Wisely, he has renounced his obsession with style as it was his emphasis on style over substance which proved a detriment to his films. Although his career as a director was a disappointment, his film theory is still vital and correct, and his real legacy is as a critic and theorist (who happened to make a couple worthy movies).
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Life Events
1945
Published first novel, "Les Vacances"
1947
First film as assistant director, "Blanche Fury", directed by Marc Allegret
1948
Published influential article on "la camera-stylo/the camera-pen" in issue no. 144 of L'Ecran Francais (March 30)
1948
Short film directing and writing debut, "Aller-retour/Round Trip"
1948
Assistant director to Marcel Acherd, "Jean de la lune"
1949
Appeared as Halevy in Acherd's "La valse de Paris"
1952
Feature co-screenwriting debut (with Marcello Pagliiero), "La P ... Respectueuse"
1952
Made award-winning medium-length film "Le rideau cramoisi/The Crimson Curtain"
1955
Feature film directing debut, "Les Mauvaises Rencontres/The Bad Liaisons"; also co-writer with Roland Laudenbach
1958
Adapted (with Laudenbach) and directed "Un Vie/End of Desire" from the novel by Guy DeMaupassant
1961
Wrote and directed "La Proie Pour l'Ombre/Shadow of Adultery"
1968
Was film critic for Paris-Match
1974
Acted in Roger Vadim's "La Jeune fille assassinee"
1976
His novel "Le Serpent jaune" received the Prix Roger Nimier
1979
Co-directed (with Michel Contat) feature documentary "Sartre par lui-meme/Sartre By Himself"
1993
Was interviewed in feature documentary "Francois Truffaut: Stolen Portraits"
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Astruc was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, an Officier de l'Ordre du Merite and an Officier des Arts et des Lettres.
"The cinema is quite simply becoming a means of expression, just as all the other arts have done before it, and in particular painting and the novel. After having been successively a fairground attraction, an amusement analogous to boulevard theatre, or a means of preserving the images of an era, it is gradually becoming a language.
" ... the cinema will gradually break free from the tyranny of what is visual, from the image for its own sake, from the immediate and concrete demands of the narrative, to become a means of writing just as flexible as written language ... We have come to realise that the meaning which the silent cinema tried to give birth to through silent association exists within the image itself, in the development of the narrative, in every gesture of the characters, in every line of dialogue, in those camera movements which relate objects to objects and characters to objects. All thought, like all feeling, is a relationship between one human being and another human being ..." --Alexandre Astruc, from "The Birth of a New Avante-Garde": La Camera-Stylo", L'Ecran Francais, March 30, 1948.
