Claude Autant-Lara

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Claude Autant-Lara (born August 6, 1901 in Luzarches , Val-d'Oise ; † February 5, 2000 in Antibes , Provence ) was a French film director , screenwriter and costume designer and later a politician ( Front National ).

Film career

His mother Louise Lara played leading roles in the Comédie-Française . Claude Autant-Lara began his career as a costume designer and decorator at the age of 16. From 1920 to 1922 he was a member of the avant-garde group "Art et Action", which he had co-founded. However, he could not find a job in France in the film industry and briefly went to Hollywood, where he kept himself afloat with the creation of subtitles and dubbing. After his return he was assistant director to René Clair and made short films. He was able to realize his first own feature film under the title Ciboulette in 1932.

With Douce from 1943 he was able to achieve the first respectable success; his first major film was Le diable au corps (The Devil in the Body) based on the literary model of Raymond Radiguet . The film was heavily criticized for its cynicism and exaltation and led to demands that it be banned from the screen. With the anti-fascist comedy Two Men, a Pig and the Night of Paris , filmed with Louis de Funès and Jean Gabin in 1956 , he was also able to achieve an audience success. In 1959 he achieved an international success with La jument verte (The Green Mare). In 1961 one of his most famous films followed, The Count of Monte Christo (“Le comte de Monte Christo”) based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas . In the same year he caused a sensation with the film Tu ne tueras point (The war refuser ) at the Venice Film Festival , when the film was shown on the intervention of the French government, but was withdrawn from the competition. The film was only shown again two years later with thirteen censoring cuts.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Autant-Lara was a very prominent filmmaker who worked with the leading French film stars of the era. Including Fernandel in the crime comedy Die Rote Herberge (1951), Gérard Philipe in the adventure film Rot und Schwarz (1954) or Jean Gabin and Brigitte Bardot in the film drama With the Arms of a Woman (1958). But with the advent of the Nouvelle Vague , which Autant-Lara strongly opposed, his success as a filmmaker declined sharply. On February 12, 1968, when filmmakers from all over the world expressed their solidarity with Henri Langlois and François Truffaut , despised by Auton-Lara, demonstrated in front of the Cinémathèque Française led by Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade , Autant-Lara rose to France Inter as the only filmmaker in the world to vote against Langlois. Although he made other films until the late 1970s, he was unable to build on previous successes. In 1988 Autant-Lara was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts .

politics

Claude Autant-Lara initially stood out as a combative pacifist and described himself as a "bourgeois anarchist ". His pacifist stance just came to the fore in the film Tu ne tueras point (The War Resister , 1961), in which he portrayed two trials before the same court in 1948: In one, a German priest who shot a resistance fighter was acquitted; in the other trial, a conscientious objector was sentenced to one year in prison.

After Autant-Lara was increasingly forgotten as a director, he withdrew when he became increasingly bitter. In 1989, in old age, he was elected to the European Parliament for Jean-Marie Le Pens Front National . There he caused an anti-Semitic scandal with the opening speech that he had to give as senior president . In the speech he denied large parts of the Holocaust , calling the existence of gas chambers a lie, and accused the Jewish politician Simone Veil of having benefited from her imprisonment in the concentration camp . His lengthy and bizarre speech, in which he also discussed filmmaking, concluded with the appeal that young Europeans should rather drink Alsatian wine than Coca-Cola, since the latter comes from the "barbaric invaders" of the USA.

Most of the members of parliament left the room during Autant-Lara's speech. The speech was received internationally and sparked debates about the office of senior president. Autant-Lara was a member of parliament only from July 25, 1989 to September 4, 1989, as he was urged to resign after the speech.

Private life

Claude Autant-Lara was married to Ghislaine Auboin until her death. He died in 2000 at the age of 98.

Filmography

  • 1926: Nana (buildings, costumes, film role)
  • 1938: Fric-Frac
  • 1942: Love marriage (Le mariage de chifon)
  • 1943: wrong ways of hearts (Douce)
  • 1945: Sylvia and the ghost (Sylvie et le fantôme)
  • 1947: Stormy youth (Le diable au corps)
  • 1951: The red hostel (L'auberge rouge)
  • 1952: The Seven Sins ( Les sept péchés capitaux ) (6th episode director)
  • 1954: Awakening Hearts ( Le blé en herbe )
  • 1954: red and black ( Le rouge et le noir )
  • 1955: The Flower of the Night ( Marguerite de la nuit )
  • 1956: Two men, a pig and the night of Paris ( La traversée de Paris )
  • 1958: The game was his bane ( Le joueur )
  • 1958: With a woman's arms ( En cas de malheur )
  • 1959: The green mare ( La jument verte )
  • 1960: The night of lovers ( Le bois des amants )
  • 1961: The King's Bed ( Vive Henri IV, vive l'amour )
  • 1961: The Count of Monte Christo ( Le conte de Monte Christo )
  • 1961: The war refuser (Tu ne tueras point)
  • 1963: The Murderer ( Le meurtrier )
  • 1965: Diary of a gynecologist ( Journal d'une femme en blanc )
  • 1967: The oldest trade in the world (Le plus vieux métier du monde) - (Director of the 5th episode)
  • 1968: Le franciscain de Bourges
  • 1977: Gloria - Love of my Life ( Gloria )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary in the Guardian
  2. ↑ La Cinéphilie, Invention d'un regard, 1944 et 1968 ", Antoine de Baeque
  3. ^ Obituary in the Guardian
  4. ^ "Claude Autant-Lara, 98, a Film Director," published February 9, 2000. New York Times , accessed May 14, 2014 .
  5. ^ French television report on the scandal on YouTube
  6. ↑ Benedikt Brunner: The President of the Age: A constitutional regulation and its alternatives . Springer-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-94362-6 ( google.de [accessed on January 23, 2019]).
  7. ↑ Alexander Smoltczyk: Anti-Semite resigns . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 8, 1989, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 6 ( taz.de [accessed on January 23, 2019]).
  8. ^ Obituary in the Guardian
  9. ↑ Benedikt Brunner: The President of the Age: A constitutional regulation and its alternatives . Springer-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-94362-6 ( google.de [accessed on January 23, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Autant-Lara, Claude
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French film director, costume designer and politician, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Luzarches , Val-d'Oise department , France
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 2000
Place of death Antibes , Provence , France