Stéphane Fontaine

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Stéphane Fontaine is a French cameraman. He gained fame primarily through his repeated collaboration with the film director Jacques Audiard .

Life

Stéphane Fontaine came to film through photography. Shy and very fond of books, he completed his training at the École Louis-Lumière in Paris , whose successful graduates include Henri Decaë , William Lubtchansky and Eduardo Serra . He slowly began to gain a foothold in the film business from the mid-1980s. Fontaine was first involved in a short film by Pierre Chenal in 1985 , during the shooting of which he measured distances and met the actor Jean Bouise, among other things . This was followed by films by Georges Lautner ( The Murdered House , 1988; A Man Knows Too Much , 1990), Jim Jarmusch ( Night on Earth , 1991) and Leos Carax ( The Lovers of Pont-Neuf , 1991) in which he is so well-known boss Cameramen such as Yves Rodallac and Jean-Yves Escoffier assisted. Fontaine later met Éric Gautier , whom he supported on nine film projects between 1993 and 1998, including award-winning works such as Olivier Assayas ' Irma Vep , Arnaud Desplechin's Me and My Love , Nicole Garcia's The Favorite Son, and Patrice Chereau's Who Loves Me Takes the Train .

After twelve years of working as a camera assistant (a "lonely job" ), Fontaine became chief cameraman in 1999 and was responsible for the images of Eliane de Latour's award-winning African drama Bronx-Barbès . The American trade journal Variety then praised the French for his handling of the widescreen format combined with the occasional use of the handheld camera, which distinguishes the film from most African productions. Fontaine only selects film projects that interest him personally. “I refuse if I don't feel the filmmaker's desire.” He describes working with directors as a “glorious battle with the filmmaker” rather than as a pure “service to the film” . The work is "a wisely dangerous experiment" that takes him where he would not normally get. Fontaine is rather critical of the new technical achievements in his Métier, such as digital, quickly erasable storage media. “By avoiding deletions, hesitation and hesitation, we lose the development, the memory of the work,” says Fontaine.

After working again with Arnaud Desplechin ( Leo in men's company , 2003) and Agnès Jaoui ( Look at me!, 2004), the breakthrough came with his fifth job as chief cameraman, Jacques Audiard's The Wild Beat Of My Heart (2005) . The critically acclaimed, dark crime film with Romain Duris in the lead role earned Fontaine the 2006 César , France's national film award. German-speaking critics were equally impressed by the “feverish” camerawork, for which Fontaine had once again resorted to the hand-held camera. The Frenchman's camera, like the protagonist, "always looks like it's on the go, and the lighting evokes a kind of impressionistic film noir, " says Michael Kohler ( film-dienst ). According to his own admission, Fontaine feels comfortable in this type of cinema, which, like the subsequent film Selon Charlie (2006) , revolves around "the overhaul, the revelation" .

In 2007 and 2008 Fontaine appeared in international cinema with Kasi Lemmon's drama Talk to Me and Barry Levinson's Hollywood satire Inside Hollywood . However, he was only successful as a cameraman again with the prison film A Prophet (2009), in which he again worked with director Jacques Audiard. Gérard Leforet ( Liberation ) praised Fontaine’s “visionary” camera work, which earned him a nomination for the European Film Prize and another César. "It is Kafka who holds the camera to the penal colony, where the judgments are carved into the epidermis of the convicts," says Laforet. After working for Paul Haggis ( 72 hours - The Next Three Days , 2010) and Mia Hansen-Løve ( Goodbye First Love 2012, 2011) was followed by the third collaboration with Audiard in the drama Rust and Bone with Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts in the main roles.

Filmography (selection)

Films as a cameraman:

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Peigne-Giuly, Annick: Stéphane Fontaine, caméra organique . In: Liberation , May 4, 2005, p. 7
  2. ↑ cf. Deborah Young: Bronx Barbés . In: Variety, August 28–3. September 2000, p. 36
  3. ↑ cf. Heine, Matthias: pianist fingers, racket fist . In: Die Welt , September 22, 2005, p. 27
  4. ↑ cf. Kohler, Michael: The wild beat of my heart . In. film-dienst, 19/2005 (accessed on December 12, 2009 via Munzinger Online )
  5. ↑ cf. Gérard Leforet: “Un prophète”, taule froissée . In: Liberation, May 18, 2009, p. 26
personal data
SURNAME Fontaine, Stéphane
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century