Claude Miller
Claude Miller | |
|---|---|
 Miller in 2003 | |
| Born | 20 February 1942 Paris, France |
| Died | 4 April 2012 (aged 70) Paris, France |
| Spouse | Annie |
| Children | 1 |
Claude Miller (20 February 1942 – 4 April 2012)[1] was a French film director, producer and screenwriter.
Life and career
[edit]Claude Miller was born to a Jewish family.[2] A student at Paris' IDHEC film school from 1962 through 1963, Miller had his first practical cinematic experience while he was in uniform, serving with the Service Cinéma de l'Armée. From 1965 until 1974, Miller worked in assistant and supervisory capacities for many of France's major directors, including Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard.
His principal mentor was François Truffaut, under whose tutelage Miller directed a trio of shorts and La meilleure façon de marcher (The Best Way to Walk, 1976), his first theatrical feature, a coming-of-age drama which bore traces of Truffaut's Les Mistons (1957) and The 400 Blows (1959). Miller received César nominations for best director and writing for this film.
His subsequent films can also be perceived as homages to Truffaut, many even using the same production personnel. The following year he made Dites-lui que je l'aime, for which he received a second César nomination for Best Director. He won a César Award for Best Writing in 1981 for Garde à vue, and the Louis Delluc Prize in 1985 for L'Effrontée, for which he received another César nomination for Best Director. In 1983 he directed Mortelle randonnée. When Truffaut died in 1984 during the preparation of another feature about a confused, adolescent serial thief entangled with an older lover, La Petite Voleuse (The Little Thief), Miller took over the project, completing the film in 1988. The latter film was a considerable international success, and solidified Miller's status as one of France's major film-makers. On French television, Miller directed dozens of commercials and the six-part miniseries Traits de Mémoire (1976).
After a four-year absence, Claude Miller returned to active filmmaking with The Accompanist (1992) and Le Sourire (1994). He had to wait until 1998 for his next major success: La Classe de Neige, the chilling story of a lonely boy on a school skiing holiday, which won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.[3] Later films Miller directed include Betty Fisher et autres histoires (2001) which Peter Bradshaw wrote that Miller "endowed it with the fascination of an exotic, spiky, poisonous flower", La Petite Lili (2003), and A Secret (2007). At the time of his death he was working on an adaptation of François Mauriac's Thérèse Desqueyroux.[4][5] The film was selected to close the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.[6][7][8]
Filmography
[edit]- 1969 : La Question ordinaire (short)
- 1971 : Camille ou la comédie catastrophique (short)
- 1976 : The Best Way to Walk
- 1977 : This Sweet Sickness
- 1981 : Garde à vue
- 1983 : Mortelle randonnée
- 1985 : An Impudent Girl
- 1988 : The Little Thief
- 1992 : The Accompanist
- 1994 : The Smile
- 1998 : The Class Trip
- 2000 : La Chambre des magiciennes
- 2001 : Alias Betty
- 2003 : Little Lili
- 2007 : A Secret
- 2009 : Marching Band
- 2009 : I'm Glad My Mother Is Alive co-directed with his son Nathan Miller
- 2010 : See How They Dance
- 2012 : Thérèse Desqueyroux
Bibliography
[edit]- Curchod, Olivier (2024). Claude Miller. Une vie de films. Les Impressions nouvelles. ISBN 978-2-39070-098-2.
References
[edit]- ^ Le cinéaste Claude Miller est mort mercredi soir, Le Point, le 5 avril 2012
- ^ Merav Yudilovitch: French director Claude Miller to visit Israel, in Ynetnews, 29 January 2008 (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3500333,00.html)
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Class Trip". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 30 September 2009.
- ^ "Claude Miller, director of La Petite Voleuse, dies aged 70". The Guardian. 5 April 2012. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016.
- ^ Pulver, Andrew (5 April 2012). "Claude Miller, director of La Petite Voleuse, dies aged 70". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "2012 Official Selection". Cannes. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
- ^ Shoard, Catherine (19 April 2012). "Cannes 2012: Haneke v Audiard, but no shows from Malick or PT Anderson". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
- ^ "Claude Miller's last film to close the Festival de Cannes". 18 April 2012. Archived from the original on 5 August 2012.
External links
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