Claire Denis

Biography: life and films

In the past two and half decades, Claire Denis has made barely a dozen full-length films, including a number of documentaries. Whilst she may not be the most prolific of film directors, much of her work is highly regarded and she is internationally renowned as one of France's leading auteur filmmakers. Her cinema has a striking personal touch and reflects her deeply rooted preoccupation with estrangement and the need to identify with the outsider. Denis's films usually revolve around immigrants or social outcasts and are distinguished as much by their sensual composition as by their stark realism. Whilst there is a social realist component to some of her work, Claire Denis tends to avoid making strident political statements in her films. Instead, she appeals to our humanity and asks that we may feel something for those who find themselves swept to the margins, excluded from the main stratum of the society in which they live.

Claire Denis was born on 21st April 1948, in Paris, France. The daughter of a government official, she grew up in French colonial Africa and spent most of her childhood in Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Djibouti. Ill health in early adolescence took her back to France, where she soon developed a keen interest in books and cinema. At the suggestion of her husband, a photographer, she enrolled at the IDHEC (Institut des hautes études cinématographiques), one of France's leading film schools. She graduated in 1972 and began a long apprenticeship in filmmaking before she became a fully fledged film director in 1988 at the age of 40.

Denis began her career as a second assistant director on Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie (1974). She soon became a first assistant director and worked with some distinguished filmmakers, including: Robert Enrico (Le Vieux Fusil, 1975; Pile ou face, 1980); Costa-Gavras (Hanna K., 1983); Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, 1984); Wings of Desire, 1987) and Jim Jarmusch (Down by Law, 1986). She also collaborated with New Wave director Jacques Rivette and later (in 1990) made an insightful documentary about him for the television series Cinéma, de notre temps. It was Wim Wenders who persuaded Denis that she was ready to start directing her own films.

Clair Denis made her directing debut with Chocolat (1988), an intimate autobiographical account of her childhood experiences in Cameroon. Although, stylistically, Chocolat is Denis's least typical work, it deals with themes that would predominate in her oeuvre, in particular her identification with the outsider. Social and family estrangement form an essential part of Denis's cinema, and this doubtless stems from her own sense of estrangement as a child, as a westerner living in Africa. The main characters in her films are often social outcasts, people who are forced or choose to live outside of society. Denis compels us to set aside our prejudices and identify with them, and she gives us a real sense of what it is like to live on the margins, barely tolerated and often ignored.

Chocolat was received favourably by the critics and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Denis followed this with Man No Run (1989), a documentary on a Cameroonian band's first encounter with French culture, and S'en fout la mort (1990), a near-documentary drama concerned with the illicit gambling habits of immigrants in a Parisian suburb. It was a few years before Denis had her second critical success, Nénette et Boni (1996). In this, her most accessible film, Denis provides an intimate, even tender, portrayal of a brother and sister who, having grown up to fend for themselves, form a close bond after years of estrangement. This film marked the beginning of Denis's long and fruitful collaboration with the actor Grégoire Colin (actually, the two had previously worked together on Denis's segment for the anthology film À propos de Nice, la suite, 1995).

Beau travail (1999) was to be Denis's most critically acclaimed film, a stunningly beautiful reverie on life in the Foreign Legion. The sensual photography (which lingers longingly on exposed male flesh) reveals the director's affinity for the human body and powerfully evokes the homoerotic tensions that lurk beneath the surface. In her most lyrical and visually arresting film, which was apparently inspired by Herman Meville's Billy Budd, Denis crafts an enchanting visual ode to male bonding and the beauty of the male physique. The intense eroticism of Beau travail resurfaces in Denis's next film, Trouble Every Day (2001). A modern vampire story, this combines horror and eroticism in the most provocative and unseemly manner - no wonder the film is the director's most controversial and was deluged with negative criticism when it was first released. The film's distasteful subject matter and Denis's ugly excursions into Grand Guignol horror make this a difficult film to watch, let alone like. Denis's next film, Vendredi soir (2002), also drew mixed reviews. A brooding depiction of a one-night stand, the film lacks Denis's inspired touch and the spectator risks ending up becoming as bored as the protagonists.

After these two mid-career let downs, Claire Denis has shown a remarkable return to form and she now enjoys a reputation as one of France's most respected auteur filmmakers. After L'Intrus (2004), her most complex and haunting study in estrangement, Denis won widespread acclaim for 35 rhums (2009), a compelling portrayal of a father-daughter relationship in a mixed immigrant community. For her next film, White Material (2010), Denis once again draws heavily on her childhood memories of Cameroon and delivers a film of extraordinary dramatic power, one with a subtle but effective anti-colonialist message. On the strength of these two latest films, it is fair to say that Claire Denis's filmmaking career has entered its mature phase. Whilst she continues to have something to say about the human condition and can attract talented performers of the calibre of Isabelle Huppert and Nicolas Duvauchelle, we can expect to be moved and enchanted by her unique brand of cinema.

Filmography

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