Maurice Pialat

Biography: life and films

Maurice Pialat is one of France's most esteemed auteur filmmakers, perhaps one of the greatest cineastes of all time, and yet he is not someone who is easy to fall in love with. Throughout his career, he was renowned for his uncompromising, provocative, even pugnacious temperament, and these qualities are reflected in his unique brand of cinema. Pialat's films are challenging, in both their subject matter and their composition, and they make few concessions to prevailing trends in mainstream cinema. There is a similarity between his films and those of Robert Bresson. Like Bresson, Pialat had no interest in merely presenting an imitation of life; he wanted to show us the real thing, all the traumas of human experience, raw and ungarnished, not some tawdry gift-wrapped confection. His approach to cinema grew out of his passion for painting. In a similar vein to the impressionists of the 19th century whom he greatly admired, Pialat was motivated to express the deeper truths of life, the truer reality that lies beneath the surface. 'The bleak poetry of the soul' is one way to describe Pialat's austere and profoundly introspective filmmaking aesthetic.

Maurice Pialat was born on 31st August 1925 at Cunlhat, Puy-de-Dôme, in the Auvergne region of France. His first passion in life was painting, and this led him to study at some of the most prestigious art schools in Paris. Unfortunately, he had little success as a painter and survived by doing odd jobs. In 1951, he bought a film camera and started making short films, the most notable being the socially concerned documentary L'Amour existe (1960). It was around this time that Pialat met Claude Berri, another aspiring film director. The two men became inseparable and remained the closest of friends, which is surprising given that their approaches to cinema were poles apart - Berri would be drawn to the mainstream whilst Pialat remained the diehard auteur. In these early years, they made a number of short films together, including Janine (1962). Berri co-produced Pialat's first feature, L'Enfance nue (1968) and would finance his later film Passe ton bac d'abord (1979).

Pialat's filmmaking career began properly in 1963 when he was commissioned by the Turkish government to make a series of short films about Turkey. By working on these films, which powerfully evoke the beauty and sorrow of the country, Pialat was able to develop his distinctive realist style. It was not until 1968 when, aged 43, Pialat was able to direct his first feature, the documentary-style drama L'Enfance nue. A shocking indictment of France's child fostering system which vaguely resembles Truffaut's Les 400 coups (1959), the film was a critical success and won its director the Prix Jean Vigo. Many French filmmakers claim to have been influenced by this film, which is regarded by some as Pialat's most important work. It was on the strength of this film that Pialat was commissioned by the French television company Antenne 2 to direct a seven-part TV series La Maison des bois (1970). This series continued and developed the themes of Pialat's first film, showing how children are impacted when their parents are taken from them during the First World War.

In 1972, Pialat presented his second feature, Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble, at the Cannes Film Festival. An adaptation of his own autobiographical novel, the film was both critically acclaimed and a substantial commercial success, and it also won the Best Actor award at Cannes for its male lead Jean Yanne. This was followed by another autobiographical piece, La Gueule ouverte (1974), in which Pialat recalls how, in his youth, he had coped with his mother's slow decline through an untreatable cancerous illness. The film, perhaps the director's most personal, was not a commercial success, despite some positive reviews. This first flop was to rob Pialat of his confidence, and as a result the making of his next film, Passe ton bac d'abord, was not a comfortable experience. Despite continual fallings out with the cast and crew, Pialat was able to complete the film and it was very well-received by critics and audiences. It was particularly noted for the authentic way in which it evoked the frustrations of the younger generation at a time of high unemployment and escalating social unease.

Pialat's next film, Loulou (1980) was to mark something of a turning point in the director's career. For one thing, it was the beginning of his long collaboration with Gérard Depardieu, who had only recently achieved stardom and international renown. Although the two men did not get on well at first, and would often waste time in bitter arguments, they soon learned to respect one another and became exceptionally close. Depardieu would work on four of the ten full-length films that Pialat made. By now Pialat had regained his self-esteem and felt more confident to develop his own film aesthetic. He was no longer bound by the conventions of filmmaking technique and began to formulate his own rules as he persevered with his personal crusade to project the fundamental essence of life onto the cinema screen, rather than its far less interesting outer shell. Some of Pialat's admirers are adamant that this is where the director's career really began, that what came before was mere experimentation that is marred by compromise and inexperience. Loulou is certainly one of Pialat's greatest works, an entrancing and remarkably truthful portrayal of a turbulent amorous liaison, beautifully played by Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert.

With À nos amours (1983), his sixth feature, Pialat revisits the themes of adolescent disaffection and intergenerational conflict. One of his most acclaimed films, it won both the Prix Louis Delluc and the Best Film César in 1984. This was the first time that Pialat worked with Sandrine Bonnaire, who is stunning in her substantial film role. Another notable name in the cast list is that of Cyril Collard, an aspiring young filmmaker who died tragically from an AIDS-related illness shortly after completing his first feature Les Nuits fauves (1992).

Pialat's closest encounter with mainstream cinema came next, with the gritty crime-drama Police (1985). Adapted from a 1930s thriller novel, the film was scripted by up-and-coming filmmaker Catherine Breillat, who was instrumental in getting Pialat to direct the film. With a substantial budget provided by Gaumont and two of the main French television channels, the film had a distinguished cast (headed by Gérard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau and Richard Anconina) and the production facilities that Pialat could previously only have dreamed off. Yet, despite this, the shoot was not a happy one. Pialat and Breillat had major differences over the screenplay, and the director resented having to work with what he considered to be inferior actors. Pialat found it impossible to communicate with Marceau and he brought the production to a standstill after fiercely humiliating Anconina on the set. Although Pialat claimed he loathed the film, Police was to be his biggest commercial success. The critics liked it and it attracted an audience of 1.8 million. With its brutal, nihilist edge and almost vicious naturalism, Police is one of the most striking French films policiers of the 1980s, and a precursor to the tougher, more realistic thrillers that would come in the following decade.

In 1987, Pialat received the highest accolade of his career, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for his adaptation of Georges Bernanos' Sous le soleil de Satan. It was to be a memorable event. The decision to award Pialat the top prize at Cannes provoked an uproar from those who saw Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire as a far more suitable recipient. In response to the catcalls and whistles of derision, Pialat shook his fist at the audience and said: "If you don't like me, I can tell you that I don't like you either." At the time of its release, the film divided the critics and was not a commercial success. Today, it is considered one of Pialat's greatest films, a haunting evocation of one man's descent into Hell and subsequent redemption, the inner torments of the main protagonist (Depardieu again) reflected beautifully in the film's sombre visual composition and austere setting.

Pialat's love of painting is revealed in his next film, Van Gogh (1991), a biographical drama depicting the last troubled days of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. Once again, Pialat is not content merely to record the events of the artist's life but instead seeks to take us into his inner world, so that we may comprehend something of the troubled genius who was shortly to take his own life. Although Pialat was highly dissatisfied with his lead actor, and frequently described his performance as mediocre, Jacques Dutronc holds our attention and achieves what Pialat wanted, to show us the man, not the myth.

For his last film, Le Garçu (1995), Pialat returns to the subject of childhood abandonment with which he began his career. Despite a compelling and sympathetic performance from Gérard Depardieu, the film lacks the power of Pialat's preceding films, and this might explain why it was only a moderate success. Maurice Pialat subsequently gave up filmmaking and returned to his other love, painting. He died on 11th January 2003 from a kidney disease, aged 77. He is buried at Montparnasse cemetery in Paris, where he lies in the company of some other distinguished French filmmakers, Claude Sautet, Jacques Demy and Yves Robert. Since his death, Pialat's reputation has steadily grown and, of all the great French film directors, he is fast becoming one of the most revered.

Filmography

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