Louis Malle

Louis Marie Malle 30 October 1932 23 November 1995 was a French film director screenwriter and producer His film The Silent World won the Palme dOr in 1956 and the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1957 although he was not credited at the ceremony with the award instead being presented to the films codirector Jacques Cousteau Later in his career he was nominated multiple times for Academy Awards Malle is also one of the few directors to have won the Golden Lion multiple times Malle worked in both French cinema and Hollywood and he produced both French and English language films His most famous films include the crime film Elevator to the Gallows 1958 the World War II drama Lacombe Lucien 1974 the romantic crime film Atlantic City 1980 the comedydrama My Dinner with Andre 1981 and the autobiographical film Au Revoir les Enfants 1987 Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries Nord France He initially studied political science at Sciences Po before turning to film studies at IDHEC instead He assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped 1956 before making his first feature Elevator to the Gallows 1958 a taut thriller featuring an original score by Miles Davis which made an international film star of Jeanne Moreau at the time a leading stage actress of the ComédieFrançaise Malle was 24 years old Malles The Lovers 1958 which also starred Moreau caused major controversy due to its sexual content leading to a landmark US Supreme Court case regarding the legal definition of obscenity Malle is sometimes associated with the nouvelle vague movement and while Malles work does not directly fit in with or correspond to the auteurist theories that apply to the work of Godard Truffaut Chabrol Rohmer and others and he had nothing whatsoever to do with the Cahiers du cinéma his films do exemplify many of the characteristics of the movement such as using natural light and shooting on location and his film Zazie dans le Métro 1960 an adaptation of the Raymond Queneau novel inspired Truffaut to write an enthusiastic letter to Malle In 1968 Malle visited India and made a sevenpart documentary series Phantom India 1969 which was released in cinemas Concentrating on real India its rituals and festivities Malle fell afoul of the Indian government which disliked his portrayal of the country in its fascination with the premodern and consequently banned the BBC from filming in India for several years Malle later claimed his documentary on India was his favorite film Malle later moved to the United States and continued to direct there Just as his earlier films such as The Lovers helped popularize French films in the United States My Dinner with Andre was at the forefront of the rise of American independent cinema in the 1980s