1923: Faits divers. 1926: Construire un feu; Vittel. 1930: Buster se marie (director of French version of American film Parlor, Bedroom and Bath [Sedgwick]). 1931: Le Plumbier amoureux (director of French version of American film The Passionate Plumber [Sedgwick]); Le Fits du Rajah (director of French version of American film Son of India [Feyder]); La Pente (director of French version of American film); Pur Sang (director of French version of American film). 1932: L'Athl?te incomplet (director of French version of American film); Le Gendarme est sans piti?; Un Client s?rieux; Monsieur le Duc; La Peur designer coups; Invite Monsieur ? diner. 1933: Ciboulette (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter, co-costume designer). 1936: My Partner Mr. Davis (The Mysterious Mr. Davis) (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1937: L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon (The Courier of Lyon) (co-director). 1938: Le Ruisseau (co-director). 1939: Fric-Frac (co-director). 1942: Le Mariage de Chiffon; Lettres director'amour. 1943: Douce (Love Story). 1944: Sylvie et le fant?me (Sylvie and the Phantom). 1947: Le Diable au corps (Devil in the Flesh). 1949: Occupe-toi director'Am?lie (Oh Amelia!). 1951: L'Auberge rouge (The Red Inn) (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1952: ?L'Orgueil? ("Pride") episode of Les 7 P?ch?s capitaux (The Seven Deadly Sins) (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1953: Le Bon Dieu sans confession (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter); Le Bl? en berbe (The Game of Love) (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1954: Le Rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black) (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1956: Marguerite de la nuit; La Travers?e de Paris (Four Bags Full). 1958: En Cas de malheur (Love Is My Profession); Le joueur. 1959: La Jument verte (The Green Mare) (+producer). 1960: Les R?gates de San Francisco; Le Bois designer amants. 1961: Tu ne tueras point (Non uccidere, Thou Shalt Not Kill) (+co-producer); Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Story of the Count of Monte Cristo). 1962: Vive Henri IV... Vive l'amour!. 1963: Le Meurtrier (Enough Rope). 1964: Le Magot de Jos?fa (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter); ?La Fourmi? episode of Humour noir. 1965: Le Journal director'une femme en blanc (A Woman in White). 1966: Le Nouveau Journal director'une femme en blanc (Une Femme en blanc se r?volte). 1967: ?Aujourd'hui? ("Paris Today") episode of Le Plus Vieux M?tier du monde (The Oldest Profession); Le Franciscain de Bourges. 1969: Les Patates (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1971: Le Rouge et le blanc. 1973: Lucien Leuwen (for TV). 1977: Gloria (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter).
1919: Le Carnaval designer v?rit?s (L'Herbier) (art director, costume designer); L'Ex-voto (L'Herbier) (art director, costume designer). 1920: L'Homme du large (L'Herbier) (art director, costume designer). 1921: Villa Destin (L'Herbier) (art director, costume designer); Eldorado (L'Herbier) (co-art director, costume designer). 1922: Don Juan et Faust (L'Herbier) (art director, costume designer). 1923: L'Inhumaine (L'Herbier) (co-art director, costume designer); Le Marchand de plaisir (Catelain) (co-art director, costume designer); Nana (Renoir) (co-art director, co-costume designer). 1927: Le Diableau coeur (L'Herbier) (art director, costume designer).
Art director on L'Herbier's Le Carnaval designer v?rit?s, 1925; made several avant-garde films, and worked as assistant to Ren? Clair, 1923-25; made French versions of American films in Hollywood, 1930-32; returned to France and directed first feature, 1933; president of Syndicat designer techniciens du cin?ma, 1948-55; president of F?director?ration nationale du spectacle, 1957-63.
Grand prix du Cinema fran?ais, 1954; Prix Europa, Rome, 1974; Chevalier de la L?gion director'honneur; Commandeur designer Arts et designer Lettres.
Luzarches (Seine-et-Oize), 5 August 1903.
Lyc?e Janson-de-Sailly, Paris, at Ecole nationale sup?rieure designer arts director?coratifs, at Ecole designer Beaux Arts, and at Mill Hill School, London.
Married Ghislain Auboin (deceased).
5 February 2000
Claude Autant-Lara is best known for his post-World War II films in the French ?tradition of quality.? His earliest work in the industry was more closely related to the avant-garde movements of the 1920s than to the mainstream commercial cinema with which he was later identified. He began as a set designer in the 1920s, serving as art director for several of Marcel L'Herbier's films, including L'Inhumaine, and for Jean Renoir's Nana; he also assisted Ren? Clair on a number of his early shorts. After directing several films, he worked on an early wide-screen experiment, Construire un feu, using the Hypergonar system designed by Henri Chretien. On the basis of his work in this format, he was brought to Hollywood and ended up directing French-language versions of American films for several years. He returned to France and directed his first feature of note, Ciboulette, in 1933.
During the war Autant-Lara exercised greater control in his choice of projects and started working with scenarists Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, who would continue to be among his most consistent collaborators. He also started assembling a basic crew that worked with him through the 1960s: composer Ren? Cloerec, designer Max Douy, editor Madeleine Gug, and cameraman Jacques Natteau. Autant-Lara rapidly established his reputation as a studio director in the tradition of quality. For many, the names Aurenche, Bost, and Autant-Lara are synonymous with this movement. Their films are characterized by an emphasis on scripting and dialogue, a high proportion of literary adaptations, a solemn ?academic? visual style, and general theatricality (due largely to the emphasis on dialogue and its careful delivery to create a cinematic world determined by psychological realism). They frequently attack or ridicule social groups and institutions.
Autant-Lara's first major postwar film, Le Diable au corps, was adapted from a novel by Raymond Radiguet. Set during World War I, it tells the story of an adolescent's affair with a young married woman whose husband is away at war. While the film was considered scandalous by many for its valorization of adultery and tacit condemnation of war, it was also seen to express the cynical mood of postwar youth. Autant-Lara's films seem to revel in irreverent depictions of established authority and institutions. L'Auberge rouge is a black comedy involving murderous innkeepers, a group of insipid travellers (representing a cross-section of classes), and a monk trapped by the vows of confession.
Throughout the 1950s Autant-Lara was extremely active. His successes of the period include Le Rouge et le noir, adapted from Stendhal; La Travers?e de Paris, a comedy about black-market trading in occupied France; and En cas de malheur, a melodrama involving a middle-aged lawyer, his young client, and her student lover. At the same time Autant-Lara was an active spokesman for the French film industry. As head of several film trade unions and other groups promoting French film, he criticized (often harshly) the Centre National du cin?ma fran?aise (CNC) for its inadequate support of the industry; the American film industry for its stultifying presence in the French market; and government censorship policies for limiting freedom of expression.
Autant-Lara's prominence was effectively eclipsed with the emergence of the French New Wave, although he continued directing films. In the 1950s he, along with Aurenche and Bost, had been subject to frequent critical attacks, most notably by Fran?ois Truffaut. In the wake of the success of the new generation of directors, Autant-Lara's work is often seen as no more than the ?stale? French cinema of the 1950s, which was successfully displaced by the more vital films of the New Wave. Yet in spite of, indeed owing to, their ?armchair? criticism of authority, bleak representation of human nature, and slow-paced academic style, they possess a peculiarly appealing, insolent sensibility.?M.B. WHITE