Louis Malle is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He has worked in a wide range of fields, from documentaries to period dramas, from French productions to American films; From the Elevator to the Pier, Atlantic City and Au revoir les enfants (Goodbye, Children) are among his best-known works.
He was born on 30 October 1932 in Thumeries, Northern France, into a wealthy industrialist family. He studied at a Catholic boarding school during the Second World War; A Gestapo raid he witnessed there became the source of the most personal film he would make years later. After studying political science at Sciences Po, he transferred to the film school IDHEC in Paris.
Career
He started his career working with oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. The World of Silence (1956), which they directed together, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the Oscar for best documentary. His first fiction film, From Elevator to Pier (1958), attracted attention with the music of Miles Davis and the play of Jeanne Moreau.
Les Amants, which he shot the same year, was the subject of an obscenity lawsuit in America, and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. In his 1974 film Lacombe Lucien, he dealt with occupation-era France from a controversial angle.
He started working in America in the late 1970s. His follow-up to Pretty Baby (1978), Atlantic City (1980), won the Golden Lion at Venice and earned him an Oscar nomination for best director; My Dinner with Andre (1981) stood out with its structure consisting only of a dinner conversation. He returned to France to shoot Au revoir les enfants (1987), based on his childhood memories; the film won its second Golden Lion and received multiple Cรฉsar awards. Malle was given honorary membership of BAFTA in 1991.
He died of lymphoma on November 23, 1995, in Beverly Hills, at the age of 63. He is remembered as one of the versatile directors of French cinema with his filmography that easily transcends genre and language boundaries.
