The Cinema of Claude Lelouch

Director, writer, cinematographer, and producer Claude Lelouch was born in Paris in 1937. The son of Jewish parents (his mother was a convert to Judaism), he credits the cinema for saving his life during the war. Says Lelouch, “My mother hid me in movie theaters when I was little. We were wanted by the Gestapo.”

With the gift of a movie camera from his father after the war, Lelouch began using it to chronicle actual events, including a film about life in the Soviet Union, made with a camera hidden under his coat, and sporting events like the Tour de France. As a young man in the French army’s Film Unit in the 1950s, he worked on over 100 films.

Lelouch became an internationally recognized director with A MAN AND A WOMAN, which he shot in both color and black and white. Other Lelouch films in the series include the comedy heist drama LA BONNE ANNÉE (1973), starring Lino Ventura and Françoise Fabian; AND NOW MY LOVE (1974), starring Marthe Keller and André Dussollier, nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar; the murder mystery CAT AND MOUSE (1975), starring Michèle Morgan and Serge Reggiani (screening with the short Rendezvous); the musical extravaganza LES UNS ET LES AUTRES (1981), with an all-star cast including Geraldine Chaplin and James Caan, winner of Cannes’ Technical Grand Prize; and LES MISÉRABLES (1995), an update (to WWII) of the Victor Hugo novel starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.