- Arnaud Desplechin
Arnaud Desplechin (born
October 31 ,1960 ) is a Frenchfilm director .Biography
Arnaud Desplechin is the son of Robert and Mado Desplechin, and grew up in the Nord department. He has a brother named Fabrice who has acted in several of his films, and two sisters: novelist Marie Desplechin and screenwriter Raphaëlle Desplechin.
Arnaud Desplechin studied film directing at the , graduating in 1984. He made three short films inpsired by the work of the Belgian novelist
Jean Ray , and became a great admirer of the films ofAlain Resnais . During the late 1980s, Desplechin worked as a director of photography on several films.In 1990, Desplechin directed "La Vie des morts," starring several actors who would go on to appear in multiple Desplechin films, such as
Marianne Dénicourt ,Emmanuelle Devos ,Emmanuel Salinger andThibault de Montalembert . The 54-minute-long film won the Jean Vigo Prize for Short Films, and was shown at theCannes Film Festival .Desplechin's first feature-length movie, "La Sentinelle," premiered in 1992, starring several actors from "La vie des morts" as well as
Mathieu Amalric ,Chiara Mastroianni , andLászlo Szabó , who have also become frequent Desplechin collaborators. Desplechin's 1996 film "Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle)" was a critical success and established Desplechin as an important director for the 1990s. Some journalists talk about the "Desplechin generation" to describe this era of French cinema.In 2000, Desplechin made his first English-language film, "Esther Kahn," adapted from a novel by
Arthur Symons . It starredSummer Phoenix in the title role, as a Jewish-English girl. The film was seen as a homage toFrançois Truffaut 's work because it deals with coming of age (a favorite Truffaut theme) and uses theNew Wave cinema techniques that Truffaut pioneered.Three years later, Desplechin made two films adapting
Edward Bond 's play "In the Company of Men": one showing 70% rehearsal footage and 30% of the film itself; and the other with inverse proportions. The next year, he directed "Kings and Queen ", which mixed comedy and tragedy to tell the story of two ex-lovers played by Amalric and Devos. The film also starredCatherine Deneuve in the role of a psychiatrist. "Kings and Queen" was nominated for several awards and Amalric won theCésar Award for Best Actor. However, controversy arose when Marianne Denicourt, Desplechin's ex-girlfriend, accused him of revealing elements of her private life in the screenplay of "Kings and Queen". In 2005, she published "Mauvais génie" ("Evil Genius"), describing her relationship with an unscrupulous film director called "Arnold Duplancher." She sued Desplechin and won 200,000 euros in 2006.In 2007, Desplechin filmed "L'Aimée," a documentary showing his father, his brother, and his nephews in the family house in
Roubaix just before it was to be sold. That same year, he filmed the family drama "Un conte de Noël ", starring Deneuve, Amalric, Devos, and Mastroianni. This film was screened in competition at Cannes in 2008.Filmography
*"
Un conte de Noël " (2008)
*"L'Aimée " (2007)
*"Kings and Queen " (2004)
*"Léo en jouant « Dans la compagnie des hommes » " (2003)
*"Esther Kahn " (2000)
*"My Sex Life ... or How I Got into an Argument " (1996)
*"La Sentinelle" (1992)
*"La Vie des morts " (1991)External links
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0221611/ IMDb entry]
* [http://www.indiewire.com/people/int_Desplechin_Arna_020227.html Soul Searching - Interview with Desplechin on Esther Kahn]
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