Malle, Louis

Malle, Louis (1932-1995), French film director, born in Thumeries, in the industrial north of France, into a wealthy and powerful family of manufacturers. In 1951, after his secondary studies, he joined the IDHEC (Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques).

As assistant to Jacques Cousteau until 1955, Malle co-directed Le Monde du Silence (The Silent World), a film of submarine discovery which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956. His own first film was Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud (1957; Lift to the Scaffold, winner of the Louis Delluc Prize in 1958), and this was followed by Les Amants (1958; The Lovers), which shocked the public, earning Malle his reputation as a controversial director. Jeanne Moreau starred in both films.

Unlike most directors, Malle was a man of private means, and headed his own production company. In 1960, he made one of his best films, though a provocative one, based on the novel by Raymond Queneau, Zazie dans le Métro ( Zazie in the Underground). As he showed in his later films, a greater measure of freedom can lead to alienation (La Vie Privée/A Very Private Affair, 1962; Le Feu Follet/The Fire Within, 1963). He was attracted to the margins of society, which he depicted with a deft technique and a balanced sense of narrative organization, as in Pretty Baby (1978) and Atlantic City (1980). In 1981, My Dinner with André was a hit with intellectuals in the United States, but a commercial failure in France.

In 1987, Malle directed Au Revoir les Enfants (Goodbye Children), set in a Catholic school during the German occupation of France, which received awards at Venice (Leone d'Oro, 1987) and Cannes (Prix de la critique, 1988), and won the Prix Louis Delluc (1987). His last completed work was Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Malle died on November 23, 1995.