Vigo, Jean

Vigo, Jean (1905-1934), French film director. Vigo's father, an anarchist militant, died in jail in mysterious circumstances. In his teens, Vigo was sent to a stern boarding school which was later to provide inspiration for his featurette, Zéro de Conduite (see below).

Diagnosed with tuberculosis, Vigo settled in Nice, where he shot a short film, À Propos de Nice (1930), a gentle satire on the social pretensions of the town. Zéro de Conduite (1933; Zero for Conduct), a 45-minute, low-budget tale of schoolboy rebellion against the tyranny of teachers, was banned by the official French censors. In 1934, working with his cameraman Boris Kaufman, the brother of the Soviet director Dziga Vertov (Denis Kaufman), Vigo produced his masterpiece, L'Atalante (1934). On the surface a banal tale of the marriage and tiffs of a Seine barge captain and his new bride, the film sparkles with a sense of life lived to the full in the surreal dreamscape of the river, together with the boat's strange crew of an aimless young boy and an ageing first mate, the inimitable Michel Simon. Vigo died at the age of 29, but his film, cut on its first release, was revived in its full tender glory in 1990. It has remained an inspiration to film-makers seeking to create their own magic from the most basic and simple elements of the cinema.