René Clair  

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In 1930s France, avant-garde director René Clair made surreal use of song and dance in comedies like Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) and Le Million (1931). But before that his Entr'acte (1924) took madcap comedy into nonsequitur, at the same time as artists Hans Richter, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Germaine Dulac and Viking Eggeling all contributed Dadaist/Surrealist shorts. --Sholem Stein

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René Clair (11 November 1898 – 15 March 1981) born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker and writer. He first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in which comedy was often mingled with fantasy. He went on to make some of the most innovative early sound films in France, before going abroad to work in the UK and USA for more than a decade. Returning to France after World War II, he continued to make films that were characterised by their elegance and wit, often presenting a nostalgic view of French life in earlier years. He was elected to the Académie française in 1960. Clair's best known films include The Italian Straw Hat (1928), Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Le Million (1931), À nous la liberté (1931), I Married a Witch (1942), and And Then There Were None (1945).

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Biography

He was born in Paris and grew up in the Les Halles quarter. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver. After the war, he started a career as a journalist under the pseudonym René Desprès. He also made his debut as an actor and became the assistant of Jacques de Baroncelli and Henri Diamant-Berger.

Clair started making films during the advent of sound, and therefore had very conflicting views of its uses. Primarily a silent filmmaker beforehand, he was forced to use sound in his films for financial success. However, in lieu of creating films from theater plays like other French directors, Clair used sound to take the audience out of the narrative and into a different reality.

In 1924, he produced his first films, Entr'acte and Paris qui dort, which were followed by a quick succession of notable films. During World War II, he went to Hollywood and was stripped of his French citizenship by the Vichy government.

He was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Cambridge and received the Grand Prix du Cinéma Français in 1953. In 1960, he was elected to the Académie Française. He came to personify French film, and the prize for film awarded by the Académie Française bears his name. One of his notable films, À Nous la Liberté led to a controversy involving Modern Times .

Awards & Recognitions

Filmography

Feature Films

Short Films

Television

See also




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