Louis Malle

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Louis Malle (October 30, 1932 – November 23, 1995) was a French film director.

Malle was born into a wealthy family in Thumeries, Nord, France. He initially studied political science at the Sorbonne before turning to film studies instead. He worked as the co-director and cameraman to Jacques Cousteau on the documentary The Silent World (1956) and assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped (1956) before making his first feature, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Frantic, re-released in 2005 as Elevator to the Gallows) in 1957.

Malle's Les Amants (1958), which like Ascenseur pour l'échafaud starred Jeanne Moreau, caused some controversy due to its sexual content.

Malle is sometimes incorrectly associated with the nouvelle vague - his work doesn't fit in or correspond to the auteurist theories that apply to the work of Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, and others, and he had nothing whatsoever to do with Cahiers du cinema. Nonetheless, his film Zazie dans le métro (1960, an adaptation of the Raymond Queneau novel) did inspire Truffaut to write an enthusiastic letter to Malle.

Other films also tackled taboo subjects: Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within, 1963) centres on a man about to commit suicide, Le souffle au cœur (1971) deals with an incestuous relationship between mother and son and Lacombe Lucien (1974) is about French collaboration and resistance in World War II.

Malle later moved to the United States and continued to direct there. His later films include Pretty Baby (1978), Atlantic City (1981), My Dinner with Andre (1981), Au revoir, les enfants (1987), Milou en Mai (May Fools, 1990), Damage (1992), and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya).

Malle was married to Anne-Marie Deschodt from 1965 – 1967. He later married the actress Candice Bergen in 1981. They had a daughter, Chloë Malle, in 1985. He also had a son, Manuel Cuotemoc (born 1971), with former girlfriend and German actress Gila von Weitershausen, and a daughter Justine (born 1974) with Canadian-born French actress Alexandra Stewart.

He died at his home in Beverly Hills, California of lymphoma, aged 63.

A number of books have been written on Malle and his work. The interview collection Malle on Malle was published by Faber in 1992 and revised, after the director's death, in 1996. The definitive biography of the director is only available in French, Pierre Billard's "Louis Malle - Rebelle solitaire" (2003). The study, "Louis Malle", written by Hugo Frey, was published by Manchester University Press in 2004. The Films of Louis Malle: A Critical Analysis, a detailed critical exploration of Malle's films, written by Nathan Southern and Jacques Weissgerber, was published by McFarland in 2005.

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