Raoul Coutard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Raoul Coutard (born September 16, 1924 in Paris, France) is an acclaimed French cinematographer. His name is most often associated with the Nouvelle Vague period (The French New Wave), and particularly with his work with director Jean-Luc Godard. Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut as well as Jacques Demy, a contemporary frequently associated with the movement.

He has lensed over 75 films over the course of a career that lasted nearly half a century.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Coutard originally intended to study chemistry, but had to switch to photography because he couldn't afford the tuition[1]. In 1945, Coutard was sent to participate in the French Indochina War; he lived in Vietnam for the next 11 years, working as a war photographer, eventually becoming a freelancer for Paris Match and Look. In 1956, he was approached to shoot a film by Pierre Schoendoerffer, La Passe du Diable. Coutard had never used a movie camera before, and reportedly agreed to the job because of a misunderstanding (he believed he was being hired to shoot production stills of the film).

[edit] Collaboration with Godard

Coutard's first work collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard was Godard's first feature, À bout de souffle, shot in 1959. He was reportedly "imposed" on Godard by producer Georges de Beauregard; the director had already settled on a different cinematographer[2].

Coutard shot nearly all of Godard's work in the Nouvelle Vague era (1959 - 1967), with the notable exception of Masculin, féminin ; their last work during this period was Week End (1967), which marked the end of Godard's work as a "mainstream" filmmaker. The two did not work together again until Passion; their final collaboration was Godard's next feature, Prénom Carmen.

During the Nouvelle Vague period, Coutard's work with Godard fell into two categories: black and white films, which were all shot full frame, and color films, which were all shot in Cinemascope. The black and white films, which were mostly made on lower budgets, are notable for their use of hand-held camera work and natural lighting, which lends them an unpolished quality. This "loose" style of shooting is what is most associated with the Godard-Coutard collaboration, because it does not appear in Godard's collaborations with any other cinematographers. Though many of the color films, especially early ones like Une Femme est une femme (1961), feature handheld shooting, Godard's increased use of color also saw an increased focus on immobile and tracking shots.

[edit] Post-Nouvelle Vague Career

After photographing some of the last films made during the Nouvelle Vague period--Week End for Godard and Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black--Coutard worked on Costa-Gavras' Academy Award-winning Z (1969).

In 1970, Coutard wrote and directed his first feature film, Hoa Binh, for which he won the Prix Jean Vigo and an award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Coutard shot two more features over the course of the next fifteen years: La Légion saute sur Kolwezi in 1980 and S.A.S. à San Salvador in 1983. Coutard's cinematographer on all of his features was Georges Liron, who had been his frequent camera operator[3] during his collaboration with Godard and with whom he'd served as co-cinematographer on the documentary Rocky Road to Dublin.

As a cinematographer, Coutard was less active in 1970s than the 1960s. When he reunited with Godard in 1982, Coutard had shot only 7 films in a the last decade, with 5 of them in 1972-73. [4] After the two Godard collaborations, he began working more frequently again.

During the 1990s, Coutard began working with director Philippe Garrel; his most recent work is Garrell's Sauvage Innocence, which was released 2001.

[edit] Selected filmography (as cinematographer)

[edit] Filmography (as director)

  • Hoa-Binh (1970)
  • La Légion saute sur Kolwezi (1980)
  • S.A.S. à San Salvador (1983)

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Raoul Coutard
  2. ^ Raoul Coutard
  3. ^ Georges Liron
  4. ^ Raoul Coutard