Jean Vigo

Jean Vigo
Born	26 April 1905(1905-04-26) France
Died	5 October 1934(1934-10-05) (aged 29)

Jean Vigo (26 April 1905, Paris – 5 October 1934) was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Career 3 Legacy 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

Biography

Vigo was born to Emily Clero and the prominent Spanish/Catalan militant anarchist Eugeni Bonaventura de Vigo i Sallés (who adopted the name Miguel Almereyda - an anagram of "y'a la merde", which translates as "there's the shit"). Much of his early life was spent on the run with his parents. His father was strangled in his cell in Fresnes Prison on the night of 13 August 1917; allegedly the authorities were responsible.^[1] The young Vigo was subsequently sent to boarding school under an assumed name, Jean Sales, to conceal his identity.

Vigo was married and had a daughter, Luce Vigo (a film critic) in 1931. He died in 1934 of complications from tuberculosis, which he had contracted eight years earlier.

Career

Vigo is noted for two films which affected the future development of both French and world cinema: Zéro de conduite (1933) and L'Atalante (1934).

He also made two other films: À propos de Nice (1930), a subversive silent film examining social inequity in 1920s Nice; and Taris, roi de l'eau (1931), a motion study of swimmer Jean Taris.

Zéro de conduite was banned by the French government until after the war and L'Atalante was mutilated by its distributor. Both have outlived their detractors however and L'Atalante was chosen as the 10th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's 1962 poll, and as the 6th-best in its 1992 poll. In the 1990s a complete copy of L'Atalante was found in Italy and the oeuvre was restored to its integrity.

Legacy

• The Prix Jean Vigo is an annual award given since 1951 to outstanding French film directors.
• The Jean Vigo Award is an annual prize given to Best Director at the Navarra Int'l Documentary Film Festival in Spain.

References

Further reading

• Michael Temple, Jean Vigo. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.

External links

• Jean Vigo at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Jean Vigo Anarchist Encyclopedia
• Jean Vigo (Bibliotheca Augustana)]
• Punto de Vista festival "sees Jean Vigo as a permanent point of reference and guide."

Jean Vigo Films directed À propos de Nice Jean Taris, Swimming Champion Zéro de conduite L'Atalante Related topics Prix Jean Vigo

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French New Wave Directors François Truffaut Jean-Luc Godard Éric Rohmer Claude Chabrol Jacques Rivette Left Bank Henri Colpi Marguerite Duras Armand Gatti Chris Marker Alain Resnais Agnès Varda Other filmmakers Jacques Demy Jean Eustache Louis Malle Jean-Pierre Melville Luc Moullet Jacques Rozier Roger Vadim Influences Alexandre Astruc André Bazin Robert Bresson Jacques Doniol-Valcroze Henri Langlois Joseph-Marie Lo Duca Jean Vigo Pierre Braunberger Key films Le Beau Serge (1958) The 400 Blows (1959) Hiroshima mon amour (1959) Breathless (1960) Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) Adieu Philippine (1962) Related topics Auteur theory Cahiers du cinéma Cinémathèque Française Jump cut

Persondata
Name	Vigo, Jean
Alternative names
Short description	Film director
Date of birth	April 26, 1905
Place of birth	France
Date of death	October 5, 1934 (aged 29)
Place of death