Henri Alekan

Overview

Known for
Acting
Gender
Other
Birthday
Feb 10, 1909 (116 years old)
Death date
Jun 15, 2001

Henri Alekan

Known For

Jean Cocteau, cinéaste
Movie 2001

Jean Cocteau, cinéaste

Jean Cocteau: Lies and Truths
1h 2m
Movie 1997

Jean Cocteau: Lies and Truths

This documentary consists mainly of archive interviews of Jean Cocteau, and it features interesting contributions by Jean Marais and especially Jean-Luc Godard, who discusses Cocteau's foray into cinema. The film documents all the artistic media explored by a man who defined himself, first and foremost, as a poet.

Screening at the Majestic
0h 27m
Movie 1997

Screening at the Majestic

More than fifty years after its making, we return to the set of Jean Cocteau's 1946 film "La Belle et la Bete" (Beauty and the Beast). Included are interviews with the the lead actors, the cinematographer, along with excerpts read from the director's journal.

Le travail d'un cinéaste : Julien Duvivier, 1896-1967
Movie 1996

Le travail d'un cinéaste : Julien Duvivier, 1896-1967

Carné, You Said Carné?
0h 30m
Movie 1994

Carné, You Said Carné?

A primer on French film director Marcel Carne's career through interviews with critics and close creative collaborators.

Faraway, So Close!
2h 26m
Movie 1993

Faraway, So Close!

Damiel is now married to Marion, runs the pizzeria “Da Angelo” and the two have a child. The solitarily remaining angel Cassiel is more and more dissatisfied with his destiny as a mere observer of human life and finally decides to take the great leap. As Karl Engel he soon gets into a dubious milieu and finds himself as the assistant of the German American Baker, who makes his money with shady arms deals and sends films east in exchange for weapons. Cassiel’s adventure turns into a “thriller” when he decides to put a stop to Baker’s game.

Max Ophüls - Den schönen guten Waren
1h 30m
Movie 1990

Max Ophüls - Den schönen guten Waren

Employees remember the director Max Ophüls, who was forced to emigrate in 1933 - his fifth film "Liebelei" was a great success in cinemas. After an odyssey through France, Italy, the Netherlands and the USA, he returned to work in France and Germany in the 1950s. The film commemorates Ophüls, who died in 1957 at the age of 54, and uses a series of film examples to demonstrate his special way of directing.

Alekan, la lumière
1h 7m
Movie 1988

Alekan, la lumière

An episode of the show "Océaniques " about the craft and lighting techniques of the legendary French cinematographer Henri Alekan

Biography

Henri Alekan (10 February 1909, Paris – 15 June 2001, Auxerre, Bourgogne) was a French cinematographer. Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909. At the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers. A little later he started work as third assistant cameraman at the Billancourt Studios. He then spent a short time in the army, returning to Billancourt in 1931. In the late 1930s he was the camera operator to Eugene Shufftan on Marcel Carné's Quai des Brumes and Drôle de drame. He was greatly influenced by Schufftan's non-naturalistic style. His first success as a director of photography was René Clément's realistic war drama La Bataille du Rail of 1946. In the same year he worked on Jean Cocteau's fable La Belle et la Bête. He found himself out of sympathy with the French New Wave cinema which emerged in the late 1950s and Alekan shot some rather conventional films in Hollywood. A new generation of directors appreciated his visionary style, however, and he worked with Raúl Ruiz on The Territory and On Top of the Whale, with Joseph Losey on Figures in a Landscape and The Trout, and with Wim Wenders on The State Of Things and Wings of Desire. His last films were made with the Israeli director Amos Gitai. He wrote one of the best books about cinematography Des lumières et des ombres (1984, Éditions du Collectionneur). Alekan died from leukemia on 15 June 2001 in Auxerre, Bourgogne, aged 92. Source: Article "Henri Alekan" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

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