Introduction: Maurice Pialat, the outsider
Introduction: Maurice Pialat, the outsider
This chapter presents a profile of the French film director Maurice Pialat. Pialat's work inspires comparison with legendary figures such as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson, yet he does not have the international reputation one might expect, given his gifts as a director and his importance in French cinema history. Pialat's death in 2003 inevitably situated him as a filmmaker of the 1980s, the decade in which his work began to receive serious critical attention and attracted a broader public. Yet by 1983, when A nos amours won the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc and the César for best film, he had been making films for over twenty years. Perhaps one of the most telling moments in Maurice Pialat's ongoing relationship with film and the French film-going public was the scandal at Cannes over the attribution of the Palme d'or in 1987. If the name Pialat is not without significance to the French filmgoing public, it is partly because he acquired the reputation of a singularly difficult and demanding director, who provoked and psychologically abused his actors and collaborators.
Keywords: Maurice Pialat, French film director, international reputation, Prix Louis Delluc, scandal
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