Claude Sautet

After working as an assistant director in the 1950s, he made his feature debut in 1956 with Bonjour Sourire. His 1960 underworld melodrama Classe tous risqué (The Big Risk) was overshadowed by the younger New Wave directors. He achieved his breakthrough in 1969 with Les choses de la vie, a keenly observed study of a mid-life crisis triggered by a car accident, which earned him the 1970 Louis-Delluc Prize. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he became known for films that carefully explored French bourgeois life and human relationships. Notable works include César et Rosalie (1972), Vincent, François, Paul et les autres (1974), Mado (1976), Une histoire simple (1978), made as a gift for Romy Schneider, and Garçon! (1983). With Un Mauvais Fils (1980), he turned his focus to the working class and the issues facing younger generations. Through his sensitive character studies and meticulous depiction of social relations, he became recognized by the late 1970s as French cinema’s chronicler of middle-class life. Sautet, who passed away in 2000, left behind a portrait of cinema and a personality far more complex and contradictory than it appears at first glance.