Louis Malle

by Hugo Frey

Hugo Frey introduces Malle's work through a lucid analysis of his many masterpieces, including Le Feu Follet , Lacombe Lucien and Au Revoir les Enfants . He also traces the director's extended period of work in America, which resulted in powerful films such as Pretty Baby , Atlantic City and My Dinner with Andrbliogé . The book focuses on the most challenging aspects of Malle's oeuvre, his aesthetic vision, his youthful attraction to a form of right-wing pessimism, and his 1970s libertarianism. By rethinking Malle's portrayals of Nazi-occupied France, Frey demonstrates that he is of equal importance to contemporary historians as to film studies. This is a nuanced study of an important filmmaker, and a critical intervention in the debates which surround Malle's work.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published November 27, 2004

Reviews

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally solid group of academic essays on Louis Malle as a filmmaker. Nothing mind-blowing or revelatory, but nothing to take issue with, and provides good food for thought. Most interesting to me was the contextual examination of Malle's involvement with the right wing Hussard strain of postwar French writing which would head in a different direction after May '68. On a tangential note my favorite Malle picture to date is "Murmur of the Heart."