Alexandre Auguste Astruc (13 July 1923 – 19 May 2016) was a French film critic and film director. Before becoming a film director he was a journalist, novelist and film critic. His contribution to the auteur theory centers on his notion of the caméra-stylo or "camera-pen" and the idea that directors should wield their cameras like writers use their pens. In 1994 he was awarded the René Clair Award for his whole body of film work.
At a wake one night in 1945, a group of aged women recall the life of one of their number. Sixty years before, Thérèse was barely 20 years old when she eloped with her boyfriend, Firmin, a blacksmith, to Châtillon, a town in Provence. Here, she makes the acquaintance of the wealthy Madame Numance, who is known for her good deeds. Realising that Thérèse is pregnant and unemployed, Madame Numance insists that she moves into a house on her estate. Whilst Firmin resents the arrangement, Thérèse soon finds that she can exploit the situation, using her benefactor's naivety and generosity for her own gain..
Release Date:2001-05-20
Department:Writing
Job:Screenplay
Vote Count:10
Twenty-six people - including two daughters, an ex-wife, his last lover, actors, fellow directors and writers, a neighbor, and boyhood friends - talk about François Truffaut. They discuss his attitudes toward wealth, his early writings about cinema, the undercurrent of violence in his films and his personality, the way he used and altered events in his life when making films, his search for a father (both artistic and biological), his relationship with his mother, the scenes in his films that cause a squirm of embarrassment, and his ultimate mysticism. Clips from a dozen of his films are included.
Release Date:1993-05-14
Character:Self
Vote Count:7
Adaptation of the Balzac story as told by Rosalie, a young girl in love with the idea of her extraordinary neighbor, Albert Savarus, and the lengths she goes to ensure their marriage, even after she learns he is deeply in love with another woman.
Release Date:1993-01-30
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
After a long journey, Alain arrives at the Usher mansion to visit his old friend, Roderick Usher. Upon arriving, however, he discovers that Roderick and his sister, Madeline, have been afflicted with a mysterious malady: Roderick's senses have become painfully acute, while Madeline has become nearly catatonic.
Release Date:1981-04-12
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:1
An adaptation of the novel 813, in which the gentleman burglar competes to steal state papers and tries to uncover the identity of a terrifying murderer.
Release Date:1980-12-12
Department:Writing
Job:Script Editor
An adaptation of the novel 813, in which the gentleman burglar competes to steal state papers and tries to uncover the identity of a terrifying murderer.
Release Date:1980-12-12
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Episode Count:6
Vote Count:2
Michel Contat is Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, ITEM/CNRS/ENS and a specialist of Jean-Paul Sartre whose novels and theater he has edited in the Pléiade edition and about whom he has written several books. With Alexander Astruc, he made the film Sartre par lui-même (1976) and, with Antoine Burnier, co-wrote the script of Claude Garretta’s TV film Sartre, L’Age des passions (2006). As a journalist, Contat contributed literary columns for Le Monde since 1978, and as an amateur musician, he was the jazz columnist for the magazine Télérama. His most recent books are Pour Sartre (2006) and André Gorz; vers la société libérée (2009).
Release Date:1976-10-26
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:3
Release Date:1975-04-21
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Episode Count:6
Vote Count:2
A talk show presented by Michel Drucker
Release Date:1975-01-12
Character:Self
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:1
Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.
Release Date:1975-01-10
Character:Self
Episode Count:2
Vote Count:2
Starting as an investigation, the film begins with the discovery of a murdered young woman. Gradually we go back in time to realize that this crime is altogether the logical continuation of a philosophy of life where neither sex nor death are taboo, and where a lust for pushing limits meets it ultimate conclusion.
Release Date:1974-11-26
Character:L'éditeur Guy
Vote Count:3
Part of a 6-film collection called “Grands Détectives” about famous fictional private detectives.
Release Date:1974-02-09
Department:Directing
Job:Director
A “Cinéastes de notre temps” series episode directed by french film critic and filmmaker Alexandre Astruc, originally aired sometime around 1970.
Release Date:1970-01-01
Department:Directing
Job:Director
The film tells the story of the Yugoslav destroyer Zagreb which fights against Germany in 1941, and how some of the crew members try to organise a mutiny to keep fighting when the commander is ordered to surrender.
Release Date:1968-10-08
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:4
In June 1944, a young doctor, Chevalier, under the threat of guns, is forced to treat a wounded man in a camp of resistance fighters (maquisards). He recognizes the man, minister of the Third Republic, called Morel by his companions. Carnot, the chief of the maquisards, is suspicious of a doctor who expressly disapproves of the resistance and wants to have him shot as soon as he has treated Morel. Philippe, who is second in command, intervenes in favor of the Chevalier. Meanwhile, peasants denounce the maquisards to the Nazis and the camp is surrounded by the Germans. The camp is saved thanks to Philippe who takes command of the group. He decides to leave the shelter and they begin the long march through the Cévennes to rally maquisard Napoleon in the Vercors...
Release Date:1966-05-31
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Galois is practicing shooting in preparation for a duel the very next day. His last night.
Release Date:1965-06-01
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:6
A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...
Release Date:1964-01-09
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Vote Count:6
"I was interested by the fact that some old guy, after the Parthenon’s glamour, devoted himself in a much smaller temple, where there was no white marble, no nothing. All Greek temples are dedicated to Apollo etc, and this particular one was not dedicated to anyone and is in a place where there never was a city nearby, in a kind of wasteland, in a ditch. But, just by going up a bit –you are in the centre of Peloponissos- on a clear day, you can see the sea on both your left and right. I went back there, at least six, seven or eight times, as if I wanted to think or find myself. So, at the temple in Bassae, I made a short 10 minute film and I was lucky enough to encounter two days of clouds and mist between the columns." —ecofilms.gr (Jean-Daniel Pollet, Tours d’horizons, Editions de l’oeil 2005)
Release Date:1964-01-01
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Vote Count:8
Frédéric, a shy small-town man, falls in love with Anne, a middle class woman married to Didier, who cheats on her with top model Barbara. Catherine, a very determined woman, is secretly in love with Frédéric and in order to keep him away from Anne, pushes him into Barbara's arms.
Release Date:1962-05-02
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:13
Anna, twenty-seven, married to building contractor Eric, refuses to live in his wake. Craving independence, she can exist through the art gallery she runs, but isn’t this occupation a mere wholesome distraction? When she meets Bruno and becomes his lover she thinks she will find fulfillment only to realize that she is just another plaything in a man’s hands.
Release Date:1961-04-13
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:8
Normandy, second half of the nineteenth century. Jeanne Dandieu lives in a manor house with her parents and their servant Rosalie. She gets to know Julien, a handsome man, whom she soon marries. Her happiness is short-lived as she finds out that not only has Julien married her for her money but he cheats on her as well, with Rosalie to crown it all.
Release Date:1958-09-24
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:19
A professor experimenting in suspended animation accidentally shrinks his dog and later, his female lab assistant, when she drinks the liquid by accident and shrinks to 3 inches tall. The professor keeps her in his pocket until he can find an antidote. Sometimes she's naked, too.
Release Date:1957-11-06
Character:First employee of lost and found items
Vote Count:3
Release Date:1956-02-04
Character:Self
Episode Count:2
Vote Count:2
Catherine Racan, a young journalist who always puts her career over her love life, is brought in by the police for questioning. They are looking for a doctor who illegally performs abortions and now they are interrogating all of his previous clients.
Release Date:1955-10-25
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:10
Raoul de Bragelonne must uphold his musketeer father's legacy in the face of court intrigues from Cardinal Mazarin.
Release Date:1954-12-09
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Vote Count:5
A twenty year old Anouk Aimée stars as Albertine, the daughter of a bourgeois couple who house a young officer during the Napoleonic wars. Newly promoted, the officer (Jean-Claude Pascal) is quartered by a dull bourgeois couple who treat him with a cold politeness bordering on indifference.
Release Date:1953-03-06
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:13
Two adaptations. First, "Le Rideau cramoisi" by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly is about a young second lieutenant of hussars, garrisoned in the provinces, who evokes a strange adventure. Staying with an old couple, he acts as acquaintance with Albertine, the daughter of his hosts, fell in love with her and, after paying her assiduous courtship, made her his mistress. But one night, she died in his arms. He tried in vain to get rid of the corpse and ended up run away. Second, "Mina de Vanghel" by Stendhal is about Mina, a young German, who came to settle in France with her mother in 1820. Her father, a deceased Prussian general, left her a immense fortune. Courted, she falls in love with Monsieur de Ruppert, a ruined man whose castle her mother bought. But Mina does not take long to unmask the dowry hunter.
Release Date:1953-01-02
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:1
Fred, the nephew of a senator,has murdered a Black man on a train. The two only witnesses are Lizzie McKay, a prostitute from New York, and Sidney, a colored man. Fred decides to seduce Lizzie in order to make her give false evidence according to which Sidney has attempted to rape her. The uncle also puts pressure on the young woman. After much hesitation, Lizzie finally accepts but Sidney, who has nearly got lynched, takes refuge at her home...
Release Date:1952-10-07
Department:Writing
Job:Screenplay
Vote Count:15
A fictitious biography of Jacques Offenbach and Hortense Schneider.
Release Date:1950-05-05
Character:Ludovic Halévy (uncredited)
Vote Count:1
Hopes and love and ambitions and friendship in a group of young jazz-loving Parisians.
Release Date:1949-12-06
Character:(uncredited)
Vote Count:12