Louis Malle's Birthday
On October 30, 1932, in the town of Thumeries, Nord department, France, the fifth child, a boy, was born in the family of Pierre Malle and his wife Françoise, nee Béghin. The boy was named Louis Marie. Pierre Malle before his marriage to Françoise Béghin, the sister of a major industrialist Ferdinand Béghin, was a naval officer. After his marriage, he became director of a sugar factory owned by Ferdinand Béghin. Louis Malle's school years fell on the Second World War, during which Louis Marie Malle studied at a Catholic school located near Fontainebleau. Subsequently, some memories of school years formed the basis of his film "Au revoir les enfants (Goodbye children)".
Shortly after the end of the war, his father gave 14-year-old Louis a movie camera, and this actually sealed his fate. After graduating from school in 1950, Louis Malle entered the prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies) Sciences Po, referred to in France as the "elite factory". However, the formed love for filmmaking took precedence over politics, and two years later Malle left Sciences Po and entered the IDHEC - Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute of Higher Film Research), a French film school founded in 1943. As a student, Louis Malle was recommended by the leadership of the film school as an assistant to the famous explorer of the deep sea, Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Under Cousteau, Louis Malle took part in the creation of several documentaries about the underwater world of the Mediterranean and Red Seas, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
In 1957, Louis Malle made his first independent feature film, "Ascenseur pour l'Ă©chafaud (Elevator to the Gallows)". In total, during his life, and he died at the age of 63 in 1995, Louis Malle made 20 full-length feature films. 4 of them entered the Golden Thousand, including "Elevator to the Gallows", "Le feu follet (The Fire Within)", "Lacombe Lucien" and "Goodbye, children." Based on this score, Louis Malle is included in list of the 100 Greatest Film Directors compiled by FilmGourmand.
The directorial activity of Louis Malle was awarded 43 film awards, including the most prestigious BAFTA British Academy Film Awards, the Danish Bodil Film Awards, 2 Cesar Awards of the French Film Academy, 2 David di Donatello Awards of the Italian Film Academy, the European Film Academy Award, 2 Golden Lions and 2 Special Jury Prizes of the Venice International Film Festival .
In honor of the anniversary of the birth of the great director, I would like to remind fans of his work the frames from his best films included in the Golden Thousand.
