Jean-Daniel Pollet (; 1936–2004) was a French
film director
A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...
and
screenwriter
A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...
who was most active in the 1960s and 1970s. He was associated with two approaches to filmmaking: comedies which blended burlesque and melancholic elements, and poetic films based on texts by writers such as the French poet
Francis Ponge.
Career
Pollet was born on 20 June 1936 in
La Madeleine, Nord, in France. His film career started in 1958, when he did a short film set in Paris called ''Pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse''..., in which Pollet filmed the movements of dancers' silhouettes. Pollet built on the images and themes from this first film in many of his later works, by incorporating elements of popular comedies imbued with both
burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. and melancholic elements. In the early 1960s, Pollet began exploring another approach to filmmaking with the film ''
Méditerranée'', which he made over two years with
Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He ha ...
. Pollet tried to create a form of poetic film, using texts and commentaries by writers such as
Philippe Sollers
Philippe Sollers (; born Philippe Joyaux; 28 November 1936 – 5 May 2023) was a French writer and critic. In 1960 he founded the '' avant garde'' literary journal '' Tel Quel'' (along with writer and art critic Marcelin Pleynet), which was pu ...
,
Jean Thibeaudeau, and
Francis Ponge.
In the 1990s, he was paralyzed after a train accident, and so he filmed his last movies in the areas around his house in the French town of
Cadenet. In 2004, when Pollet realized that his death was approaching, he wrote his last screenplay, ''Jour après jour'', which was finished by
Jean-Paul Fargier. Pollet died at the age of 68 on 9 September 2004 at Cadenet,
Vaucluse
Vaucluse (; or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019. , in France.
[Cinemotions, a French-language cinema website, available at: http://www.cinemotions.com/modules/Artistes/fiche/16285/Jean-Daniel-Pollet.html]
Filmography
*1958: ''Pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse...''
*1960: ''
Line of Sight
The line of sight, also known as visual axis or sightline (also sight line), is an imaginary line between a viewer/ observer/ spectator's eye(s) and a subject of interest, or their relative direction. The subject may be any definable object taken ...
''
*1961: ''Gala''
*1963: ''
Méditerranée''
*1964: ''Bassae''
*1965: ''
Une balle au cœur''
*1965: ''
Paris vu par...'' (segment Rue Saint-Denis)
*1966: ''Les Morutiers''
*1966: ''
Le Horla''
*1967: ''Tu imagines Robinson''
*1970: ''Le Maître du temps''
*1971: ''Le Sang''
*1971: ''L'Amour c'est gai, l'amour c'est triste''
*1973: ''L'Ordre''
*1976: ''L'Acrobate''
*1978: ''Pour mémoire (La forge)''
*1986: ''Au Père Lachaise''
*1988: ''Contretemps''
*1991: ''Trois jours en Grèce''
*1994: ''Dieu sait quoi''
*2001: ''Ceux d'en face''
*2006: ''Jour après jour'', terminé par Jean-Paul Fargier
References
External links
*
Films of Ruin and Rapture: In Search of Jean-Daniel Pollet an appreciation by Chris Darke at ''Filmcomment''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pollet, Jean-Daniel
1936 births
2004 deaths
French film directors
People from La Madeleine, Nord