Nicolas Bataille (14 March 1926 – 28 October 2008) was a
French actor and director.
Biography
The son of a
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
ian architect, Nicolas Bataille (born Roger Bataille) debuted as an actor during the
Occupation of France
The Military Administration in France (; ) was an Military Administration (Nazi Germany), interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western French Third ...
while following the dramatic teachings of
René Simon,
Tania Balachova, and the comedian .
Appearing in
Children of Paradise
''Children of Paradise'' (, ) is a two-part French romantic drama film by Marcel Carné, produced under war conditions in 1943, 1944, and early 1945 in both Vichy France and Occupied France. Set in the theatrical world of 1830s Paris, it tell ...
by
Marcel Carné
Marcel Albert Carné (; 18 August 1906 – 31 October 1996) was a French film director. A key figure in the poetic realism movement, Carné's best known films include ''Port of Shadows'' (1938), ''Le Jour Se Lève'' (1939), ''Les Visiteurs du Soi ...
, he obtained his first notable roles at the
Liberation of France
The liberation of France () in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance.
Nazi Germany in ...
. In 1948, he staged
A Season in Hell
''A Season in Hell'' () is an extended poem in prose written and published in 1873 by French writer Arthur Rimbaud. It is the only work that was published by Rimbaud himself. The book had a considerable influence on later artists and poets, ...
from the poem by
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism.
Born in Charleville, he s ...
, with and received a prize for avant-garde young theater companies. The next year, he forged with Akakia-Viala a fake text by Rimbaud:
The Spiritual Hunt, which was published in the French resistance newspaper
Combat (newspaper)
''Combat'' was a French newspaper created during the Second World War. It was founded in 1941 as a clandestine newspaper of the French Resistance.
War years
In August 1944, ''Combat'' took over the headquarters of '' L'Intransigeant'' in Par ...
, on 19 May 1949 and subsequently in
Mercure de France
The () was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group.
The gazette was publis ...
.
At the start of the 1950s, he received ''L'Anglais sans peine'', the first unpublished work by a still unknown French author of Romanian origin,
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco (; ; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre#Avant-garde, French avant-garde th ...
. He directed this
absurdist, which would be called
The Bald Soprano
''La Cantatrice chauve '' – translated from French as ''The Bald Soprano'' or ''The Bald Prima Donna'' – is the first play written by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco.
Nicolas Bataille directed the premiere on 11 May 1950 at th ...
, on 11 May 1950 at the
Théâtre des Noctambules in the
5th arrondissement of Paris
The 5th arrondissement of Paris (''Ve arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le cinquième''.
The arrondisseme ...
.
His ability to do so was largely thanks to his friendship with
Claude Autant-Lara
Claude Autant-Lara (; 5 August 1901 – 5 February 2000) was a French film director, screenwriter, set designer and costume designer who worked in films for over 50 years. He made films characterised by bourgeois Realism (arts), realism, anti- ...
's family, who also provided him the costumes for
Occupe-toi d'Amélie!. The play was initially a public and critical failure, but he resumed it starting on 11 May 1957 at
La Huchette, thanks to the growing success of its author and the financial support of
Louis Malle
Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a filmmaker difficult to pin down", Malle made document ...
. He remained the lifeblood of La Huchette until his death, more than half a century after introducing Eugène Ionesco to the public, and he performed the role of Monsieur Martin until June 2007, before a total of more than one million five hundred thousand spectators.
He continued his theatrical career at the same time. In 1964 he staged in
La Philosophie dans le boudoir, based on the book by
Sade, a play that was quickly banned but continued to be performed. In 1966, in collaboration with
Jean-François Adam, he directed ''L'été'' by
Romain Weingarten at the and ''L'Elève de Brecht'' by in 1984. He won the
SACD Georges-Pitoëff prize for his production of ''Le Cirque'' by
Claude Mauriac. He was also interested in musicals, staging Twist Appeal with Vince Taylor in 1962, the works of
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye de ...
, then ''Offenbach, tu connais ?'' in the 1990s.
He was a renowned director, both in France and Japan, where he was awarded several prizes between 1969 and 1976. For a time, he was the actor of choice for Louis Malle, who directed him in three of his films, in which he portrayed a client of a night bar (
Elevator to the Gallows), a Russian driver of a tourist bus (
Zazie in the metro), and a theater director staging Kleist in an open-air theater (
A Very Private Affair). In addition, he played a protagonist of
Jean Dréville's film and one of the manual laborers in
Jacques Tati
Jacques Tati (; born Jacques Tatischeff, ; 9 October 1907 – 5 November 1982) was a French mime, filmmaker, actor and screenwriter. In an ''Entertainment Weekly'' poll of the Greatest Movie Directors, he was voted 46th (a list of the top 50 was ...
's
Mon Oncle
''Mon Oncle'' (; ) is a 1958 comedy film directed by Jacques Tati. The first of Tati's films to be released in colour, ''Mon Oncle'' won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, and th ...
.
References
1926 births
2008 deaths
French theatre directors
Male actors from Paris
French male film actors
French male stage actors
20th-century French male actors
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