Raoul Coutard

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Biography: Raoul Coutard (16 September 1924 – 8 November 2016) was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his connection with the Nouvelle Vague period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard. Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut as well as Jacques Demy, a contemporary frequently associated with the movement. He shot over 75 films during a career that lasted nearly half a century. Coutard originally planned to study chemistry, but switched to photography because of the cost of tuition. In 1945, Coutard was sent to participate in the French Indochina War; he lived in Vietnam for the next 11 years, working as a war photographer, eventually becoming a freelancer for Paris Match and Look. In 1956, he was approached to shoot a film by Pierre Schoendoerffer, La Passe du Diable. Coutard had never used a movie camera before, and reportedly agreed to the job because of a misunderstanding (he believed he was being hired to shoot production stills of the film). Coutard's first work collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard was Godard's first feature, À bout de souffle, shot in 1959. He was reportedly "imposed" on Godard by producer Georges de Beauregard; the director had already settled on a different cinematographer. Coutard photographed nearly all of Godard's work in the Nouvelle Vague era (1959 - 1967), with the exception of Masculin, féminin; their last work during this period was Week-end (1967), which marked the end of Godard's work as a 'mainstream' filmmaker. The two did not work together again until Passion; their final collaboration was Godard's next feature, Prénom Carmen. ... Source: Article "Raoul Coutard" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Department: Camera

Place of Birth: Paris, France

Birthday: September 16, 1924

Deathday: November 08, 2016

Adult: No

Gender: Male

Popularity:

1.00%

Known For:

Contempt
La Chinoise
Cinéma! Cinéma! The French New Wave
Godard, Love and Poetry
The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin
Chambre 12, Hôtel de Suède
The Bamboo Incident
Pierre Schoendoerffer, the Sentinel of Memory
Nouvelle Vague : El cine sin dogmas
Z
The Hideout
Il était une fois... « Jules et Jim »
CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel
The Outskirts of Alphaville
Jean Seberg: American Actress