Ray Barry Denis Hughes Popular Books

Ray Barry Denis Hughes Biography & Facts

Claire Denis (French: [dəni]; born 21 April 1946) is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film Beau Travail (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s and of all time. Other acclaimed works include Trouble Every Day (2001), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), White Material (2009), High Life (2018) and Both Sides of the Blade (2022), the last of which won her the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. For her film Stars at Noon (2022), Denis competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. She won the Grand Prix, sharing the award with Lukas Dhont's film Close. Her work has dealt with themes of colonial and post-colonial West Africa, as well as issues in modern France, and continues to influence European cinematic identity. Early life Denis was born on 21 April 1946 in Paris, but raised in colonial French Africa, where her father was a civil servant, living in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, French Somaliland, and Senegal. Her childhood was spent living in West Africa with her parents and her younger sister coloured her perspective on certain political issues. Their father told them that independence from France would be a good thing for these colonies. Her upbringing was a strong influence on her films, which have dealt with colonialism and post-colonialism in Africa. Her father moved with the family every two years because he wanted the children to learn about geography. Growing up in West Africa, Denis used to watch old and damaged copies of war films sent from the United States. As an adolescent, she loved to read. Completing the required material while in school, at night she would sneak her mother's detective stories to read. At age 12, Denis was diagnosed with polio and returned to France for treatment. She lived in Sceaux, a suburb of Paris, for the rest of her teenage years. During her time in France, she felt unfit for living in France. She was educated for a life in Africa, and felt completely different from everyone around her. In 1969, Denis married a photographer she met at the age of 15, after being hired as his assistant. Due to the complex nature of having him in her private life but also as her teacher, they divorced soon after. Career Denis initially studied economics, but, she has said, "It was completely suicidal. Everything pissed me off." She then briefly studied Oriental languages and married a photographer who encouraged her to quit. In 1969 Denis studied at IDHEC (L'Institut des hautes études cinématographiques – now La Fémis) with her husband's encouragement. He told her she needed to figure out what she wanted to do. She graduated from the IDHEC and since 2002 has been a professor of film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Before applying and being accepted into IDHEC, she worked as an intern at Télé Niger. After telling everyone that she wanted to apply to IDHEC, they told her, "no, don't waste your time studying, all you need to do is make films here with us". After graduating in 1971 and by this time divorced, Denis began working as an assistant director for many acclaimed filmmakers. Such films include Jacques Rivette's Out 1 (1971), Denis Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie (1974), Robert Enrico's The Old Gun (1974), Eduardo de Gregorio's Sérail (1976) and Costa-Gavras's Hanna K. (1983). After meeting Wim Wenders, Denis travelled to the U.S. to be the assistant director on Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987). Wenders has said, "Claire was more than ready to make her own films. It would have been a waste to let her continue working as an assistant director". By working with so many directors Denis realized she wanted to make her own films to have more independence and ownership of her work. Denis's feature film debut, Chocolat (1988), is a semi-autobiographical meditation about a French woman reflecting on her childhood in Cameroon and her relationship with her family's African servant. While making it, Denis began collaborating with Jean-Pol Fargeau as a co-writer. They still work together. Chocolat was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes and praised by critics and audiences as a remarkable first film. Denis's second film, Man No Run (1989), is a documentary that follows a group of Cameroonian musicians, Les Têtes Brulées, touring France. It was considered an unusual second choice. Her next two narrative films were No Fear, No Die (S'en fout la mort, 1990) and I Can't Sleep (J'ai pas sommeil, 1994). The former is about illegal cockfighting, and the latter is about a serial killer who murders elderly women, inspired by a real case. Her next film, Nénette et Boni (1996), dives into the relationship between an alienated brother and his unhappily pregnant sister. Denis's fifth and arguably most renowned film is Beau Travail (1999). It is about soldiers in the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti and loosely based on Herman Melville's Billy Budd (1888). Beau Travail explores the themes of masculinity and obsession. Her next film, Trouble Every Day (2001), was a surprise, a horror film about a newlywed couple in Paris while the husband succumbs to sexually fueled cannibalism. Of Denis's next six films, five draw from preexisting texts and films. Friday Night (Vendredi soir, 2002) is about two strangers who spend the night together the night before the woman is supposed to move in with her current lover. It was adapted from Emmanuèle Bernheim's novel of the same name. The Intruder (L'Intrus, 2004) is based on Jean Luc Nancy's short memoir about a man receiving a heart transplant and reconnecting with his son. 35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums, 2008) is another of Denis's most acclaimed films, about a father's and daughter's changing relationship. It was inspired by Yasujirō Ozu's film Late Spring (1949). Her film Bastards (Les Salauds, 2013) was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, 1960). Let the Sunshine In (Un beau soleil intérieur) (2017) is a romantic comedy inspired by Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (1977). Of these, the only film not based on preexisting text is White Material (2009), which was co-written with Marie N'Diaye. It is about a white French woman in post-colonial Africa who stays during a rising civil conflict. With films such as US Go Home (1994), Nénette et Boni, Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day, and Vendredi soir, Denis established a reputation as a filmmaker who "has been able to reconcile the lyricism of French cinema with the impulse to capture the often harsh face of contemporary France." She returned to Africa with White Material, set in an unidentified country during a civil war. Denis has also made many short films spanning a multitude of subjects, such as Le 15 Mai (1969) while studying at IDHEC, Keep It for Yourself (1991) and Voilà l'enchaînement (2014). Her anthologies include Pour Ushari Ahmed Mahmoud, Soudan in Lest We Forget (Contre l'oubli, (1991). US Go Home (1.... Discover the Ray Barry Denis Hughes popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ray Barry Denis Hughes books.