Early life Claude Henri Jean Chabrol was born on 24 June 1930 to Yves Chabrol and Madeleine Delarbre in
Paris and grew up in
Sardent,
France, a village in the region of
Creuse 400 km (240 miles) south of Paris. Chabrol said that he always thought of himself as a country person, and never as a Parisian. Both Chabrol's father and grandfather had been
pharmacists, and Chabrol was expected to follow in the family business. But as a child, Chabrol was "seized by the demon of cinema" and ran a film club in a barn in Sardent between the ages of 12 and 14. and literature at the
Sorbonne, where he received a
licence en lettres. Some biographies also state that he briefly studied law and political science at the
École Libre des Sciences Politiques. After he was discharged from the army, he joined his friends as a staff writer for
Cahiers du Cinéma, who were challenging then-contemporary French films and championing the concept of
Auteur theory. As a film critic, Chabrol advocated realism both morally and aesthetically,
mise-en-scene, and
deep focus cinematography, which he wrote "brings the spectator in closer with the image" and encourages "both a more active mental attitude on the part of the spectator and a more positive contribution on his part to the action in progress." In 1955 Chabrol was briefly employed as a
publicity man at the French offices of
20th Century Fox, but was told that he was "the worst press officer they'd ever seen" and was replaced by Jean-Luc Godard, who they said was even worse. In 1956 he helped finance Jacques Rivette's short film
Le coup du berger, and later helped finance Rohmer's short
Véronique et son cancre in 1958. Unlike all of his future New Wave contemporaries, Chabrol never made short film nor did he work as an assistant on other directors' work before making his feature film debut. In 1957 Chabrol and Eric Rohmer co-wrote
Hitchcock (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1957), a study of the films made by director
Alfred Hitchcock through the film
The Wrong Man.
1957–1967: Early film career The most prolific of the major New Wave directors, Chabrol averaged almost one film a year from 1958 until his death. His early films (roughly 1958–1963) are usually categorized as part of the New Wave and generally have the experimental qualities associated with the movement; while his later early films are usually categorized as being intentionally commercial and far less experimental. In the mid-sixties it was difficult for Chabrol to obtain financing for films so he made a series of commercial "potboilers" and spy spoofs, which none of the other New Wave filmmakers did. Chabrol had married Agnès Goute in 1952 and in 1957 his wife inherited a large sum of money from relatives. In December of that year Chabrol used the money to make his feature
directorial debut with
Le Beau Serge. The film starred
Jean-Claude Brialy as François and
Gérard Blain as Serge, two childhood friends reunited when the recent medical school graduate François returns to Sardent and discovers that Serge has become an alcoholic after the stillbirth of his physically retarded first child. Despite suffering from
tuberculosis, François drags Serge through a snowstorm to witness the birth of his second child, thus giving Serge a reason to live while killing himself in the process.
Le Beau Serge is considered the inaugural film of the French New Wave Film movement that would peak between 1959 and 1962. Chabrol was the first of his friends to complete a feature film (although Jacques Rivette had already begun filming his first feature
Paris nous appartient), and it immediately received critical praise and was a box office success. It won the Grand Prix at the
Locarno Film Festival and the
Prix Jean Vigo. Critics noticed similarities to Hitchcock's films, such as the motifs of doubling and re-occurrences and the "Catholic guilt transference" that Chabrol had also written about extensively in his and Rohmer's book the year earlier. Chabrol stated that he made the film as a "farewell to Catholicism", and many critics have called his first film vastly different from any of his subsequent films. More so than his first film,
Les Cousins features many characteristics that would be seen as "Chabrolian", including the Hitchcock influence, a depiction of the French
bourgeoisie, characters with ambiguous motives and a murder. It was also Chabrol's first film co-written with his longtime collaborator
Paul Gégauff, of whom Chabrol once said "when I want cruelty, I go off and look for Gégauff. Paul is very good at gingering things up...He can make a character look absolutely ridiculous and hateful in two seconds flat."
Les Cousins was another box office success in France and won the
Golden Bear at the
9th Berlin International Film Festival. Although she had appeared in supporting roles in several Chabrol films before,
The Third Lover was the first Chabrol film in which Stéphane Audran appeared as the female lead. They later married in 1964 and worked together until the late 1970s. In 1965 Chabrol also contributed to the New Wave
portmanteau film Six in Paris with the segment "La Muette". Chabrol co-starred with Stéphane Audran as a middle aged couple dealing with their rebellious teenage daughter. In 1964 Chabrol also directed a stage production of
MacBeth for the
Théâtre Récamier. Chabrol often worked with the same people during this period including actors Audran and
Michel Bouquet, cinematographer
Jean Rabier, editor Jacques Gaillard, sound technician Guy Chichignoud, composer
Pierre Jansen, set designer Guy Littaye, as well as producer Génovés and co-writer Paul Gégauff. Chabrol took a slight change of pace with his 1973 film
Wedding in Blood (
Les Noces rouges) by making his first film with political themes. The film stars Audran and Michel Piccoli as lovers who plot to murder Audran's husband, who is the corrupt gaullist mayor of their town. To their surprise the President of France orders that no investigation be made of the mayor's death, leading the murdering couple to suspect political interest in their crime. Chabrol followed this political theme with
Nada, in which a group of young anarchists kidnap an American ambassador. It was Chabrol's first film to not center on the bourgeois since
Le Beau Serge. Chabrol returned to more familiar ground in 1975 with
A piece of pleasure (
Une partie de plaisir). In this film screenwriter Paul Gégauff plays a writer with a troubled marriage that ends in tragedy. (In 1983, Gégauff was stabbed to death in real life by his second wife.) Gégauff's wife is played by his real-life first wife
Danièle Gégauff (already divorced when this film was made) and his daughter is played by real life daughter Clemence Gégauff. The film received poor critical reviews, with
Richard Roud calling it "rather interestingly loathsome." and
37th Berlin International Film Festival respectively.
Madame Bovary (1991) was nominated for the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and for the
Academy Award for Best Costume Design. It was also entered into the
17th Moscow International Film Festival.
La Cérémonie (1995) is perhaps his most acclaimed film from this period, as it was nominated for numerous
César Awards and was entered into the
52nd Venice International Film Festival among other. His 1999 film
The Color of Lies was entered into the
49th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1995 Chabrol was awarded the
Prix René Clair from the
Académie française for his body of work. Chabrol continued directing films and TV series well into the 2000s. ==Personal life==