Jacques Becker
Encyclopedia
Jacques Becker was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Becker was born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, in an upper class background. During the 1930s he worked as an assistant to director Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...

 during his peak period, which produced such cinematic masterpieces as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II...

. Part of the Comité de libération du cinéma français
Comité de libération du cinéma français
Comité de libération du cinéma français was an organization of filmmakers in France created in 1943. Most known members are Jacques Becker, Pierre Blanchar, Louis Daquin, Jean Painlevé, Jean-Paul Le Chainos. Members of this organization made projects for French cinema for after the War...

, during the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 occupation of France in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 held him in prison for a year. During the occupation he also became a director in his own right and went on to direct the brilliant period romance Casque d'or
Casque d'or
Casque d'or is a 1952 French film directed by Jacques Becker. It is a Belle Époque tragedy, the story of an ill-fated love affair between characters played by Simone Signoret and Serge Reggiani.-Plot:...

, the influential gangster film Touchez pas au grisbi
Touchez pas au grisbi
Touchez pas au grisbi is a 1954 French crime film directed by Jacques Becker and starring Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Dora Doll, Delia Scala, René Dary, and Miss America 1946, Marilyn Buferd...

, and the masterful prison escape drama Le Trou
Le Trou
The Hole is a 1960 French film directed by Jacques Becker. It is an adaptation of José Giovanni's 1957 book of the same name. It was called The Night Watch when first released in the United States, but is released under its French title today...

. Long underrated, Becker is now regarded as one of the masters of French cinema.

He married actress Françoise Fabian
Françoise Fabian
Françoise Fabian is a French film actress. She has appeared in over 80 films since 1956.She was born in Algiers, Algeria, and is the widow of screenwriter and director Jacques Becker and actor Marcel Bozzuffi. One of her best-known roles is as Maud in Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maud's...

. Their son Jean Becker also became a film director.

Becker died at the age of fifty-three in 1960 and was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.

Director

  • Tête de turc (1935)
  • Le Commissaire est bon enfant, le gendarme est sans pitié (1935 short) (co-director)
  • Cristobal's Gold (1940) (some scenes)
  • Dernier atout (1942)
  • It Happened at the Inn (1943)
  • Paris Frills
    Paris Frills
    Paris Frills , is a 1945 French drama film directed by Jacques Becker. Exteriors were shot in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.-Plot:Micheline , a young woman from the provinces, arrives in Paris to prepare for her marriage to a silk manufacturer from Lyon, Daniel Rousseau...

    (1945)
  • Antoine et Antoinette (1947)
  • Rendez-vous in July (1949)
  • Édouard et Caroline (1951)
  • Casque d'or
    Casque d'or
    Casque d'or is a 1952 French film directed by Jacques Becker. It is a Belle Époque tragedy, the story of an ill-fated love affair between characters played by Simone Signoret and Serge Reggiani.-Plot:...

    (1952)
  • Rue de l'Estrapade (1953)
  • Touchez pas au Grisbi
    Touchez pas au grisbi
    Touchez pas au grisbi is a 1954 French crime film directed by Jacques Becker and starring Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Dora Doll, Delia Scala, René Dary, and Miss America 1946, Marilyn Buferd...

    (1954)
  • Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1954)
  • The Adventures of Arsène Lupin
    The Adventures of Arsène Lupin
    The Adventures of Arsène Lupin is a 1957 French crime film directed by Jacques Becker. It was entered into the 7th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Robert Lamoureux as André Larouche / Arsène Lupin / Aldo Parolini...

    (1957)
  • The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958)
  • Le Trou (1960)

Assistant Director

  • Y'en a pas deux comme Angélique (1931)
  • Allô... Allô... (1931 short)
  • Night at the Crossroads
    La nuit du carrefour
    Maigret at the Crossroads is a detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon. Published in 1931, it is one of the earliest novels to feature Inspector Maigret in the role of the chief police investigator, a character that has since become one of the best-known detectives in fiction.The...

    (1932)
  • Boudu Saved from Drowning
    Boudu Saved from Drowning
    Boudu Saved from Drowning is a 1932 French film directed by Jean Renoir. Renoir wrote the film's screenplay, from the play by René Fauchois...

    (1932)
  • Madame Bovary (1933) (uncredited)
  • Partie de campagne
    Partie de campagne
    Partie de campagne is a film written and directed by the French auteur Jean Renoir in 1936. It chronicles a love affair over a single summer afternoon in 1860, along the banks of the Seine. The film is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant, who was a friend of Renoir's father Auguste Renoir...

    (1936 short)
  • La vie est à nous (1936)
  • Les bas-fonds (1936)
  • La Grande illusion (1937)
  • La Marseillaise
    La Marseillaise
    "La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song, originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795...

    (1938)
  • The Mondesir Heir (1940)

External links

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