Olivier Assayas

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Olivier Assayas (born 25 January 1955) is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. Assayas is known for his slow-burning period pieces, psychological thrillers, neo-noirs and French comedies. His work has become associated with the film movement known as the New French Extremity and he has frequently collaborated with Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart. The son of filmmaker Jacques Rémy, Assayas began his career as a critic for influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Here he wrote about the World Cinema and its film auteurs who would later influence his own works. Assayas made several shorts, and then made the leap from writer to screenwriter.

He made his directorial film debut with Disorder in 1986. He continued directing films, with Cold Water (1994) becoming a breakthrough film in his career. It would be his first film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. His follow up film Irma Vep (1996) also screened at Cannes, while Sentimental Destinies (2000), Demonlover (2002), and Clean (2004) all officially competed for the Palme d'Or. In 2006, he contributed a short film to the anthology film Paris, je t'aime (2006) with fellow directors such as Alexander Payne, Coen Brothers and Alfonso Cuarón. He gained acclaim with his dramas Summer Hours (2008), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Personal Shopper (2016); the latter won him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director. He has also directed the comedy Non-Fiction (2018) and the spy thriller Wasp Network (2019).

Life and career

Assayas was born in Paris, France, the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy (1911–1981). His father was of Turkish-Jewish origin who had settled in Italy, while his mother, Catherine de Károlyi, was a fashion designer of Protestant Hungarian origin.[1][2][3][4] Assayas started his career in the industry by helping his father. He ghostwrote episodes for TV shows his father was working on when his health failed. In a 2010 interview, Assayas stated that his main political influences when growing up were Guy Debord and George Orwell.[5] Speaking of the 1968 May uprising to overthrow General de Gaulle, Assayas in the same interview stated: "I was defined by the politics of May '68, but for me May '68 was an anti-totalitarian uprising. People seemed to forget that at the occupied Odéon theater, you had crossed flags-black and red, and I was on the side of the black element."[6]

He made his debut in 1986, after directing some short films and writing for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.

Assayas's film Cold Water was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.[7]

His biggest hit to date has been Irma Vep, starring Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung, which manages to be a tribute both to French director Louis Feuillade and to Hong Kong cinema.

While working at Cahiers du cinéma, Assayas wrote lovingly about European film directors he admires but also about Asian directors. One of his films, HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien, is a documentary about Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien.

He married Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001, but their relationship remained amicable, and in 2004 Assayas made his film Clean with her.

He met actress-director Mia Hansen-Løve when Hansen-Løve, seventeen at the time, starred in Assayas's 1998 feature Late August, Early September, but "[they] didn't get together until [she] was 20".[8] They separated in 2017.

In 2009 and 2010, Assayas signed two petitions in support of director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the first petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[9][10][11][12][13]

He directed and co-wrote the acclaimed 2010 French television miniseries Carlos, about the life of the terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez won the César Award for Most Promising Actor in 2011 for his performance as Carlos.

In April 2011, it was announced that he would be a member of the jury for the main competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[14]

His 2012 film, Something in the Air, was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival.[15] Assayas won the Osella for Best Screenplay at Venice.[16] His 2014 film Clouds of Sils Maria was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.[17] Sils Maria won the Louis Delluc Prize and garnered six César Award nominations including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The film won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress for American actress Kristen Stewart.[18][19] In 2016, Assayas won Best Director Award (Cannes Film Festival) for Personal Shopper, which also starred Kristen Stewart.[20]

In June 2017, it was announced that Assayas would preside over the 2017 70th anniversary Locarno Film Festival.[21]

Style and influences

In an interview with Nick Pinkerton of Reverse Shot, Assayas talked about his influences:<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

That radicality in cinema involved just being outside of the world of modern images, and the key to it was the work of Robert Bresson, who has been by far the most important influence in my work, and intellectually it's been the influence of Guy Debord—basically, you know, it's been Debord-Bresson, Bresson-Debord, the things that've always defined my framework, the way I look at the world.[22]

Assayas participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound directors' poll, where he listed his ten favorite films as follows: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Ludwig, A Man Escaped, Mirror, Napoléon, Playtime, The Rules of the Game, The Tree of Life, and Van Gogh.[23]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Director Screenwriter Distribution
1986 Disorder Yes Yes Forum Distribution
1989 Winter's Child Yes Yes Ciné Classic
1991 Paris Awakens Yes Yes Pan-Européenne
1993 A New Life Yes Yes Pyramide Distribution
1994 Cold Water Yes Yes Pan-Européenne
1996 Irma Vep Yes Yes Haut et Court
1998 Late August, Early September Yes Yes PolyGram Film Distribution
2000 Sentimental Destinies Yes Yes Pathé Distribution
2002 Demonlover Yes Yes SND Films
2004 Clean Yes Yes ARP Sélection
2006 Paris, je t'aime Yes Yes Segment: "Quartier des Enfants Rouges"
La Fabrique de Films
2007 Boarding Gate Yes Yes ARP Sélection
2008 Summer Hours Yes Yes MK2 Films
2012 Something in the Air Yes Yes
2014 Clouds of Sils Maria Yes Yes Les films du losange
2016 Personal Shopper Yes Yes
2018 Non-Fiction Yes Yes Ad Vitam Distribution
2019 Wasp Network Yes Yes Netflix

As a writer only

Television

Year Title Director Screenwriter Notes
1982 Étoiles et toiles Yes Documentary
1994 Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge... Yes Yes TV series
1997 Cinéma, de notre temps Yes Yes Episode: HHH - Un portrait de Hou Hsiao-hsien
2006 Noise Yes Documentary
2007 To Each His Own Cinema Yes Yes Segment: "Recrudescence"
2007 Stockhausen / Preljocaj Dialogue Yes Documentary
2008 Eldorado Yes Documentary
2010 Carlos Yes Yes TV miniseries
2022 Irma Vep Yes Yes TV miniseries

Short films

Year Title Director Screenwriter Notes
1978 Nuit féline Yes Short film
1979 Copyright Yes Short film
1980 Rectangle - Deux chansons de Jacno Yes Short film
1980 Scopitone Yes Yes Short film
1982 Laissé inachevé à Tokyo Yes Yes Short film
1984 Winston Tong en studio Yes Short documentary
1998 Man Yuk: A Portrait of Maggie Cheung Yes Short documentary

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Project Result
1991 Prix Jean Vigo Paris Awakens Won
2000 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Sentimental Destinies Nominated
2002 Demonlover Nominated
2004 Clean Nominated
2008 Boston Society of Film Critics Best Foreign Language Film Summer Hours Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Foreign Language Film Won
National Society of Film Critics Award Best Foreign Language Film Won
New York Film Critics Circle Award Best Foreign Language Film Won
Toronto Film Critics Association Best Foreign Language Film Won
2010 Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series Carlos Nominated
César Award Best Director Nominated
European Film Award Best Director Nominated
Lumières Award Best Film Nominated
Best Director Nominated
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Director Won
Globes de Cristal Award Best Television Film or Television Series Won
2012 Venice International Film Festival Golden Osella for Best Original Screenplay Something in the Air Won
Fondazione Mimmo Rotella Award Won
Golden Lion Nominated
2014 Louis Delluc Prize Clouds of Sils Maria Won
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Nominated
César Award Best Film Nominated
Best Director Nominated
Best Original Screenplay Nominated
2016 Cannes Film Festival Best Director Personal Shopper Won
2016 Zurich Film Festival A Tribute To... Award Lifetime Achievement Won

References

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Further reading

  • Olivier Assayas, A Post-May Adolescence. Letter to Alice Debord, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen Vol. 17, Vienna: SYNEMA - Gesellschaft für Film und Medien, 2012, ISBN 978-3-901644-44-3
  • Kent Jones (Ed.), Olivier Assayas, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen Vol. 16, Vienna: SYNEMA - Gesellschaft für Film und Medien, 2012, ISBN 978-3-901644-43-6

External links

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  5. ↑ White, Rob "Interview with Olivier Assayas" pages 74-77 from Film Quarterly, Volume 64, Issue # 2, Winter 2010 page 75.
  6. ↑ White, Rob "Interview with Olivier Assayas" pages 74-77 from Film Quarterly, Volume 64, Issue # 2, Winter 2010 page 77.
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  19. ↑ César Award for Best Supporting Actress
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