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Miller's
Crossing
 Digital
video is the latest adventure of Claude Miller, which landed him the
FIPRESCI Prize, awarded by the international press, at the Berlin
Festival for his latest film La
Chambre des Magiciennes. This film, adapted from Paul Auster's
wife Siri Usvet's novel, was made for a series of video TV movies "Petite
Caméra" launched by Pierre Chevalier, manager of the fiction department
of Arte. Like several other Arte films (Les Roseaux Sauvages
by André Téchiné, Nadia et les Hippopotames by Dominique
Cabrera...), La Chambre des Magiciennes
will get a theatre distribution.
Claude Miller's career started back in 1965. After cinema studies at
IDHEC (the main French school of cinema, now FEMIS), and a military
service in the movie department of the army, Claude Miller became assistant
director to such directors as Marcel Carné, Robert Bresson, Michel Deville,
Jacques Demy, Jean-Luc Godard, René Allio. He was head of production
on all of François Truffaut's films (except La Nuit Américaine
- Day for Night).
In issue 168 of the magazine L'Avant Scène Cinéma, François Truffaut
describes him as a "such a passionate moviegoer that, even ten thousand
kilometers away from Paris, he would put a check by all the films which
he would have liked to see had he not been detained for a shooting on
foreign locations."
Claude Miller's first three shorts - Juliet dans Paris,
La Question Ordinaire, Camille ou
la Comédie Catastrophique, all with Juliet Berto - landed him
the wrath of censorship and were either banned for several months or
restricted to 18 or older.
Destructive passion is the theme at the heart of his first feature films,
La Meilleure Façon de Marcher (The Best Way to Walk)
and Dites lui que je l'aime (Tell Him I Love Him). The
latter film was a public failure. Claude Miller had to wait 4 years
before he was requested to direct the astonishing Garde à Vue
(Under Suspicion), with 2 extraordinary actors, Lino Ventura
and Michel Serrault. This film was a great public and critical success,
as well as 4 Césars. His next and most personal film Mortelle
Randonnée (Deadly Circuit - 1982) is the strange story
of a detective (Michel Serrault) protecting a murderous woman (Isabelle
Adjani). It was remade in 1999 by Stephan Elliott as Eye of the
Beholder with Patrick Bergin and Ashley Judd.
His next three films - L'effrontée (An Impudent Girl),
La Petite Voleuse (The Little Thief) and L'accompagnatrice
(François Truffaut's last script) - can be seen as a trilogy with actress
Charlotte Gainsbourg who received a César for Best Young Actress in
L'Effrontée.
In 1994, Claude Miller directed a comedy, Le Sourire,
with Jean Pierre Marielle and Emmanuelle Seigner, the crazy trip of
a neuropsyhiatrist besotted with a young woman's smile.
In 1998, La Classe de Neige
received the Jury Prize at the Cannes
Film Festival but did not go over well with the public. The
delicate subject of the film, incest, may have been somewhat of a drawback.
With a rich filmography, numerous awards and homages in Festivals, a
strong involvement in the activities of the cinema world (twice chairman
of ARP, presently vice-chairman), an active contribution to Europa Cinéma
(an assistance plan for theatre owners who distribute a certain quota
of non-french European films), Claude Miller stands as one of the most
active French directors.
Frederic
Leconte & Robin Gatto
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