Chabrol, a critic at the Cahiers du cinéma, went behind the camera in 1958 with Le Beau Serge, shot in the provinces and without money: the New Wave began there. He would not leave the set for fifty years and some fifty films. His subject hardly varied: the provincial bourgeoisie, its houses, its lunches, its silences, out of which crime always ends up emerging.
The story
Claude Chabrol was born in Paris on 24 June 1930. A critic at the Cahiers du cinéma, he moved to directing with “Le Beau Serge” in 1958: shot in the provinces, on very little money, the film opened the road Truffaut and Godard would take the following year.
He never left the set again. Fifty years of work, some fifty feature films, a steadiness that had him taken for the craftsman of the New Wave while the others were its theorists.
His subject is single and inexhaustible: the provincial middle class, its houses, its meals, its silences. “La Femme infidèle” in 1969, “Le Boucher”, “Les Noces rouges”, “L'Enfer” in 1994 — the crime comes out of the comfort, never the other way round.
He filmed Stéphane Audran and then Isabelle Huppert with the same cold attention, and never separated cruelty from comedy. The Académie française gave him its Prix René Clair in 2005, the Berlinale an honorary Camera in 2009.
He died in Paris on 12 September 2010 and was buried on the 17th, family only, in Division 10 — the same Division as Asturias's Mayan monument and the statue of Vivant Denon.
On site, do not miss
A stele without ornament, two dates, and nothing to recall the cinema — the discretion of a funeral held in private by choice.
Visitors' questions
Where is Claude Chabrol's grave?
In Division 10, Chemin Denon, first row, in the lower part of the cemetery. The stele is plain; the statue of Vivant Denon and Miguel Ángel Asturias's Maya monument stand in the same division.
Vivant DenonWhat is his most important film?
“Le Beau Serge”, released in 1958: shot in the provinces on a shoestring, it is regarded as the film that set the New Wave in motion, a year before “Les Quatre Cents Coups” and “À bout de souffle”.
Patrice ChéreauWhat was his subject?
The provincial bourgeoisie, its houses, its meals and its silences, from which crime always ends up emerging — “La Femme infidèle”, “Le Boucher”, “Les Noces rouges”, “L'Enfer”. He never separated cruelty from comedy.
Jules BerryWhen did he die?
On 12 September 2010 in Paris, at eighty, after some fifty feature films and fifty years of unbroken work. He was buried on 17 September in a private family ceremony.
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