Pierre-André Boutang
Directing
Biography
Pierre-André Boutang, born March 25, 1937, in Paris and died August 20, 2008, in Grosseto-Prugna, Corsica, was a French documentary filmmaker, producer, and director. He was one of the directors of the Franco-German channel Arte, after previously being one of the directors of La Sept. A major figure in French television, Pierre-André Boutang, producer, director, programmer, and interviewer, knew how to combine intelligence and a broad audience through films and documentary series for ORTF since the 1960s. Throughout his long career, Pierre-André Boutang explored the worlds of literature, film, and television while fostering intellectual debate. The son of philosopher Pierre Boutang, he was first a student at the Institute of Political Studies before becoming an assistant director for film and television. From 1962 to 1967, Pierre-André Boutang was responsible for selecting films for television, and later became a producer and director of numerous films and television series ("Les Écrans de la Ville," "Le Journal du Cinéma," "Cinéregards," "Champ Contre Champ"). He also wrote numerous articles for "Dim Dam Dom," a scathing program from the days of ORTF. From 1967 to 1986, he produced several programs such as "Le Nouveau dimanche," "L'invité du dimanche," "L'homme en question," "Désir des arts," "Projection privée," "Bibliothèque de poche," "Archives du XXe siècle," and then "Océaniques" for FR3, where he produced profiles of Fidel Castro, Martin Heidegger, and Louis Althusser. The magazine was awarded a 7 d'Or in 1987 and 1988. Television also owes him major series of interviews co-produced with Jean Rouch, including "Mémoires du XXe siècle," featuring portraits of Gilles Deleuze (3 DVDs from Editions Montparnasse) and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, as well as "Sartre par lui-même," in which the philosopher spoke about his work for three hours. At the same time, he produced films for the cinema by Jean Yanne, Marco Ferreri, Robert Bresson, and Alexandre Astruc's Sartre par lui-même, as well as Otar Iosseliani's Les Favoris de la lune. He is the author of a biography of Roman Polanski. In 1990, invited by historian Georges Duby to work for Sept, the cultural television channel that later became Arte, he was appointed Deputy Director of Programming under Jérôme Clément and launched the cultural magazine "Océanopolis." Pierre-André Boutang, the initiator of numerous "Thema" programs that contributed to the channel's success, also created the channel's cultural magazine, "Metropolis," for which he was editor-in-chief for France from 1995 to 2006. For eighteen years, Pierre-André Boutang had become a pillar of Arte. The Franco-German channel broadcast his documentaries such as "The ABCs of Gilles Deleuze," "13 Days in the Life of Picasso," "Alexander Solzhenitsyn," "Depardieu, the View of Others," "Mao, a Chinese Story," and, most recently, "Jeanne M," a portrait of Jeanne Moreau, and "Claude Levi-Strauss by Himself."
Known For
A banker hires a seedy detective to find his daughter and keep her safe from kidnappers.
Playing with Fire
Examines the public scandal and private tragedy which led to legendary director Roman Polanski's sudden flight from the United States.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
On December 2, 1987, the filmmaker visited the novelist at her home in Paris. This meeting gave rise to this hour-long documentary in which JLG and Marguerite Duras attempt to establish a dialogue about artistic creation.
Duras/Godard
L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze is a French television program produced by Pierre-André Boutang in 1988-1989, consisting of an eight-hour series of interviews between Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet.
Gilles Deleuze from A to Z
It is a brief documentary which records the life of five Augustinian monks in the little monastery of Castelnuovo dell'Abate, a Tuscan village, as well as the everyday life of people in the small town, from farmers to meat-hackers, from wine-makers to wild boar hunters.
A Little Monastery in Tuscany
Television documentary about the making of Roman Polanski's 1979 film, Tess.
Ciné regards: Tess: Roman Polanski
On April 24th, 1982, when Orson Welles was invited to Paris to receive the Légion d'honneur from François Mitterand, a lively filmed interview took place inside the French Cinémathèque.
Orson Welles at the Cinémathèque Française
This almost 8 hour humongous 1973 documentary by two of the filmmakers who made The Sorrow and the Pity recounts fifty years of the history of France from the 1920s to 1972. It is particularly thorough in documenting the significance and rise to power of Charles De Gaulle. The film's most valuable contributions are its interviews with all sorts of people who lived through this period of history, from Marshall Petain's lawyer (Petain headed the Vichy government of occupied France) to resistance figures, and Frenchmen who fought on the side of the Nazis in Russia.
Français, si vous saviez
Roman Polanski hasn't given an interview for many years. However, in the conversation from 2006 with the author Pierre-André Boutang, illustrated with numerous film clips and archives, the filmmaker provides insights into his life and work.
Polanski par Polanski
A French documentary charting the life of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso through the events of 13 significant days of his life, including his marriage to Olga Kokhlova, the birth of his daughter, the bombing of Guernica and the death of Stalin. Archive footage of Picasso, his lover Françoise Gilot, writer Jean Cocteau, photographer Brassat and critic Pierre Daix is accompanied by new interviews with Picasso's daughter Maya and son Claude.
13 Days in the Life of Pablo Picasso
A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...
The Pit and the Pendulum
On May 21, 1975, the trial of the members of the Red Army Faction (also known as the Baader-Meinstein Gang) began. Four members appeared before the Stuttgart court to answer for the attacks that had been raging for five years in the young Federal Republic of Germany. The documentary, whose title is borrowed from Berthold Brecht's In Praise of Dialectics, recounts the conditions of the trials and detention of the Baader-Meinstein Gang members and the disqualification of Klaus Croissant as their lawyer.
De qui dépend que l’oppression demeure ?
Henri Langlois, interviewed in the Cinema Museum at the Palais de Chaillot, talks about his vision of cinema's past, present and future, before a brief jaunt through the museum as it was in 1975.
Conversation avec Henri Langlois
This documentary is an account of the life and work of Louis Malle, a unique figure in cinema, who was one of the world's best-known French film directors.
Louis Malle - Un cinéaste français
Two old ladies live in a French chateau. When one of them dies, her sister, who lives in Moscow, inherits the property, which soon ends up in the hands of Japanese businessmen.
Chasing Butterflies
The eight-hour series of interviews between Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, filmed by Pierre-André Boutang in 1988-1989.
Gilles Deleuze from A to Z
Based on the Spanish artist's diaries, sketches and paintings, Pierre Philippe's film for the international documentary strand charts 13 days in the life of Pablo Picasso. Events include the death of a friend, his marriage, the birth of his daughter Maya, the bombing of Guernica and the death of Joseph Stalin.
Picasso Days
Serge Daney, the most influential film critic after André Bazin, interviewed by Régis Debray a few months before his death.
Journey of a “Cine-Son”
No description available.
Alexandre Soljenitsyne, le combat d'un homme
No description available.