William Klein
Directing
Biography
William Klein (April 19, 1926 – September 10, 2022) was a photographer and filmmaker noted to for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. Trained as a painter, Klein studied under Fernand Léger and found early success with exhibitions of his work. However, he soon moved on to photography and achieved widespread fame as a fashion photographer for Vogue and for his photo essays on various cities. Despite having no training as a photographer, Klein won the Prix Nadar in 1957 for New York, a book of photographs taken during a brief return to his hometown in 1954. Klein's work was considered revolutionary for its "ambivalent and ironic approach to the world of fashion", its "uncompromising rejection of the then prevailing rules of photography" and for his extensive use of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, natural lighting and motion blur. Klein tends to be cited in photography books along with Robert Frank as among the fathers of street photography, one of those mixed compliments that classifies a man who is hard to classify. The world of fashion would become the subject for Klein's first feature film, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, which, like his other two fiction features, Mr. Freedom and Le Couple Témoin, is a satire. Klein directed numerous short and feature-length documentaries and produced over 250 television commercials. Though American by birth, Klein lived and worked in France since his late teens. His work has sometimes been openly critical of American society and foreign policy; the film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum once wrote that Klein's 1968 satire Mr. Freedom was "conceivably the most anti-American movie ever made". Description above from the Wikipedia article William Klein, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
No description available.
Victoires de la musique
A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.
La Jetée
Part II of a compilation movie featuring European T.V. commercials directed by a variety of well-known directors from across Europe and the U.S. Compiled and produced by Jean-Marie Boursicot.
The King of Ads, Part 2
Mr. Freedom, a bellowing good-ol'-boy superhero decked out in copious football padding, jets to France to cut off a Commie invasion from Switzerland. A destructive, arrogant patriot in tight pants, Freedom joins forces with Marie Madeleine to combat lefty freethinkers, as well as the insidious evildoers Moujik Man and inflatable Red China Man, culminating in a star-spangled showdown.
Mr. Freedom
A model tells a television crew about her dreams of a life with prince charming all while fending off the lecherous advances of a horde of men.
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
In seven different parts, Godard, Ivens, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.
Far from Vietnam
Universally accepted as a true icon of the 20th century, Muhammad Ali’s phenomenal achievements spanned sport, politics and religion. One man – photographer William Klein had comprehensive access to the events that shaped Ali’s legend. In 1964, the young gregarious Cassius Clay successfully defeated the seemingly invincible Heavyweight Champion of the World Sonny Liston – the manner of Clay’s victory and his amazing persona made him an instant superstar. Through this incredible period, and Clay’s subsequent rematches with Liston, William Klein enjoyed unrivalled access top Clay’s camp – witnessing at first hand Cassius Clay becoming Muhammad Ali and angering the American people with his allegiance to Islam. Forward to Zaire 1974, and the return of Muhammad Ali to the world stage to face another invincible champion George Foreman. As Ali reclaimed the crown for a second time, Klein was ever present, capturing the full story at close quarter.
Muhammad Ali, the Greatest
Based on an idea by William Klein, CONTACTS is a series of 33 essential films to discover the artistic itinerary of the most important contemporary photographers in the world from an original perspective: through the images selected and commented on by the author himself (sheets of contact, proofs or slides), we enter the secret universe of creative work, at the very heart of the process of making a photographic work.
Contacts
In 1977 France, the Ministry of the Future chooses two “normal,” white, middle-class citizens, Claudine and Jean-Michel, for a national experiment. They will be monitored and displayed on television for six months in a model apartment outfitted with state-of-the-art products and nonstop surveillance—the template for “a new city for the new man".
The Model Couple
Festival panafricain d'Alger is a documentary by William Klein of the music and dance festival held 40 years ago in the streets and in venues all across Algiers. Klein follows the preparations, the rehearsals, the concerts… He blends images of interviews made to writers and advocates of the freedom movements with stock images, thus allowing him to touch on such matters as colonialism, neocolonialism, colonial exploitation, the struggles and battles of the revolutionary movements for Independence.
The Panafrican Festival in Algiers
An biography of William Klein, Parisian-based American photographer which strings together his abstract paintings, mould-breaking reportage, inventive fashion photos and excerpts from his feature films.
In and Out of Fashion
Delphine Seyrig, an extraordinary woman and actress, died on October 15, 1990. From "Last Year at Marienbad" by Alain Resnais to "India Song" by Marguerite Duras, she played in 34 films for cinema, 13 films for television and 33 plays. Jacqueline Veuve, filmmaker and friend of Delphine Seyrig, wanted to break the silence that has fallen on her memory by making a documentary that traces with emotion and subjectivity the life of the mythical actress, the fierce feminist but also the simple friend.
Delphine Seyrig, portrait d'une comète
The portrait of Eldridge Cleaver, the "Minister of Information" for the Black Panthers movement, in exile in Algiers.
Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther
An experimental meditation on Times Square's marquees and iconic advertising that captures the concurrently seedy and dazzling aspects of New York's Great White Way.
Broadway by Light
Filmmaker William Klein takes on Handel’s Messiah and has created a concert film that mixes the sacred with the profane. Performed in its entirety, the oratorio provides a narrative of Christ’s nativity, passion and resurrection juxtaposed against images of absurdities and abuses against the human species across the world. The film reveals a wide array of worshippers from the Bodybuilders of Christ to the Lavender Light Gay and Lesbian Interracial Choir to the Dallas police choir.
Messiah
Roland-Garros, 1981: For the very first time, a documentary team is allowed to shoot sequences in the backstage of the French Open of tennis of Roland-Garros. William Klein's camera takes us on the heels of the greatest players of the time: Björn Borg, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Chris Evert-Lloyd, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Yannick Noah, Guillermo Vilas... Miles of film. Historical pictures, a thousand and one details, a thousand and one unusual scenes. A declaration of love from a tennis lover.
The French
Sophie Calle often defines herself as a "narrative" artist. Her photographs are items of evidence through which she tells stories that are both ordinary and disturbing, using her own life and experiences as the raw material for reconstructions that hover somewhere between truth and fiction. The Contacts collection is an invitation to discover the artistic approach of the greatest contemporary photographers from an original angle. Through a series of images (contact sheets, proofs, prints and slides), with a commentary by the photographer, the viewer enters the secret world of their creation and is guided into the heart of the photographic creative process.
Contacts: Sophie Calle
Filmmaker William Klein documents the Paris student riots that occurred in May of 1968.
May Days
The portrait of an extraordinary French dancer-choreographer: Jean Babilée (1923-2014) is filmed at home, in the streets of Paris, at the Opera Garnier or at the Champs-Élysées Theater, “always caught, even in his kitchen, in full body work”.
Babilée '91
Highlighting the work of emerging fashion world all-stars like Karl Lagerfeld, Jean-Paul Gaultier and agnès b., Klein surveys the state of women’s fashion in the 1980s with this eccentric hybrid documentary scored by Serge Gainsbourg.