
Antoine Bonfanti
Sound
Biography
Antoine Bonfanti (23 October 1923 - 4 March 2006) was a French sound engineer and a professor at cinema schools and institutes in France and other countries. He taught regularly at INSAS in Brussels and EICTV in Cuba, and occasionally at Fémis and ENSLL. He was born 26 October 1923 in Ajaccio, Corsica, and died 4 March 2006 in Montpellier, France. He began learning his profession as a trainee boom-operator on the film La Belle et la Bête by Jean Cocteau. He is considered as being one of the pioneers of direct-sound in film-making on location: “the school of direct-sound is French - said the sound-engineer Jean-Pierre Ruh- it began with Antoine Bonfanti”. He is characterised by his collaborations with directors as Bernardo Bertolucci, André Delvaux, Amos Gitaï, Jean Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Chris Marker, Gérard Oury, Alain Resnais, René Vautier, and Paul Vecchiali. His primary occupation is the authenticity of sound: above all he likes building the whole universe of sound of one film, through every stage from filming to sound-mixing (that means the live-sounds, the ambiances in location and after the sound-effects, the dubbing and the mixing in auditorium). In this pattern, he had 120 films of which 80 feature films. Otherwise, his filmography includes about 420 titles of long and short Films of fiction or documentary; and within this number, some can be still missing because - as involved in cinema as in politics - Antoine did lots of "for free" that, may be, haven't been listed. Member of the Résistance and, after, volunteer soldier in the war-years 1943-1945; militant, communist by spirit, vigilante, he is part of SLON collective - which later becomes ISKRA - and of the Medvedkine-groups. He shared his sound-artist's talent and he has trained several generations of sound-engineers in many countries (Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Morocco, Mozambique, Peru, Portugal, Tunisia, Venezuela), where to make of the cinema is a matter of fight. The film "Antoine Bonfanti - Traces sonores d’une écoute engagée" by Suzanne Durand, reconstitutes a professional path of more than 50 years which demonstrate a commitment going far-beyond the simple trade and his collaboration with a lot of film-makers; it is also an original approach of the sound's practical. He recounts it himself also, interviewed by Noël Simsolo in a transmission on France-Culture, called "Mémoire du siècle, Antoine Bonfanti" on 20 August 1997, and broadcast during "Les Nuits de France-Culture" at midnight of 25 January 2016. Antoine, nicknamed "Nono" by his Corsican family, "Toni" by his war comrades, "Bonbon" within the world of cinema, was born in Ajaccio in 1923. The family leaves again for Africa in 1926, having already spent some years in Conakry in "République de Guinée", (formerly "Guinée française"). His father is "receveur principal des postes" in Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina-Faso (formerly "Haute-Volta"). Antoine spends some of his youth there but, when his eldest brother must go to high-school, the family returns to Corsica, before his father be appointed "percepteur" (tax-collector) at Saint-Rambert d’Alban, and after at Touquet-Paris-Plage. ... Source: Article "Antoine Bonfanti" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For

A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.
Last Tango in Paris

During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.
Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!

Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
Pierrot le Fou

Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.
Band of Outsiders

In this Franco-Italian gangster parody, a shopkeeper on his way to an Italian holiday suffers a crash that totals his car. The culprit can only compensate his ruined trip by driving an American friend's car from Naples to Bordeaux, but as it happens to be filled with such contraband as stolen money, jewelry and drugs, the involuntary and unwitting companions in crime soon attract all but recreational attention from the "milieu".
The Sucker

Though married to the good-natured, beautiful Thérèse, young husband and father François finds himself falling unquestioningly into an affair with an attractive postal worker. One of Agnès Varda's most provocative films, 'Le bonheur' examines, with a deceptively cheery palette and the spirited strains of Mozart, the ideas of fidelity and happiness in a modern, self-centered world.
Happiness

A committed filmmaker struggles to complete his latest project while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.
Day for Night

As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her

The winner of the Miss World Virginity contest marries, escapes from her masochistic husband and ends up involved in a world of debauchery.
Sweet Movie

Don Sallust is the minister of the King of Spain. Being disingenuous, hypocritical, greedy and collecting the taxes for himself, he is hated by the people he oppresses. Accused by The Queen, a beautiful princess Bavarian, of having an illegitimate child to one of her maids of honor, he was stripped of his duties and ordered to retire to a monastery.
Delusions of Grandeur

A courageous judge tries to dismantle a drug traffickers ring.
The Judge

A millionaire realizes he really wants to live after he has hired an assassin to kill him.
Up to His Ears

The petite waitress Johnny works and lives in a truck-stop, where she's lonely and longs for love. She develops a crush on the garbage truck driver Krassky, although her sleazy boss Boris warns her that he's gay.
I Love You, I Don't

A superficial woman finds conflict choosing between her abusive husband and her vain lover.
The Married Woman

An impossible love. Two young people who love each other. Vera and João can’t find in this life the space, time, or identity to resolve their love story.
Fragile as the World

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

The cowboy Lucky Luke tracks the Dalton brothers who escaped from prison and are seeking refuge in Canada.
Lucky Luke: Daltons on the Loose

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.
Sans Soleil

A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.
Joy House

Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and fundamentally egalitarian ideals of self-betterment, prosperity, tolerance, economic opportunity, and freedom.