Alain Cuny
Cuny in 1979
Born
René Xavier Marie Alain Cuny

(1908-07-12)12 July 1908
Saint-Malo, Brittany, France
Died16 May 1994(1994-05-16) (aged 85)
Paris, France
Resting placeCivry-la-Forêt
OccupationActor
Years active1941–1994

René Xavier Marie Alain Cuny (12 July 1908 – 16 May 1994) was a French actor of stage and screen. He was closely linked with the works of Paul Claudel and Antonin Artaud,[1] and for his performances for the Théâtre national populaire and Odéon-Théâtre de France.[2]

His film work included collaborations with directors Marcel Carné, Louis Malle, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Francesco Rosi, and Luis Buñuel. He was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1988 film Camille Claudel, and won the Joseph Plateau Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992.

Early life

René Xavier Marie Alain Cuny was born in Saint-Malo, Brittany.[3] He was brought up by an aunt and spent a large part of his childhood with her, in Boucé, and spent several years in an orphanage. He developed an early interest in painting and from the age of 15 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He met Picasso, Braque and members of the surrealist group.[4] He then began working in the film industry as a costume, poster and set designer and was employed on films of Cavalcanti, Feyder and Renoir. After a meeting with the actor-manager Charles Dullin, Cuny was persuaded to study drama and he began acting on stage in the late 1930s.[5]

Career

Studio Harcourt headshot of Cuny, 1945.

In the theatre, Cuny became particularly linked with the works of Paul Claudel (who said of him after a performance of L'Annonce faite à Marie in 1944, "I have been waiting for you 20 years").[1] Another literary friend and hero was Antonin Artaud, "whose texts he read with supreme conviction at a time when Artaud was more or less an outcast, a situation reflected in Artaud's Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society,[6] which Cuny interpreted in his voice's fabulous organ tones".[1] Later Cuny worked with Jean Vilar at the Théâtre national populaire, and with Jean-Louis Barrault at the Odéon-Théâtre de France.[2] His dramatic presence and measured diction made him well-suited to many classical roles.[7]

His first major role in the cinema was as one of the devil's envoys in Marcel Carné's film Les Visiteurs du soir (1942). A few other romantic leading parts followed, but increasingly he appeared in supporting roles, especially in characterizations of intellectuals such as the tormented philosopher Steiner in La Dolce Vita (1960), directed by Federico Fellini. He worked frequently in Italian cinema and had close associations with Michelangelo Antonioni and Francesco Rosi as well as Fellini. One of his most admired film performances was in Rosi's Uomini contro (Many Wars Ago, 1970), as the rigidly authoritarian General Leone.[7]

Among his French films were The Lovers (Les Amants, 1958), directed by Louis Malle, and Jean-Luc Godard's Détective (1985). He also appeared in the softcore porn film Emmanuelle (1974), a role which he said he took to show his contempt for the film business.[8] In the same year, he played Sitting Bull in the absurdist western Touche pas à la femme blanche! (Don't Touch the White Woman!, 1974).

Towards the end of his career he returned to aspects of Claudel. He appeared in Camille Claudel (1988), a biographical film about the author's sister in which he played their father, Louis-Prosper Claudel. In 1991, he completed a long-planned film adaptation of a Claudel play The Annunciation of Marie (L'Annonce faite à Marie, 1991), a French-Canadian production in which he both directed and acted; it won him the Prix Georges-Sadoul.[2] He also gave regular readings of Claudel's work at the Festival d'Avignon.[4]

Personal life

In 1962, he married Marie-Blanche Guidicelli. The couple divorced in 1969.

Death

Cuny died in 1994 in Paris. He is buried in Civry-la-Forêt, west of Paris, where he had lived.[3]

Partial filmography

References

  1. 1 2 3 James Kirkup. "Obituary: Alain Cuny", in The Independent, 18 May 1994. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 Dictionnaire du cinéma populaire français; sous la direction de Christian-Marc Bosséno et Yannick Dehée. (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2004). p. 243.
  3. 1 2 Alain Cuny Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, at L'Encinémathèque. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Alain Cuny", Ciné-Ressources; retrieved 22 January 2016.
  5. ↑ Ephraim Katz. The International Film Encyclopedia. London: Macmillan, 1980. p. 292., ISBN 978-0333274972
  6. ↑ Antonin Artaud. Artaud Anthology, edited and translated by Jack Hirschman. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986. pp. 135–163. ISBN 978-0-87286-000-1.
  7. 1 2 Dictionnaire du cinéma français: sous la direction de Jean-Loup Passek. (Paris: Larousse, 1987). p. 97.
  8. ↑ Olivier Germain-Thomas: Agora:"les aventuriers de l'esprit". Besançon: La Manufacture, 1991. p. 209: "J'ai joué dans Emmanuelle pour me débarrasser de l'estime des gens que je n'estimais pas."
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