Jean-Louis Comolli

Directing

Jean-Louis Comolli

Born 1941-07-30 · Philippeville - Constantine - France - [now Skikda, Algeria]

Jean-Louis Comolli is a French filmmaker, screenwriter and writer, born in 1941 in Philippeville (now Skikda, Algeria). After working for Les Cahiers du Cinéma from 1962 to 1978, of which he was editor in chief from 1966 to 1971, he became a director of fiction and documentaries. Also a journalist for Jazz Magazine, he has co-written or edited several books on jazz. His multiple works and his theoretical thinking on cinema have nourished many filmmakers and documentary lovers. He died on May 19, 2022.

Acting credits

Alphaville poster
6.9

Lemmy Caution is on a mission to eliminate Professor Von Braun, the creator of a malevolent computer that rules the city of Alphaville. Befriended by the scientist’s daughter Natasha, Lemmy must unravel the mysteries of the strictly logical Alpha 60 and teach Natasha the meaning of the word “love.”

Alphaville

1965

The Carabineers poster
6.5

During a war in an imaginary country, unscrupulous soldiers recruit poor farmers with promises of an easy and happy life. Two of these farmers write to their wives of their exploits.

The Carabineers

1963

Suzanne’s Career poster
6.5

In the second of Rohmer's moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer's attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.

Suzanne’s Career

1963

Hi Mister Comolli poster
6.5

A few months before he died, Jean-Louis Comolli meets up with Dominique Cabrera for some free conversations with Isabelle Le Corff. They talk about cinema, life, love, death and Chassagne-Montrachet wine. There is laughter and smiles. One is not really serious at the age of eighty.

Hi Mister Comolli

2023

Nicolas Philibert, Hasard et Nécessité poster
8.0

This is a peaceful conversation between two filmmakers, Nicolas Philibert and Jean-Louis Comolli. A conversation, or the pleasure of spending time together. Nicolas Philibert describes with great precision his way of working and invites us to examine the ethical dimension of his process.

Nicolas Philibert, Hasard et Nécessité

2020

No artwork available
NR

Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, former editors at Cahiers du Cinema, interview their former colleagues and fellow travellers during the "Red Years" of the journal between 1968 and1973.

À voir absolument: 1963-1973 Dix années aux Cahiers du Cinéma

2011

No artwork available
NR

Wanderings during the Cannes and Hyères 1966 festivals. Interviews with Louise de Vilmorin, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Louis Comolli, François Truffaut. Lunch on the grass of the Cahiers du cinéma, young onlookers on mopeds, children from the surrounding villages, the film portrays an era, a cinephilia, a cinema still in balance between art and industry.

Festivals 66 Cinéma 67

1967

À Fellini, romance d'un spectateur amoureux poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

À Fellini, romance d'un spectateur amoureux

2013

Jean Renoir : Partie de campagne poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Jean Renoir : Partie de campagne

1969

Behind the camera

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Marseille de père en fils - Ombres sur la ville

1989

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Marseille de père en fils - Ombres sur la ville

1989

Retrato de Família poster
9.0

Ofelia is the daughter of photographer Miguel and of deceased circus artist Lea. When her father is hospitalised with a nervous breakdown, she decides to find out the reason and in doing so discovers the truth about the relationship between her parents and the true fate of her mother.

Retrato de Família

1991

Hiver 60 poster
7.0

In 1960, the announcement of social regression measures decided by the Belgian government triggered a wildcat strike by workers. Albert and Fred were at the forefront of a struggle that promised to be heated and risky. The great Walloon strike shook Belgium to its core. Violence, demonstrations, internationalists, red flags, Walloon flags. For five weeks, the country was paralyzed by a movement that often took on the air of an insurrection.

Hiver 60

1983

Heat of Desire poster
5.5

In France in the near future, revolt and chaos erupt. A right-wing politician, Philippe Muphand, is set to take control when his lady friend Caroline walks out, announcing she will take up with the first fool she sees. The fool is Serge Laine, a professor and author of the prize-winning "Le voyage qui ne finit pas," headed to the train station for tickets to Barcelona where he and his wife will enjoy a second honeymoon and he will lecture at the university. Caroline seduces Serge, and he soon abandons wife, family, job, and honesty to embrace Caroline, the romanticism of Jack London, and murder.

Heat of Desire

1981

Cinéma documentaire, Fragments d'une histoire poster
6.2

Resorting to the images that make up three quarters of the last century, Jean-Louis Comolli chose films that crossed his path fifty years ago, discovering his own history of cinema, and particularly the documentary cinema. Visual score orchestrated by a voice off (his) which lists topics that are important to him - the place of the viewer, the fiction in the documentary, the impact of technical progress on the artistic field ... -, the film weaves unpredictable wires between the excerpts .

Cinéma documentaire, Fragments d'une histoire

2014

Facing the Phantoms poster
NR

French film and WWII historian Sylvie Lindeperg analyzes Alain Resnais's seminal 1956 film, "Night and Fog", and attempts to place it in the context of the historical treatment of WWII, and specifically of the Holocaust, in the decade following those harrowing events. Oddly, she argues that the images of Resnais's famous film are "powerless", in her words.

Facing the Phantoms

2009

Marseille entre deux tours poster
NR

It was the evening of the first round of municipal elections, March 23, 2014. We have been filming the Socialist Party in Marseille since the death of Gaston Defferre in 1989. However, in 25 years, Marseille had changed. The city was changing. We wanted to go elsewhere. In the off-screen of electoral campaigns. See what the streets, the ports, the stairs, the markets, the hills tell. Hear those who practice the city differently, travel through it, think about it and invent it, the craftsmen of another Marseille.

Marseille entre deux tours

2016

Rêves de France à Marseille poster
8.0

In June 1999, Jean-Claude Gaudin organized a great popular festival, "La Massalia", to celebrate all the communities that make up Marseilles and to show the desire of thousands of people from elsewhere to be Marseillais. A radiant rainbow. Less than a year later, in March 2000, the municipal campaign began: what about this new state of mind that seemed to be blowing over Marseilles' political life? Does it find a translation in the political sphere? How many children of recent immigration would be in an eligible position and would eventually be elected among the 101 municipal councilors?

Rêves de France à Marseille

2003

Marseille contre Marseille poster
8.5

A political fable. A tragicomedy set in Marseille during the municipal elections of June 1995. In populist northern districts, they rally around the "Nord Ambition" of Bernard Tapie. In pushing for Tapie to take town hall, they count on his support for the northern districts, but difficulties and disappointments follow. Tapie ends up backing the very enemies of his followers, so what happens then? Big fish eat small ones. This is the fourth installment of the Marseille political saga which began with, "Marseille from father to son" (1989).

Marseille contre Marseille

1996

Music for the Movies: Georges Delerue poster
7.0

Documentary covering the career of French composer Georges Delerue, famous for film scores for such films as Platoon, Contempt, Shoot the Piano Player, and Jules and Jim.

Music for the Movies: Georges Delerue

1995

No artwork available
NR

Filmmaker Samuel Fuller tells the story of Corporal Samuel Fuller's landing on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, and his subsequent campaign in Normandy (the "hedge war").

Un Américain en Normandie

1994

The Red Shade poster
5.3

The time is the 1930s and two Soviet spies (both Frenchmen by nationality) have been helping Communist factions during the Civil War in Spain. It is the time of Stalin's iron rule in the USSR, and the two agents are suddenly called to Moscow by the KGB. Knowing that they are in trouble for no fault of their own, fear drives one of them to suicide while the other gets his lover and her child and begins a run for his life, knowing that the KGB will never let him go free.

The Red Shade

1981

The Red Shade poster
5.3

The time is the 1930s and two Soviet spies (both Frenchmen by nationality) have been helping Communist factions during the Civil War in Spain. It is the time of Stalin's iron rule in the USSR, and the two agents are suddenly called to Moscow by the KGB. Knowing that they are in trouble for no fault of their own, fear drives one of them to suicide while the other gets his lover and her child and begins a run for his life, knowing that the KGB will never let him go free.

The Red Shade

1981

Nicolas Philibert, Hasard et Nécessité poster
8.0

This is a peaceful conversation between two filmmakers, Nicolas Philibert and Jean-Louis Comolli. A conversation, or the pleasure of spending time together. Nicolas Philibert describes with great precision his way of working and invites us to examine the ethical dimension of his process.

Nicolas Philibert, Hasard et Nécessité

2020

No artwork available
8.0

From June 1991 to March 1992, nine months of a violent and agonizing political battle, in Provence, on the occasion of the regional elections.

La campagne de Provence

1992

Buenaventura Durruti, anarquista poster
8.1

Filmed between February and March 1999 in La Cupula (Girona), the rehearsal place of the Spanish independent theater company Els Joglars, this documentary reveals the creative process of this company in its project to represent the life of the mythical anarchist leader Buenaventura Durruti, as well as the circumstances of his death.

Buenaventura Durruti, anarquista

2000

Buenaventura Durruti, anarquista poster
8.1

Filmed between February and March 1999 in La Cupula (Girona), the rehearsal place of the Spanish independent theater company Els Joglars, this documentary reveals the creative process of this company in its project to represent the life of the mythical anarchist leader Buenaventura Durruti, as well as the circumstances of his death.

Buenaventura Durruti, anarquista

2000

Stray Bullets poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Stray Bullets

1983

Stray Bullets poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Stray Bullets

1983

The Ghosts of May 68 poster
NR

Edited from newsreel footage and footage shot at the time by Michel Andrieu and Jacques Kebadian, this film is a dreamy stroll through the places and times of May '68. We meet ghosts: we need them, we miss them. May 68 is still to come. Ghosts don't come back from the past, they are our future.

The Ghosts of May 68

2018

La Cecilia poster
7.1

At the end of the nineteenth century, Italian anarchists, ten men, one woman, libertarian, collectivist emigrate to Brazil to start a leaderless community, without hierarchy, without a boss without police, but not without conflict nor passion.

La Cecilia

1976

La Cecilia poster
7.1

At the end of the nineteenth century, Italian anarchists, ten men, one woman, libertarian, collectivist emigrate to Brazil to start a leaderless community, without hierarchy, without a boss without police, but not without conflict nor passion.

La Cecilia

1976

No artwork available
NR

A César award nominated short feature.

Pétition

1987