Boris Vian

Writing

Boris Vian

Born 1920-03-10 · Ville-d'Avray, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Boris Vian (10 March 1920 – 23 June 1959) was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their release. Vian's other fiction, published under his real name, featured a highly individual writing style with numerous made-up words, subtle wordplay and surrealistic plots. L'Écume des jours (Froth on the Daydream) is the best known of these works, and one of the few translated into English. Vian was also an important influence on the French jazz scene. He served as liaison for Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis in Paris, wrote for several French jazz-reviews (Le Jazz Hot, Paris Jazz) and published numerous articles dealing with jazz both in the United States and in France. His own music and songs enjoyed popularity during his lifetime, particularly the anti-war song "Le Déserteur" (The Deserter). 

Acting credits

The Hunchback of Notre Dame poster
6.7

In 1482 Paris, Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, becomes infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protégé and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he's involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the Devil's work.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1956

Dangerous Love Affairs poster
6.5

Juliette de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont are a sophisticated couple, always looking for fun and excitement. Both have sexual affairs with others and share their experiences with one another. But when Valmont meets the beautiful young Marianne at a ski resort, he breaks the one rule of his unconventional marriage: never fall in love.

Dangerous Love Affairs

1959

The Miracle of St. Anne poster
NR

Series of rushes about cripples appearing in a Bible epic who are cured by a starlet playing Saint Anne.

The Miracle of St. Anne

1950

Hôtel La Louisiane poster
NR

Hôtel La Louisiane is, at its core, a film about freedom and dignity. Freedom for those who wish to live in a place where they are able to feel inspired. Dignity for the hotel owner to stand by his promise to his father and keep their mission alive: to provide an affordable sanctuary for artists and students in search of fulfilling employment, which they certainly won’t find at other hotels. Freedom, too, to be in an environment of tolerance and rid of prejudice. This film is not just a story about a mythical setting in Paris; it portrays the microcosm of a lifestyle in which collective values reign supreme. A film where what’s real and true is placed above national borders or cultural barriers.

Hôtel La Louisiane

2015

Saint-Tropez, devoirs de vacances poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Saint-Tropez, devoirs de vacances

1954

Le cinéma de Boris Vian poster
NR

On June 23, 1959, Boris Vian died of a heart attack while watching the film "I Spit Οn Your Graves", a frivolous adaptation of his novel of the same name, which he released under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan. Taking as a starting point this fateful date for Vian's relationship with cinema, the documentary looks back at his cinematic experiences, his appearances in several films, his friendship with director Pierre Cast and his many unrealized screenplays. From the post-war period to the dawn of the 1960s, from the cellars of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to his apartment in Place Blanche, it is about the portrait of a diverse author who loved cinema with passion.

Le cinéma de Boris Vian

2011

Rage, Sex, and Jazz: I Spit on Your Graves by Vernon Sullivan poster
6.0

In 1946, the controversial French writer Boris Vian writes his novel I Spit on Your Graves under the pseudonym of Vernon Sullivan, supposedly a mysterious African-American writer; a work against racism and Anglo-Saxon puritanism whose publication causes a great scandal.

Rage, Sex, and Jazz: I Spit on Your Graves by Vernon Sullivan

2022

A Girl in a Pocket poster
5.0

A professor experimenting in suspended animation accidentally shrinks his dog and later, his female lab assistant, when she drinks the liquid by accident and shrinks to 3 inches tall. The professor keeps her in his pocket until he can find an antidote. Sometimes she's naked, too.

A Girl in a Pocket

1957

La chasse à l'homme poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La chasse à l'homme

1952

Vadim Mister Cool poster
5.9

As a poster boy for hedonism, his whole life was one big party. A journalist, filmmaker, director, producer, actor, novelist, ladies' man and prolific father... Roger Vladimir Plémiannikov, a.k.a. Roger Vadim, tried everything until his death in 2000. Portrait of a man at the cutting edge of fashion and trends.

Vadim Mister Cool

2016

Gainsbourg, toute une vie poster
9.0

Serge Gainsbourg died on March 2, 1991, at the age of 62. If the general public has remained on his television appearances of the 80s, the fact remains that Gainsbourg had several careers before these last years. With Gainsbourg stripped of his masks, this is the theme of this self-portrait documentary: "In the end, I was left with the watermark of this shy and secretive child who implies candor, innocence, insubordination and savagery". Each sequence of this modest and passionate portrait reveals a secret, intimate, funny and touching Gainsbourg, at a good distance from Gainsbarre, his last public face.

Gainsbourg, toute une vie

2021

Le Bel Âge poster
5.6

Steph, Jean-Claude and Jacques work in a Parisian art shop, but they mainly work in the field of eroticism, which they conceive as a wide-ranging field of exercises and experiments.

Le Bel Âge

1960

No artwork available
NR

French horror comedy short from 1947.

An amateur Film

1947

No artwork available
NR

Boris Vian was a man of many interests and talents. He played the trumpet, wrote criticism, essays, novels, poems and plays, did some painting and sculpting. Philippe Kohly chooses to recount Boris Vian’s life through his love for jazz, his quest for freedom, his taste for celebration.

Boris Vian: The Jazz Life

2009

Boris Vian, un cœur qui battait trop fort poster
1.0

No synopsis available yet.

Boris Vian, un cœur qui battait trop fort

2020

La Joconde, histoire d'une obsession poster
7.5

This is the story of an obsession. Mona Lisa keeps smiling quizzically while our poor hero is pursued by her representation in all its forms, in all places. She smiles at him in a museum, at a bookseller along the banks of the Seine, in the streets, at a café. Enough to drive him up the wall!

La Joconde, histoire d'une obsession

1958

Behind the camera

I Spit on Your Grave poster
5.3

Joe Grant, a light-skinned African American, heads to a small Southern town to investigate the lynching death of his brother. He draws the attention of a gorgeous heiress whom he learns may have been involved in the killing.

I Spit on Your Grave

1959

Saint-Tropez, devoirs de vacances poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Saint-Tropez, devoirs de vacances

1954

Bulles de Vian poster
5.0

"Vian Bubbles" - On June 23, 2009, fifty years to the day after the death of Boris Vian, a supernatural phenomenon crosses all of France: in the streets, one sings everywhere his songs and one expresses oneself only in the language of the poet. In Paris, Antoine de Caunes wakes up to discover the strange "vianic" epidemic, which also affects radio waves and the small screen. A boss of channel proposes to him to organize, for the same evening, a show dedicated to the songs of Boris Vian. Jean-Pierre Marielle tells us the story of this phenomenon, as supernatural as inexplicable. A tribute in songs to the glowing cast.

Bulles de Vian

2009

Our Faust poster
4.0

One of the misfortunes of Boris Vian - and a misfortune for those who love him - is to be born and especially to be dead a bit too soon to have known the new wave. We saw him actor in "A pocket love" and "The Bel Age", Pierre Kast, in "Dangerous Liaisons 1960", Roger Vadim, where he held the role of Prévan, which was like a glove . His friend Prévert had designed him the cardinal's role in "Notre-Dame de Paris" by Delannoy. But never did Boris dare to put on the stage what he had written for the screen: he believed the thing impossible. An episode from the tv-mini-series "Collection rue des ravissantes: Boris Vian fait son cinéma."

Our Faust

2015

L'Herbe rouge poster
7.0

Based on the eponymous novel by Boris Vian. With the help of a time machine, a man explores his past, apparently with the aim of curing his present misfortune...

L'Herbe rouge

1985

No artwork available
NR

Georges Delerue (composer). Commentary written by Boris Vian (under his pseudonym Michel Arras) and spoken by Jacques Mauclair. Jacques Rivette: …Chères vieilles choses, de Raymond Vogel, film imparfait, zigzagant, inégal, mais qui, dans les marges d'un essai sans imprévu sur le monde des collectionneurs, sait esquisser en mineur une sorte de phénoménologie amusante du décor et de la possession. (Arts n° 646) (auto-translation:) Jacques Rivette: ...Chères vieilles choses, by Raymond Vogel, an imperfect, zigzagging, uneven film, which, in the margins of an unexpected essay on the world of collectors, sketches out a kind of amusing phenomenology of decoration and possession. (Arts n° 646)

Chères vieilles choses

1957

The Cowboy of Normandy poster
5.0

Jim loves Dany. Accompanied by Billy, an orphan kid, he has to go to his own wedding, but nothing happens like planned since he decided to live like a cowboy.

The Cowboy of Normandy

2015