Henri Alekan

Known for CameraBorn 1909-02-10Died 2001-06-15Paris, France

Henri Alekan (10 February 1909, Paris – 15 June 2001, Auxerre, Bourgogne) was a French cinematographer. Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909. At the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers. A little later he started work as third assistant cameraman at the Billancourt Studios. He then spent a short time in the army, returning to Billancourt in 1931. In the late 1930s he was the camera operator to Eugene Shufftan on Marcel Carné's Quai des Brumes and Drôle de drame. He was greatly influenced by Schufftan's non-naturalistic style. His first success as a director of photography was René Clément's realistic war drama La Bataille du Rail of 1946. In the same year he worked on Jean Cocteau's fable La Belle et la Bête. He found himself out of sympathy with the French New Wave cinema which emerged in the late 1950s and Alekan shot some rather conventional films in Hollywood. A new generation of directors appreciated his visionary style, however, and he worked with Raúl Ruiz on The Territory and On Top of the Whale, with Joseph Losey on Figures in a Landscape and The Trout, and with Wim Wenders on The State Of Things and Wings of Desire. His last films were made with the Israeli director Amos Gitai. He wrote one of the best books about cinematography Des lumières et des ombres (1984, Éditions du Collectionneur). Alekan died from leukemia on 15 June 2001 in Auxerre, Bourgogne, aged 92. Source: Article "Henri Alekan" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.Read more

Movies & web series

Max Ophüls - Den schönen guten Waren

Our Nazi

La Danseuse rouge

Would-Be Gentleman

Heroes and Sinners

Wings of Desire

Three Women

Jean Cocteau, cinéaste

Roman Holiday

Beauty and the Beast

The Other Eye

The Musicians of the Sky

Faraway, So Close!

On Top of the Whale

Fanny

Port of Shadows

The Magic of the Kite

Hatred

The Best Part

Queen Margot

The Divisions of Nature

Rodin's Hell

The Case of Dr. Laurent

Red Sun

Wundkanal

Juliette, or Key of Dreams

Ceux du rail

Cézanne: Conversation with Joachim Gasquet

Woman of Evil

The Battle of the Rails

Fun and Games for Everyone

Such a Pretty Little Beach

The Battle of Austerlitz

The State of Things

Street of Shadows

Black Tights

Topkapi

The Little Ones of the Flower Platform

Trip to America

Esther

Paris Casino

Julietta

Stranger on the Prowl

The Shanghai Drama

The Beautiful Prisoner

Blind Venus

The Christmas Tree

Mayerling