Jacques Becker's films, made during the 1940s and 1950s, encompassed a wide variety of genres, and they were admired by some of the filmmakers who led the French New Wave movement.
17 Facts About Jacques Becker
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Jacques Becker was educated at the Lycees Condorcet and Carnot and then at the Ecole Breguet.
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Back in France Jacques Becker developed a friendship with Jean Renoir, whom he had first met in 1921 through their mutual acquaintance with the Cezanne family, and they discovered a shared enthusiasm for sports cars and jazz music as well as films.
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In 1929, Jacques Becker took a small acting role in Renoir's film Le Bled, and he went on to become Renoir's assistant for nine of his films of the 1930s.
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Jacques Becker made brief appearances in some of them, such as La Grande Illusion.
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Jacques Becker had his first chance of directing a film of his own in 1939 with L'Or du Cristobal, but it ran into difficulties and he left the production after three weeks.
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Some filming of Dernier Atout took place around Nice on the Cote d'Azur and Jacques Becker used the opportunity to establish links between an anti-Nazi group of filmmakers there and the Parisian Resistance.
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Jacques Becker made two further films, of markedly different character, during the Occupation: Goupi Mains Rouges was a story of greed and murder in a remote French farming community, and Falbalas depicted the world of the Parisian fashion business.
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The film was not well received at its initial appearance, but following acclaim abroad it became one of Jacques Becker's most admired works.
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Jacques Becker had a further success with Touchez pas au grisbi which relaunched the post-war career of Jean Gabin in the role of an aging gangster and introduced a distinctly French style of the gangster film which would become popular in the following years.
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In 1958, Jacques Becker took over the filming of Montparnasse 19 from Max Ophuls who died while preparing the project about the last years of the painter Modigliani, but because of its hybrid origins it remained a troubled production.
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In Le Trou, which recounted in almost documentary fashion the planning of a prison escape, Jacques Becker was able to return to a more personal and rigorous style.
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Jacques Becker was 53 when he died of lung cancer in February 1960, and he was interred in the Cimetiere du Montparnasse in Paris.
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Jacques Becker's children by his first marriage included Jean Becker, who became a film director, and Etienne Becker who was a cinematographer.
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Jacques Becker was however highly esteemed by many of his fellow filmmakers.
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Jacques Becker described an example of Becker's perfectionism when he used Melville's studio to re-shoot scenes for Le Trou, repeating multiple takes before he felt satisfied that it was as good as it could be.
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Jacques Becker expressed his ideas about film authorship in an article published in 1947, in which he argued that directors should work on their own screenplays and make their films personal.