René Clément: Movies & Box Office

René Clément (18 March 1913 – 17 March 1996) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended from the 1930s to the mid-1970s. Born and raised in Bordeaux, he initially studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he developed a strong interest in filmmaking. Clément began directing in 1936 with a 20-minute short written by and featuring Jacques Tati, establishing the beginnings of an influential career in French cinema. During the latter part of the 1930s, he traveled through parts of the Middle East and Africa to make documentaries. In 1937, he and archaeologist Jules Barthou went to Yemen to prepare what was described as the first documentary filmed in that country, including the only known film image of Imam Yahya. Clément later served as Jean Cocteau’s technical director on the visually ambitious Beauty and the Beast (1946). After nearly a decade devoted to shorts and documentaries, he made his feature-film debut with the French Resistance drama La Bataille du rail (1945), an immediate critical and commercial success. At the inaugural Cannes Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or, while Clément received the Best Director Award. That honor was the first of five Cannes prizes he would receive from a total of ten nominations, eventually making him the most-awarded French filmmaker in the festival’s history.

Clément subsequently became one of France’s most prominent and commercially successful postwar directors. His films The Walls of Malapaga (1949) and Forbidden Games (1952) both won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, providing him with rare international recognition. He directed Gervaise (1956) and helped launch Alain Delon’s film career with the stylish thriller Purple Noon (1960), an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. His star-studded epic Is Paris Burning? (1966), written by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola, was a costly box-office failure, although his other projects included the internationally successful Rider on the Rain (1970), starring Charles Bronson and Marlène Jobert, as well as And Hope to Die (1972). Clément also directed Joy House (1964) with Delon and Jane Fonda and began Play Dirty, but left that production following disputes with producer Harry Saltzman. He retired from directing in 1975 after building a substantial body of work across historical drama, literary adaptation, thriller, war, and international co-production genres. Clément co-founded and later presided over the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1985, and served as its president in 1990. He received an Honorary César in 1984 for his lifetime contribution to French cinema. His second wife was Irish screenwriter Johanna Harwood, whom he met while making Monsieur Ripois (1954). In 2023, Jane Fonda alleged on television that Clément had sexually harassed her during the production of Joy House, saying that he pressured her to sleep with him so that he could judge her orgasm; Clément was 51 and Fonda was 27 at the time. Clément died in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on 17 March 1996, one day before his 83rd birthday, and was buried in Menton. Although French New Wave figures such as François Truffaut often criticized his polished, traditional style, later scholarship has recognized his versatility, popular appeal, and skill with location filmmaking. A major retrospective of his work was presented by the Cinémathèque française in 2013, further cementing his importance in the history of French cinema.