Monday, April 9, 2012

The Media Funhouse interview: Deceased Artiste Claude Miller

A number of very talented folk have died in the last few weeks and I hope to get around to saluting each one of them, but I wanted to jump the gun for one gentleman, filmmaker Claude Miller, who died last week at 70. I interviewed Mr. Miller back in 2002 when he was in NYC to promote screenings of his film Alias Betty (the U.S. title for Betty Fisher et autres histoires).

He only made 16 fiction features in his nearly five-decade career in film, but during that time he also worked as an assistant to a trio of New Wave legends (Truffaut, Godard, and Demy) and wrote and produced for other directors. His finest work — a number of exceptional thrillers adapted from British and American authors, and his female coming-of-age pictures — is truly wonderful and will live on for some time to come.

Here he speaks about his one-time boss, and friend, Francois Truffaut:



And here he gives a very smart answer to my query about the two mediocre American movies made from his French originals:



The voice you hear on the clips is that of translator Robert Gray, who did a great job providing instant translation of Mr. Miller's answers.

No comments: