Claude Miller

Claude Miller 20 February 1942 4 April 2012 was a French film director producer and screenwriter Claude Miller was born to a Jewish family A student at Paris IDHEC film school from 1962 through 1963 Miller had his first practical cinematic experience while he was in uniform serving with the Service Cinéma de lArmée From 1965 until 1974 Miller worked in assistant and supervisory capacities for many of Frances major directors including Robert Bresson and JeanLuc Godard His principal mentor was François Truffaut under whose tutelage Miller directed a trio of shorts and La meilleure façon de marcher The Best Way to Walk 1976 his first theatrical feature a comingofage drama which bore traces of Truffauts Les Mistons 1957 and The 400 Blows 1959 Miller received César nominations for Best Director and César Award for Best Screenplay Dialogue or Adaptation for this film His subsequent films can also be perceived as homages to Truffaut many even using the same production personnel The following year he made Diteslui que je laime for which he received a second César nomination for Best Director He won a César Award for Best Screenplay Dialogue or Adaptation in 1981 for Garde à vue and the Louis Delluc Prize in 1985 for LEffrontée for which he received another César nomination for Best Director In 1983 he directed Mortelle randonnée When Truffaut died in 1984 during the preparation of another feature about a confused adolescent serial thief entangled with an older lover La Petite Voleuse The Little Thief Miller took over the project completing the film in 1988 The latter film was a considerable international success and solidified Millers status as one of Frances major filmmakers On French television Miller directed dozens of commercials and the sixpart miniseries Traits de Mémoire 1976 After a fouryear absence Claude Miller returned to active filmmaking with The Accompanist 1992 and Le Sourire 1994 He had to wait until 1998 for his next major success La Classe de Neige the chilling story of a lonely boy on a school skiing holiday which won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival Later films Miller directed include Betty Fisher et autres histoires 2001 which Peter Bradshaw wrote that Miller endowed it with the fascination of an exotic spiky poisonous flower La Petite Lili 2003 and A Secret 2007 At the time of his death he was working on an adaptation of François Mauriacs Thérèse Desqueyroux The film was selected to close the 2012 Cannes Film Festival Description above from the Wikipedia article Claude Miller licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia