Pierre-André Boutang

PierreAndré Boutang born March 25 1937 in Paris and died August 20 2008 in GrossetoPrugna Corsica was a French documentary filmmaker producer and director He was one of the directors of the FrancoGerman channel Arte after previously being one of the directors of La Sept A major figure in French television PierreAndré Boutang producer director programmer and interviewer knew how to combine intelligence and a broad audience through films and documentary series for ORTF since the 1960s Throughout his long career PierreAndré Boutang explored the worlds of literature film and television while fostering intellectual debate The son of philosopher Pierre Boutang he was first a student at the Institute of Political Studies before becoming an assistant director for film and television From 1962 to 1967 PierreAndré Boutang was responsible for selecting films for television and later became a producer and director of numerous films and television series Les Écrans de la Ville Le Journal du Cinéma Cinéregards Champ Contre Champ He also wrote numerous articles for Dim Dam Dom a scathing program from the days of ORTF From 1967 to 1986 he produced several programs such as Le Nouveau dimanche Linvité du dimanche Lhomme en question Désir des arts Projection privée Bibliothèque de poche Archives du XXe siècle and then Océaniques for FR3 where he produced profiles of Fidel Castro Martin Heidegger and Louis Althusser The magazine was awarded a 7 dOr in 1987 and 1988 Television also owes him major series of interviews coproduced with Jean Rouch including Mémoires du XXe siècle featuring portraits of Gilles Deleuze 3 DVDs from Editions Montparnasse and Pierre VidalNaquet as well as Sartre par luimême in which the philosopher spoke about his work for three hours At the same time he produced films for the cinema by Jean Yanne Marco Ferreri Robert Bresson and Alexandre Astrucs Sartre par luimême as well as Otar Iosselianis Les Favoris de la lune He is the author of a biography of Roman Polanski In 1990 invited by historian Georges Duby to work for Sept the cultural television channel that later became Arte he was appointed Deputy Director of Programming under Jérôme Clément and launched the cultural magazine Océanopolis PierreAndré Boutang the initiator of numerous Thema programs that contributed to the channels success also created the channels cultural magazine Metropolis for which he was editorinchief for France from 1995 to 2006 For eighteen years PierreAndré Boutang had become a pillar of Arte The FrancoGerman channel broadcast his documentaries such as The ABCs of Gilles Deleuze 13 Days in the Life of Picasso Alexander Solzhenitsyn Depardieu the View of Others Mao a Chinese Story and most recently Jeanne M a portrait of Jeanne Moreau and Claude LeviStrauss by Himself