Cinema: disappearance of Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner

In 2010, the Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner was awarded a Leopard of Honor for his entire career at the Locarno festival.

AP - Jean-Christophe Bott

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

He was one of the pioneers of the New Wave in Switzerland and several of his films have become cinema staples.

Director Alain Tanner died yesterday in Lausanne at the age of 92. 

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“Swiss cinema is a bit like the Swiss navy: we don't believe it.

But both exist”, liked to say Alain Tanner, locomotive of what has been called the New Wave of Swiss cinema. 

He studied at the University of Geneva where he founded a film club with Claude Goretta.

The two Genevans then escaped to London where they made their first film together,

 (1957), a remarkable short film on the life of night owls in London's Piccadilly Circus.

Back in the country, in 1968, Alain Tanner met with four directors - Michel Soutter, Jean-Louis Roy, Jean-Jacques Lagrange (replaced by Yves Yersin in 1971) and Claude Goretta - to found the "Group of 5".

The five are at the origin of this Swiss cinematographic revival, promoters of an offbeat, non-conformist and committed cinema, going against the current of the family dramas of the usual production.

His first feature

 (1969) marked the beginning of auteur cinema in Switzerland.

It tells the story of a businessman who decides to change his life to lead an existence on the fringes of society, against a backdrop of student revolts, and wins first prize at the Locarno festival.

This committed film was followed in 1971 by

, an impertinent film with libertarian accents that became cult, notably with the actress Bulle Ogier, in the role of Rosemonde, “a free girl”.

A prolific director

Alain Tanner is the author of an important work.

He toured tirelessly from the end of the 1960s until 2004. Among his best-known films, besides

,

(about the lost dreams of 1968),

, which won the Special Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, and

with Bruno Gantz (awarded a César in 1984).

Another cult film about the desire/need to escape.

Alain Tanner died on Sunday September 11 at the age of 93.

The director of Charles dead or alive, The Salamander or Jonas who will be 25 in the year 2000 here at the Cinémathèque suisse in October 2011 📷 Carine Roth pic.twitter.com/dgBuao1WsV

— Swiss Cinematheque (@cinemathequech) September 11, 2022

A work crowned with numerous prizes in Locarno, Venice, Cannes and in the United States and to which the

paid tribute as part of its “Underground Swiss” program dedicated to Switzerland off the beaten track.

Alain Tanner, who has always considered that making cinema was a political act, extended his commitment beyond cinema by getting involved in particular in favor of the Palestinian population of Gaza.

His archives entered the

 in 2014.

(with agencies)

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