Frédéric Rossif
Encyclopedia
Frédéric Rossif was a French
film
and television director
who specialized primarily on documentaries
, frequently using archive footage. Rossif's common themes included wildlife, 20th century history and contemporary artists. He frequently collaborated with notable composers Maurice Jarre
and Vangelis
.
, Montenegro
, former Yugoslavia
. His family was killed during the Second World War
. He studied in Rome
in late 1930s and early 1940s before joining the French Foreign Legion
's 13th Demi-Brigade
in 1944. After the war, in 1945 Rossif established himself in Paris
and worked at Club Saint-Germain. During those years he got acquainted with Jean-Paul Sartre
, Boris Vian
, Albert Camus
, Ernest Hemingway
and Malcolm Lowry
among others.
Since 1948 Rossif actively collaborated with the Cinémathèque Française
, organizing, among other things, an avant-garde festival at Antibes
in 1949-50. In 1952 he joined the ORTF
. Some of the first projects he participated in include Cinq colonnes à la une, Éditions spéciales, La Vie des animaux and François Chalais
' Cinépanorama (1956) (producer); La Villa Santo-Sospir
(1952), a documentary about a villa decorated by Jean Cocteau
(assistant director) and Si Versailles m'était conté (1954), in which he acted.
In late 1950s Rossif began writing and directing his own films, quickly achieving a considerable degree of success. His 1963 film about the Spanish Civil War
, Mourir a Madrid received the Prix Jean Vigo
that year, and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature
. Several of his 1960s films were scored by the celebrated French composer Maurice Jarre
. In 1970 Rossif completed his only non-documentary film, Aussi loin que l'amour, featuring Salvador Dalí
as one of the actors.
In early 1970s Rossif met the Greek
composer Vangelis
, who was working in Paris at the time. The two collaborated on a large number of films, most notably the wild-life documentaries L'Apocalypse des animaux, L'Opéra sauvage
and La Fête sauvage
, some of the music from which was released on CD. Vangelis' music for an ocean scene from the 6th episode of L'Apocalypse, called "La Petite Fille de la Mer", subsequently became a modern classic. In 1980 Rossif directed a documentary dedicated to Vangelis, called L'Arbre de vie.
Rossif died in 1990 and was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris
. His last projects included the monumental World War II
documentary De Nuremberg à Nuremberg (1989) and Pasteur le Siecle, a documentary commemorating the 100th anniversary of L'Institut Pasteur
(1987), a departure from the director's usual themes.
Art and music:
Others:
In the list, * denotes films scored by Maurice Jarre
and ** denotes films scored by Vangelis
. Many of Vangelis' works created for Rossif are used more than in one film.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
film
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and television director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
who specialized primarily on documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, frequently using archive footage. Rossif's common themes included wildlife, 20th century history and contemporary artists. He frequently collaborated with notable composers Maurice Jarre
Maurice Jarre
Maurice-Alexis Jarre was a French composer and conductor.Although he composed several concert works, he is best known for his film scores, and is particularly known for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films since Lawrence of Arabia...
and Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
.
Life
Rossif was born in CetinjeCetinje
Cetinje , Цетиње / Cetinje , Italian: Cettigne, Greek: Κετίγνη, Ketígni) is a town and Old Royal Capital of Montenegro. It is also a historical and the secondary capital of Montenegro , with the official residence of the President of Montenegro...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. His family was killed during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He studied in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in late 1930s and early 1940s before joining the French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
's 13th Demi-Brigade
13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade
The 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade is a mechanized infantry demi-brigade in the French Foreign Legion. It is the only permanent demi-brigade in the French Army, and is a unit of particular notoriety and reputation within the Legion...
in 1944. After the war, in 1945 Rossif established himself in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and worked at Club Saint-Germain. During those years he got acquainted with Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, Boris Vian
Boris Vian
Boris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their...
, Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
and Malcolm Lowry
Malcolm Lowry
Clarence Malcolm Lowry was an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel Under the Volcano, which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list.-Biography:...
among others.
Since 1948 Rossif actively collaborated with the Cinémathèque Française
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
, organizing, among other things, an avant-garde festival at Antibes
Antibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...
in 1949-50. In 1952 he joined the ORTF
Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française
The Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1974, with providing public radio and television in France.-Post World War II:...
. Some of the first projects he participated in include Cinq colonnes à la une, Éditions spéciales, La Vie des animaux and François Chalais
François Chalais
François Chalais was a prominent French reporter, journalist, writer and film historian. The François Chalais Prize at the annual Cannes Film Festival is named after him....
' Cinépanorama (1956) (producer); La Villa Santo-Sospir
La villa Santo-Sospir
La Villa Santo-Sospir is a 35-minute amateur or home film directed by Jean Cocteau in which Cocteau takes the viewer on a tour of a friend's villa on the French coast, a major location later used in his film Testament of Orpheus ....
(1952), a documentary about a villa decorated by Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
(assistant director) and Si Versailles m'était conté (1954), in which he acted.
In late 1950s Rossif began writing and directing his own films, quickly achieving a considerable degree of success. His 1963 film about the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, Mourir a Madrid received the Prix Jean Vigo
Prix Jean Vigo
The Prix Jean Vigo is an award in the Cinema of France given annually since 1951 to a French film director in homage to Jean Vigo. It was founded by French writer Claude...
that year, and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature
Academy Award for Documentary Feature
The Academy Award for Documentary Feature is among the most prestigious awards for documentary films.- Winners and nominees:Following the Academy's practice, films are listed below by the award year...
. Several of his 1960s films were scored by the celebrated French composer Maurice Jarre
Maurice Jarre
Maurice-Alexis Jarre was a French composer and conductor.Although he composed several concert works, he is best known for his film scores, and is particularly known for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films since Lawrence of Arabia...
. In 1970 Rossif completed his only non-documentary film, Aussi loin que l'amour, featuring Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
as one of the actors.
In early 1970s Rossif met the Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
composer Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
, who was working in Paris at the time. The two collaborated on a large number of films, most notably the wild-life documentaries L'Apocalypse des animaux, L'Opéra sauvage
Opera Sauvage
Opéra sauvage is a 1979 album, by Greek composer and artist Vangelis, of the score for the nature documentary by the same title by French filmmaker Frédéric Rossif. The album sleeve design is by Vangelis himself....
and La Fête sauvage
La Fête Sauvage
La Fête sauvage is an original score album, by Greek composer Vangelis , from the 1975 documentary, about animal wildlife, by Frédéric Rossif.-Overview:...
, some of the music from which was released on CD. Vangelis' music for an ocean scene from the 6th episode of L'Apocalypse, called "La Petite Fille de la Mer", subsequently became a modern classic. In 1980 Rossif directed a documentary dedicated to Vangelis, called L'Arbre de vie.
Rossif died in 1990 and was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. His last projects included the monumental World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
documentary De Nuremberg à Nuremberg (1989) and Pasteur le Siecle, a documentary commemorating the 100th anniversary of L'Institut Pasteur
Pasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
(1987), a departure from the director's usual themes.
Partial filmography
Wildlife:- La Vie des animaux (TV series broadcast during the 1950s, producer)
- Nos amis les bêtes (TV series broadcast during the 1950s, producer)
- 1963, Les Animaux*
- 1970-1971, L'Apocalypse des animaux (TV series, 6 episodes)**
- 1975-1981, L'Opéra sauvage (TV series, 22 episodes)**
- 1975, La Fête sauvage (feature film), on AfricaAfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n wildlife** - 1984, Sauvage et beau (feature film)**
- 1986, Splendeur sauvage (compilation)**
- 1989, Beauté sauvage (compilation)**
- 1989, Les Animaux de Frédéric Rossif (compilation)**
Art and music:
- 1971, Cantique des créatures (?)
- 1971, Georges MathieuGeorges MathieuGeorges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
ou la fureur d'être** - 1972, Au Pays des visages, on photographer Gisèle FreundGisèle FreundGisèle Freund was a German-born French photographer, famous for her documentary photography and portraits of writers and artists. Her best-known book is Photographie et société , about the uses and abuses of the photographic medium.-Early life:Freund was born near Berlin to a wealthy Jewish family...
** - 1974, Georges BraqueGeorges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
ou le temps différent** - 1981, Jacques BrelJacques BrelJacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...
- 1981, Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
peintre** - 1980, Des compagnons pour vos songes
- 1983, Les Grandes Demoiselles, Étienne HajduÉtienne HajdúÉtienne Hajdú, also known as István Hajdú , was a Transylvania-born French sculptor of Jewish descent. After emigration to Paris in the 1930s, he became part of the Hungarian circle of artists and writers...
, sculpteur on sculptor Étienne Hajdu - 1985, La Fête de la musique (festival à Paris)
- 1986, Le Cœur musicien
- 1989, Morandi, on painterPaintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
Giorgio MorandiGiorgio MorandiGiorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
**
Others:
- 1959, Imprévisibles Nouveautés, about the petroleumPetroleumPetroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
industry, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Edwin DrakeEdwin DrakeEdwin Laurentine Drake , also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.-Early life:...
's oil well drilling - 1959, Spécial Noël : Jean GabinJean Gabin-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
- 1961, Le Temps du ghetto, about the Jewish ghettos in WarsawWarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
* - 1961, Vél d'hiv (short film), about sports at the Vélodrome d'hiver, rue Nélaton (15e)*
- 1962, De notre temps (short film)
- 1963, Mourir à MadridTo Die in MadridTo Die in Madrid is a 1963 French documentary film directed by Frédéric Rossif. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Cast:* John Gielgud - Narrator * Irene Worth - Co-Narrator...
, about the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
* - 1963, Pour l'Espagne, on SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
* - 1964, Encore Paris (short film)*
- 1966, La Chute de Berlin, about the fall of BerlinBattle of BerlinThe Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....
- 1966, La Liberté de blâmer (short film), about the life of a daily newspaper (?)
- 1966, Donner à voir (TV series, 3 episodes), about first films about foreign countries
- 1966, Un roi en Bavière, about the life of Ludwig II of BavariaLudwig II of BavariaLudwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes called the Swan King and der Märchenkönig, the Fairy tale King...
- 1967, La Révolution d'octobre, on the October RevolutionOctober RevolutionThe October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
; includes material from Dziga VertovDziga VertovDavid Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
's Man with a Movie CameraMan with a Movie CameraMan with a Movie Camera , sometimes called The Man with the Movie Camera, The Man with a Camera, The Man With the Kinocamera, or Living Russia is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film, with no story and no actors, by Russian director Dziga Vertov, edited by his wife Elizaveta...
. - 1968, Un mur à Jérusalem, on the history of JewsJewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
- 1969, Pourquoi l'Amérique?, on American history from 1917 to 1939
- 1971, Aussi loin que l'amour (Rossif's only non-documentary film)
- 1976, Les Crèches du monde
- 1976, Plus vite que le soleil (short film), on the ConcordeConcordeAérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...
. Later released as part of Un Ciel Signé Concorde (not a Rossif production)** - 1978, Heureux comme le regard en France, on contemporary French art (?), see http://www.forumdesimages.net/cgi-bin/rdoc/find?CritA=Alain+JOUFFROY&aur_offset_rec=2
- 1980, Une prière qui danse
- 1981, L'Arbre de vie, about VangelisVangelisEvangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
** - 1983, Pour la musique (?)
- 1987, Pasteur le Siècle, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Pasteur InstitutePasteur InstituteThe Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
** - 1989, De Nuremberg à Nuremberg (four hours long 4-part special), on the Nuremberg TrialsNuremberg TrialsThe Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
** - 1989, Tatie Danielle (as actor)
- 1990, Les Sentinelles oubliées, on American communists (?), see http://www.humanite.fr/1990-10-05_Articles_-Reportage-de-Frederic-Rossif-Antenne-2-20-heures-40-LES-REDS**
In the list, * denotes films scored by Maurice Jarre
Maurice Jarre
Maurice-Alexis Jarre was a French composer and conductor.Although he composed several concert works, he is best known for his film scores, and is particularly known for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films since Lawrence of Arabia...
and ** denotes films scored by Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
. Many of Vangelis' works created for Rossif are used more than in one film.