Name
Philippe de Broca
Known For
Directing
Birthday
1933-03-15
Deathday
2004-11-26 (71 years old)
Place of Birth
Paris, France
Biography
Philippe Claude Alex de Broca de Ferrussac (15 March 1933 – 26 November 2004) was a French film director.
He directed 30 full-length feature films, including the highly successful That Man from Rio (L'Homme de Rio), The Man from Acapulco (Le Magnifique) and On Guard (Le Bossu). His works include historical, romantic epics such as Chouans! and King of Hearts (Le Roi de cœur), as well as comedies with a charismatic, breezy hero ready to embark upon any adventure which comes his way, so long as it means escaping everyday modern life: Practice Makes Perfect (Le Cavaleur), The Devil by the Tail (Le Diable par la queue), The African (L'Africain). He had links with the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, with whom he made six films, as well as with Jean-Pierre Cassel, Philippe Noiret and Jean Rochefort.
Philippe de Broca was born on 15 March 1933 in Paris. He was the son of a cinema set designer and the grandson of a well-known painter, Alexis de Broca. He studied at the Paris Photography and Cinematography School (école Vaugirard), graduating in 1953. He carried out his military service with the French Army's service cinématographique des armées (army film service) in Germany and then in Algeria, directing or acting as head cameraman on short films. Greatly affected by the war he witnessed in Algeria, he vowed to show life in its best light in his future films "because laughter is the best defence against upsets in life". After his discharge from the military, he set off on a journey taking in the length of Africa in Berliet trucks before returning to Paris.
He began working as an intern with Henri Decoin, before finding assistant positions with Claude Chabrol: Bitter Reunion (Le Beau Serge), The Cousins (Les Cousins), Web of Passion (À Double Tour), François Truffaut: The 400 Blows (Les 400 Coups) and Pierre Schoendoerffer: Ramuntcho. In 1959, Claude Chabrol produced de Broca's first film for him, The Love Game (Les jeux de l'amour) with Jean-Pierre Cassel. De Broca went on to work with Cassel again in The Joker (Le Farceur, 1960), Five Day Lover (L'Amant de cinq jours, 1961), and Male Companion (Un Monsieur de Compagnie, 1964).
De Broca's first commercial success came with Swords of Blood (Cartouche), filmed in 1962. This film also saw two more names become associated with de Broca: the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and the producer Alexandre Mnouchkine. International acclaim came with That Man from Rio (L'Homme de Rio) in 1964, Up to His Ears (Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine) in 1965, The Man from Acapulco (Le Magnifique) in 1973 and Incorrigible (L'Incorrigible) in 1975.
In 1966, he co-wrote, directed and produced King of Hearts (Le Roi de Cœur). This parody of the Great War, which some cinema-lovers consider his masterpiece, was a commercial and personal failure, to de Broca's dismay. Yet it eventually achieved genuine cult-film status during the mid 1970s when it was presented in repertory movie theaters as well as non-theatrical college and university film series across the United States, eventually running for five years at the now defunct film house, the Central Square Cinemas [2] in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...
Source: Article "Philippe de Broca" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Known For
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- 1973 The Magnificent One as Second Plumber (uncredited)
- 1959 Le Beau Serge as Jacques Rivette de la Chasuble
- 1964 The Little Misses as Le timide
- 2011 Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde as Self (archive footage)
- 1981 Droit de Réponse as Self
- 1969 The Devil by the Tail as Un passant suédois
- 2006 The Foreign Eye as Self
- 1964 Les Pieds nickelés as le chauffeur de taxi
- 1996 Elle s'appelait Françoise as Self
- 1960 The Love Game as L'homme au cabaret Le Bateau Mouche
- 1959 The 400 Blows as Homme dans une fête foraine (non crédité)
- 1962 The Girls of La Rochelle
- 1971 Le Cinema de Papa as Jean Timent
- 1960 Breathless as A Journalist (uncredited)
- 1966 King of Hearts as Adolf Hitler
- 1962 Cartouche as L'homme qui crie 'les aristocrates à la lanterne'
- 1963 People in Luck as Le passant qui reçoit l'affiche (segment "Une nuit avec la vedette")
- 2020 Le Terminus des prétentieux as Self (archive footage)
- 1953 Three Dates as Alex, le peintre
- 2002 Michel Audiard et le mystère du triangle des Bermudes as Self
- 2022 Belmondo: The Incorrigible
- 1974 Spécial cinéma ( 1 episode ) as Self
- 1972 Le Grand Échiquier ( 1 episode ) as Self
- 1975 Les Rendez-vous du dimanche ( 2 episodes ) as Self
- 1982 Champs-Elysées ( 1 episode ) as Self
- 1956 Cinépanorama ( 1 episode ) as Self
- 1971 Samedi soir ( 1 episode ) as Self
- 1987 Sacrée soirée ( 3 episodes ) as Self
- 1978 Ciné regards ( 1 episode ) as Self
