Profession: film director

Von Sternberg’s notable contribution to cinema was through his non-naturalistic use of camera and lighting. He also discovered Dietrich, making six films with her and becoming one of her lovers. Chaplin took him under his wing, but was displeased with the resultant film. Eisenstein said he was dogged by his own sense of inadequacy, Grierson agreeing that he didn’t match his own high standards. He called on Schnitzler but nervously talked too much, and hoped Reinhardt would give him some work. He commissioned a Neutra house and a Siqueiros portrait. Grosz was almost alone in understanding his cane’s symbolic importance.

Gilliam is an influential and idiosyncratic film-maker (if perhaps less original than popularly imagined). He met his future fellow-Python Cleese while working in New York for Kurtzman, of MAD magazine fame. His hero Fellini was encountered in Rome, while filming ‘Munchausen’. Rushdie interviewed him sympathetically, the aspirant director Tarantino found him the only supportive mentor at Sundance, while Stoppard, who co-wrote ‘Brazil’ with him, kept telling him it was too close to ‘1984’ (which Gilliam in fact had not read).

Dalí and Lorca were fellow-students and close friends, Dalí also a noted collaborator (each had only three seconds to agree or disagree an idea). Ernst and Aragon were good friends among Paris surrealists; Breton and Éluard took him to order a Sade novel (it never arrived). Ernst, Giacometti and Tanguy were revolutionary associates before Buñuel joined the communists, causing a vituperative break with Dalí as well as with Breton. He assisted Epstein, helped Ivens and Hemingway with permission to film in Spain, and  was introduced by Silberman to Carrière, his other great collaborator.

Malle worked for Cousteau (on a prizewinning film) as a cinematographer, bursting his eardrums shooting underwater. Tati also employed him as cinematographer, and Bresson as assistant director. He met Davis through Gréco, and asked him to compose the score for his first film as director; Moreau ran the bar during all-night recording, the film made her a star, and she became Malle’s lover for several years. Truffaut, a friend and admirer, recalled being mistaken on the street for the handsome Malle. He was working with Guare when he died, and had been working with Malick intermittently for some time.

The artist Renoir was his father, an abiding influence on his own very influential work, and about whom he wrote the definitive biography. Welles, a friend, described him as the greatest of all directors. Odets was another close friend. Kosma collaborated as composer, and Jacques Prévert as writer (Renoir described the script for an unmade film as perfect, but leaving him with nothing to do). Renoir said of von Stroheim as an actor, that he had to learn his German lines just like a schoolboy. Meeting Ray (who had just completed a masterpiece), Renoir asked him innocently if he also made films.