Bruno Nuytten


Bruno Nuytten is a French cinematographer turned director.
Camille Claudel which was Nuytten's first directorial and screenwriting effort, won the César Award for Best film in 1989. The film starred and was co-produced by Isabelle Adjani, with whom he had a son, Barnabé Saïd-Nuytten. Adjani won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in the film.
His sophomore directorial effort, Albert Souffre, though also a heavily emotional movie, was set in contemporary times.
His 2000 film, Passionnément, starred Charlotte Gainsbourg.
His films as cinematographer include Les Valseuses, Barocco, La meilleure façon de marcher, The Bronte Sisters, Brubaker, Garde à vue, Possession, Fort Saganne, So Long, Stooge, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. He won the César Award for Best Cinematography in 1977 and 1984, and was nominated in 1980, 1982, 1985 and 1987.
He is a professor at France's national film school La Fémis.

Biography

In his adolescence, Bruno Nuytten played in an amateur theater troupe. His education is varied: training for Art Deco competitions, training for the IDHEC competition, and unfinished training at the Institut national supérieur des arts du spectacle et des techniques de diffusion, then obtaining a BTS in "prises de vues" or "shooting" in Paris. He began by being assistant to Ghislain Cloquet, then to Claude Lecomte and to Ricardo Aronovitch. He first worked on short films, then launched himself into the roles of cinematographer and director of photography. He seeks contrasting images, a moving camera, an active relationship with space. By listening to the directors, he learned how to use fixed shots and lighting without contrast when requested by Marguerite Duras, India Song, Son nom de Venise ), or an exaggeratedly expressionist style and a shoulder camera with Andrzej Zulawski.
Bruno Nuytten went into directing for Camille Claudel, at the express request of actress Isabelle Adjani, who co-produced the film and took the leading role. In 2013, she says: “His reason to be, it was the shadow. From the shadow, he made the light exist. He had told me that he would never go into directing. I told him that I would like to use the body of Camille Claudel to be able to personify my own disarray, my cry. He heard me.” A few years earlier, Nuytten had remarked: “The only interesting thing that I discovered while talking with a journalist is that in fact I had put myself in scene in the inversion of powers: at the end of the film I had become Camille Claudel and Isabelle Adjani had become Rodin. And there I am more and more Camille Claudel, even if I am not still in the asylum! One never escapes the delicate, fragile, and human things one touches…”
In 2015, Caroline Champetier, also director of photography, devoted the documentary Nuytten/Film to him.
Bruno Nuytten wrote articles for the technical review Le cinema pratique, animated conferences at the Ciné-club de Melun, and lectures at the Université de Paris III. In Switzerland he founded a production company for advertising films.
Bruno Nuytten was the companion of Isabelle Adjani with whom he had a son, Barnabé, in 1979. Since 1996, he has lived with the director Tatiana Vialle, with whom he has had two children, Tobias and Galathée.

Filmography

As a director