CLAUDE GORETTA

Written by Michael Darvell
 

(23 June 1929 - 20 February 2019)

Claude Goretta

The Swiss-born film writer and director Claude Goretta, who has died of natural causes at the age of 89, admitted that he never studied film formally but learned the art of the cinema just by watching good films. He founded the Geneva University film society and was a film reviewer for Swiss newspapers. With four other directors, Jean-Jacques Lagrange, Jean-Louis Roy, Michel Soutter and Alain Tanner, he formed the production company Groupe 5, in order to get funding from Swiss TV for their own cinema films. In the 1950s he and Tanner worked at the BFI in London, doing subtitling and archive work. The BFI Experimental Film Fund then sponsored their short and wordless documentary Nice Time, about life around Piccadilly Circus at night. Goretta subsequently joined Swiss Television and from 1957 made shorts and documentaries. Much of his work was politically and socially motivated, carrying an edge not always appreciated by his Swiss compatriots. The first feature film that he wrote, produced and directed was The Madman (Le fou) in 1970, with François Simon, followed by The Invitation (Academy Award nominated), The Wonderful Crook (with Gérard Depardieu) and then The Lacemaker, which made his name worldwide. It starred a young Isabelle Huppert as a reserved girl battling with her emotions. The part won her a Bafta for most promising newcomer. The Wedding Day was based on a Maupassant novel, La Provinciale had Nathalie Baye as a girl moving to Paris to seek her fortune (and Bruno Ganz along the way) and The Death of Mario Ricci starred Gian Maria Volontè as a journalist investigating the death of a labourer working on the Mont Blanc tunnel. In 1985 Goretta adapted Monteverdi’s opera for his film of Orfeo. Other films that he wrote and directed include If the Sun Never Returns, Enemies of the Mafia and L’ombre, with Jacques Perrin, which was his last film for the cinema in 1992. He carried on working on television movies including episodes of Maigret with Bruno Cremer and his final work was on a TV biography of Jean-Paul Sartre in 2006.

MICHAEL DARVELL

 
Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

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