born Sept. 25, 1901, Bromont-Lamonthe, Puy-de Dôme, France
died Dec. 18, 1999
French film director.
He worked as a painter and photographer before making his first film in 1934. His feature-length Les Anges du péché (1943) established his austere, intellectual style. Noted for intense psychological probing and the subordination of plot to visual imagery, he also directed The Diary of a Country Priest (1950), A Man Escaped (1956), Pickpocket (1959), Balthazar (1966), Lancelot of the Lake (1974), and L'Argent (1983).