Life and Career
Pialat originally intended to become a painter, but met with little success. Having acquired a camera at age 16, he tried his hand at documentary films before making his first notable short, L'Amour existe, in 1960.
Pialat came to filmmaking late. He directed his feature-length debut, 1969's L'Enfance Nue (The Naked Childhood) at the age of 44. The film, which was co-produced by French New Wave director François Truffaut, won the Prix Jean Vigo.
During his 35 year career, Pialat completed only ten major features, many of which—most notably Loulou—have been interpreted as being autobiographical. He directed Gérard Depardieu in three films, including Sous le soleil de Satan (Under the Sun of Satan), for which Pialat won the Palme d'Or at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
In a posthumous tribute written for the French film magazine Positif, critic Noël Herpe referred to Pialat's style as a "a naturalism that was born of formalism." In English-language film criticism, he is often compared to his American contemporary John Cassavetes.
Summarizing Pialat's stance as a filmmaker in a profile for Film Comment, critic Kent Jones wrote: "To say that Pialat marched to the beat of a different drummer is to put it mildly. In fact, he didn't really march at all. He ambled, and fuck anybody who got it into their head that they'd like to amble along with him. Or behind him. Or ahead of him."
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