Jacques Becker

• Name — Jacques Becker • Born — 15 September 1906 • Birthplace — Paris, France • Died — 21 February 1960 • Place of death — Paris, France • Spouse — * Geneviève Boyard (1931–1954) • Françoise Fabian (1957–1960) • Children — 4, including Jean and Étienne • Occupation — Screenwriter Film director • Years Active — 1931–1960 • Notable Works — Casque d'or Touchez pas au grisbi Le Trou

Born in Paris, Becker was from an upper-middle-class background. His father Louis Becker, from Lorraine, was corporate director for Fulmen, a battery manufacturer; his mother, Margaret Burns, of Scottish and Irish descent, managed a fashion house in rue Cambon near Chanel in Paris. He was educated at the Lycées Condorcet and Carnot and then at the École Bréguet. Becker was reluctant to pursue a business career like his father and at the age of 18 he went to New York. On a transatlantic liner he met the film director King Vidor who offered him a job but Becker turned it down. Back in France Becker developed a friendship with Jean Renoir, whom he had first met in 1921 through their mutual acquaintance with the Cézanne family, and they discovered a shared enthusiasm for sports cars and jazz music as well as films. In 1929, Becker took a small acting role in Renoir's film Le Bled, and he went on to become Renoir's assistant for nine of his films of the 1930s. He also made brief appearances in some of them, such as La Grande Illusion (in which he played an imprisoned English officer who smashes his watch rather than allow the Germans to have it). Becker had his first chance of directing a film of his own in 1939 with L'Or du Cristobal, but it ran into difficulties and he left the production after three weeks. After the outbreak of WW2 and the German invasion of France, Becker was captured and spent a year in a prisoner-of-war camp in Pomerania before getting released. Returning to occupied France, he was able to make his proper first feature, Dernier Atout (1942), thanks to a friend who was setting up an independent production company. Some of the filming of Dernier Atout took place around Nice on the Côte d'Azur and Becker used the opportunity to establish links between an anti-Nazi group of filmmakers there and the Parisian Resistance. In 1943, he was one of the filmmakers who set up the Comité de libération du cinéma français to make preparations for the cinema after the war, and in the following year they organised filming of the uprising in Paris for the documentary La Libération de Paris. In the aftermath of the Liberation, Becker was among those who argued in support of Henri-Georges Clouzot and Robert Le Vigan when they were condemned for collaboration during the war. Becker made two further films, of markedly different character, during the Occupation: Goupi Mains Rouges was a story of greed and murder in a remote French farming community, and Falbalas depicted the (more or less contemporary) world of the Parisian fashion business. After the war Becker made several films in comic vein which showed the everyday lives of young people in present-day Paris: Antoine et Antoinette (1947), Rendezvous de juillet (1949), Édouard et Caroline (1951), and Rue de l'Estrapade (1953). In the middle of these he made Casque d'or (1952), a tragic romance set during the Belle Époque and loosely based on a true story among the criminal gangs of the Parisian underworld. The film was not well received at its initial appearance, but following acclaim abroad it became one of Becker's most admired works. Becker had a further success with Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) which relaunched the post-war career of Jean Gabin in the role of an aging gangster and introduced a distinctly French style of the gangster film which would become popular in the following years. Finding it nevertheless difficult to get financing for his projects, Becker next undertook a couple of commercial productions, Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs and Les Aventures d'Arsène Lupin, in which he found less scope to impose a personal touch (and the only two films he made in colour). In 1958, Becker took over the filming of Montparnasse 19 from Max Ophuls who died while preparing the project about the last years of the painter Modigliani, but because of its hybrid origins it remained a troubled production. In Le Trou (1960), which recounted in almost documentary fashion the planning of a prison escape (based on a real event of 1947), Becker was able to return to a more personal and rigorous style. It was Becker's final film and he died shortly before its release, which then brought some of the warmest acclaim of his career. Becker was 53 when he died of lung cancer in February 1960, and he was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. His children by his first marriage included Jean Becker, who also became a film director (and assisted his father on several of his later films), and Étienne Becker who was a cinematographer. In 1957, the actress Françoise Fabian became Becker's second wife.

• Year — Title — English title — Notes • 1935 — Tête de turc — Medium-length film (42 mins) • Le Commissaire est bon enfant, le gendarme est sans pitié — Medium-length film (40 mins) • 1940 — L'Or du Cristobal — Cristobal's Gold — Becker left the film, which was completed by Jean Stelli • 1942 — Dernier Atout — The Trump Card • 1943 — Goupi Mains Rouges — It Happened at the Inn • 1945 — Falbalas — Paris Frills • 1947 — Antoine et Antoinette — Antoine and Antoinette • 1949 — Rendez-vous de juillet — Rendezvous in July • 1951 — Édouard et Caroline — Edward and Caroline • 1952 — Casque d'or — Casque d'or / Golden Marie • 1953 — Rue de l'Estrapade — Rue de l'Estrapade / Françoise Steps Out • 1954 — Touchez pas au grisbi — Touchez pas au grisbi / Grisbi / Honour Among Thieves • Ali Baba et les Quarante Voleurs — Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves • 1957 — Les Aventures d'Arsène Lupin — The Adventures of Arsène Lupin • 1958 — Montparnasse 19 / Les Amants de Montparnasse — Montparnasse 19 / The Lovers of Montparnasse — Becker took over the film from Max Ophüls who died while preparing the project • 1960 — Le Trou — Le Trou / The Night Watch / The Hole

• Year — Title — English title — Directed by — Notes • 1931 — Y'en a pas deux comme Angélique — Roger Lion • Allô... Allô... — Roger Lion — Short • 1932 — La Nuit du carrefour — Night at the Crossroads — Jean Renoir • Boudu sauvé des eaux — Boudu Saved from Drowning — Jean Renoir • 1933 — Chotard et Cie — Chotard and Company — Jean Renoir • Madame Bovary — Madame Bovary — Jean Renoir — Uncredited • 1936 — La vie est à nous — Life Belongs to Us — Jean Renoir & collective — Becker directed one short sequence of this anthology film and was an assistant director • Les Bas-fonds — The Lower Depths — Jean Renoir • 1937 — La Grande Illusion — Grand Illusion — Jean Renoir • 1938 — La Marseillaise — La Marseillaise — Jean Renoir • 1940 — L'Héritier de Mondésir — The Mondesir Heir — Albert Valentin • 1946 — Partie de campagne — A Day in the Country — Jean Renoir — Produced in 1936