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La Salamandre

Quinzaine 1971 | Feature film | 128'

Two men, arty though somewhat staid, are drawn to the spirited and quixotic Rosemonde, a young working-class woman whom they meet because they’re writing a teleplay about a minor but curious event in which either her uncle was wounded while cleaning his rifle or she shot him. Pierre is a free-lance journalist hired to write the script; he’s short of time so he asks a Bohemian poet friend, Paul, to help. Pierre wants facts and tracks down Rosemonde for interviews that lead to other explorations; Paul only wants to imagine her and needs little more than her name to do so. But he does meet her, and she entangles him, too. Did she cause the shooting? Is she venomous or innocent?

Director

Alain Tanner

Alain Tanner (born 6 December 1929 in Geneva) is a Swiss film director. Alain Tanner studied economics at the university of Geneva. In 1951, he joined the film club that Claude Goretta had just established at the university. After his college degree and a short time working for international shipping companies, he felt drawn to film. He found work at the British Film Institute in 1955, subtitling, translating, and organizing the archive. His first film, Nice Time, a short documentary about Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night, was made in 1957 with Claude Goretta. Produced by the British Film Institute Experimental Film Fund, it was first shown as part of the third Free Cinema programme at the National Film Theatre in May 1957. The debut film won a prize at the film festival in Venice and much critical praise. Tanner went to France for a while where he assisted with several commercial films. There, he met some of the most important directors of the French New Wave in Paris as well as Henri Langlois, the director of the Cinémathèque Française. Some critics have found the influences of Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Bresson in his films[citation needed]. But the atmosphere in the film circles of Paris displeased him; he described it as « cutthroat. » Between 1960 and 1968, Tanner returned to Switzerland, and he made more than 40 films as well as documentaries in this time for French-language television there. in 1962, he became the co-founder of the Swiss young filmmakers’ « Groupe Cinque. » His first feature film, Charles, Dead or Alive (1969), won the first prize at the international film festival in Locarno. His next two films, La Salamandre (1971) and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976), were made in close collaboration with the art critic and novelist John Berger, who had also worked with him, to a lesser degree and without a credit, on the writing of Charles. Influenced by his involvement with the British « Free Cinema » movement in London in the early 1960s and with the French New Wave during his years in Paris, Tanner is best known for his movies Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l’an 2000 (Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000), Dans la ville blanche (In the White City) and Messidor. [edit]

Artistic & technical sheet

With
Bulle Ogier
Claudine Berthet
Daniel Stuffel
Dominique Catton
Guillaume Chenevière
Jacques Denis
Janine Christoffe
Jean-Luc Bideau
Marblum Jequier
Marcel Vidal
Michel Viala
Mista Préchac
Pierre Walker
Véronique Alain
Violette Fleury

Image
Renato Berta

Prod : Alga Films
7, rue Carteret
1202 Genève

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