Marcel Camus

Marcel Camus (21 April 1912 – 13 January 1982) was a French film director. He is best known for Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), which won the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival and the 1960 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Camus was born in Chappes, in the Ardennes département of France. He studied art and intended to become an art teacher. However, World War II interrupted his plans. He spent part of the war in a German prisoner-of-war camp. On his return from captivity, his uncle, famous novelist, Roland Dorgelès introduced him to several film-makers. Camus assisted filmmakers in France, including Jacques Feyder, Luis Buñuel, and Jacques Becker. In a famous photo of the French New Wave filmmakers, taken on the steps of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes in 1959, Marcel Camus appears alongside François Truffaut, François Reichenbach, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean-Luc Godard, Roger Vadim, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Jacques Rozier, Jacques Baratier, Jean Valère, Édouard Molinaro and Robert Hossein. In 1958, at the suggestion of producer Sacha Gordine, he travelled to Brazil to adapt for the screen, with the help of Jacques Viot, a play by famous poet and diplomat Vinícius de Moraes, Orfeu da Conceição, which became Orfeu Negro. It was a transposition of the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro during Carnival. The film won over both the general public and a large proportion of the critics. The film was a worldwide success…