Raúl Ruiz | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (1941-07-25)25 July 1941 Puerto Montt, Chile |
| Died | 19 August 2011(2011-08-19) (aged 70) Paris, France |
| Other names | Raoul Ruiz |
| Alma mater | University of Chile |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1963–2011 |
| Style | Drama,comedy,experimental film |
| Spouse | |
Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (French:Raoul Ruiz; 25 July 1941 – 19 August 2011) was an experimental Chileanfilmmaker, writer and teacher whose work is best known in France. He directed more than 100 films.[1]
The son of aship's captain and aschoolteacher insouthern Chile, Raúl Ruiz abandoned his university studies in theology and law to write 100 plays with the support of aRockefeller Foundation grant. He went on to learn his craft working in Chilean and Mexican television[2] and studying at film school in Argentina (1964). Back in Chile, he made his feature debutThree Sad Tigers (1968), sharing theGolden Leopard at the 1969Locarno Film Festival. According to Ruiz in a 1991 interview,Three Sad Tigers "is a film without a story, it is the reverse of a story. Somebody kills somebody. All the elements of a story are there but they are used like a landscape, and the landscape is used like story."[3] He was something of an outsider among the politically orientedChilean filmmakers of his generation such asMiguel Littín andPatricio Guzmán, his work being far more ironic, surrealistic and experimental. In 1973, shortly after themilitary coup d'état led byAugusto Pinochet, Ruiz and his wife (fellow directorValeria Sarmiento) fled Chile and settled in Paris, France.[4]
Ruiz soon developed a reputation among European critics andcinephiles as an avant-garde film magician, writing and directing a remarkable number of amusing, eccentric, complex, and highly literarylow-to-no-budget films in the 1970s and 1980s (often for France'sInstitut national de l'audiovisuel and then for Portuguese producerPaulo Branco). The best known of these oftenoneiric,fabulist films are:Colloque de chiens (1977), a short which marked the start of Ruiz's long-term working relationship with Chilean composerJorge Arriagada;The Suspended Vocation (1978);The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1978);On Top of the Whale (1982);Three Crowns of the Sailor (1982);City of Pirates (1983);Manoel's Destinies (1985);Treasure Island (1985) andLife is a Dream (1986).[5] A special issue ofCahiers du cinéma was devoted to Ruiz in March 1983.[6]
In the 1990s, Ruiz began working with larger budgets and "name" stars likeJohn Hurt inDark at Noon (1992) andMarcello Mastroianni inThree Lives and Only One Death (1996). The following year, he madeGenealogies of a Crime starringCatherine Deneuve, winning theSilver Bear at the47th Berlin International Film Festival.[7] A second major French actress,Isabelle Huppert, worked with Ruiz onComedy of Innocence (2000), which was nominated for theGolden Lion at theVenice Film Festival. The AmericanJohn Malkovich acted in the star-studdedMarcel Proust adaptationTime Regained (1999) and the somewhat less successfulSavage Souls (2001) andKlimt (2006).That Day (2003) was the fourth and last Ruiz film to be shown in the main competition of theCannes Film Festival.[8] He also made forays into the English-language mainstream with the thrillersShattered Image (1998) andA Closed Book (2010). In the final decade of his life, Ruiz wrote and directed several low-budget productions in his native Chile, but his final international success was the Franco-Portuguese epicMysteries of Lisbon (2010).
Ruiz claimed that he was "always trying to make this connection between different ways of producing: film, theater, installations, and videos" – he hoped his "films would have to be seen many times, like objects in the house, like a painting. They have to have a minimum of complexity."[3] Over the years, he taught his own particular brand offilm theory, which he explained in his two booksPoetics of Cinema 1: Miscellanies (1995) andPoetics of Cinema 2 (2007), and actively engaged in film and video projects with university and film school students in many countries, including the US, France, Colombia, Chile, Italy and Scotland.[9]
Ruiz died in August 2011 as a result of complications from a lung infection, having successfully undergone a liver transplant in early 2010 after being diagnosed with a life-threatening tumour. The Presidents of France and Chile both praised him.[10][11] The Church of Saint George-Paul in Paris held a memorial service which was attended by many notable friends, includingCatherine Deneuve,Chiara Mastroianni,Melvil Poupaud,Paulo Branco,Arielle Dombasle,Michel Piccoli andJorge Edwards. Ruiz's body was then returned to Chile to be buried as specified in his will and aNational Day of Mourning was declared in Chile.[12]
Ruiz's final completed featureNight Across the Street (2012) was selected to be screened posthumously in theDirectors' Fortnight section of the2012 Cannes Film Festival.[13][14] His widowValeria Sarmiento, who was also his collaborator and frequent editor for several decades, completedLines of Wellington (2012), the Napoleonic epic that Ruiz was preparing when he died[15][16] and the film was in competition for theGolden Lion at the69th Venice International Film Festival[17] and as a Zabaltegi Special at the 2012San Sebastián International Film Festival.[18] Both films were also shown at the2012 Toronto International Film Festival[19] and the 2012New York Film Festival.[20]
On 25 July 2014,Serpentine Galleries inLondon launched "Pirates and Disappearances: A Homage to Raúl Ruiz", a weekend of Ruiz-related talks and screenings.[21] The most complete retrospective yet of Ruiz's work took place at theCinémathèque française inParis between 30 March and 30 May 2016.[22] Another retrospective commemoration was held atLincoln Center inNew York City which ran during the week ending 22 December 2016[23] with Part 2 in February 2018.[24] The next major retrospective took place at theViennale from October 2023 to January 2024[25] and will be followed by another at theCinemateca Portuguesa which begins in February 2024.[26]
The feature filmThe Wandering Soap Opera, which Ruiz had shot in Chile in 1990 but left unfinished, was completed by Sarmiento and premiered at theLocarno Film Festival in August 2017. Ruiz's feature debutThe Tango of the Widower and its Distorting Mirror, filmed in 1967 but shelved following budgetary problems, was restored by Sarmiento for a February 2020 premiere in the70th Berlin International Film Festival.[27]
A third Ruiz film,Socialist Realism as One of the Fine Arts, has been restored and completed by Sarmiento for its official premiere in 2023. Ruiz was not able to give the film a final edit as a result of the Chilean coup in 1973 and it was presumed lost for many years. A fifty-minuterough cut was shown at theValdivia International Film Festival in 2008, but four-and-a-half hours of footage was recovered from the archives ofDuke University in 2016.[28]
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