Bruno Dumont | |
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 Dumont in 2024 | |
| Born | (1958-03-14)14 March 1958 (age 67) |
| Occupations |
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Bruno Dumont (French:[dymɔ̃]; born 14 March 1958) is a Frenchfilm director andscreenwriter. To date, he has directed twelve feature films, all of which border somewhere between realistic drama and the avant-garde.
His films have won several awards at theCannes Film Festival. Two of Dumont's films have won theGrand Prix award: bothL'Humanité (1999)[1] andFlandres (2006).[2]
Dumont has a background in Greek and German (Western) philosophy and in corporate video.[3] Regarding leaving teaching philosophy as a profession he said: “I studied philosophy because it demands an intellectual outlook on the world [...] But I soon discovered that philosophy was too subjective: it lacks heart, it’s over-intellectual, and I found that it made me cut myself off from the everyday.” His early films show the ugliness of extremeviolence and provocativesexual behaviour, and are usually classified asart films. Later films bring novel twists to other movie genres like comedy or musicals. Dumont has himself likened his films tovisual arts, and he typically uses long takes, close-ups of people's bodies, and story lines involving extreme emotions. Dumont does not write traditional scripts for his films. Instead, he writes complete novels, which are then the basis for his filmmaking.
Dumont is known to cast nonprofessional actors in his films. In a 2019 interview for theCriterion Channel, Dumont explained: "If I believed in the ideal, I'd hire a professional actor, and I'd tell them, 'Act like this because this is the truth. Since I don't believe in the ideal, I hire nonprofessional actors...because I believe that anyone is a holder of the truth."[4] He says that some of his favorite filmmakers areStanley Kubrick,Ingmar Bergman,Pier Paolo Pasolini,Roberto Rossellini, andAbbas Kiarostami. He is frequently considered an artistic heir toRobert Bresson.
His often polarising work has been connected to a recent French cinéma du corps/cinema of the body, encompassing contemporary films byClaire Denis,Marina de Van,Gaspar Noé,Diane Bertrand, andFrançois Ozon, among others. According toTim Palmer, this trajectory includes a focus on states of corporeality in and of themselves, independent of narrative exposition or character psychology.[5] In a more pejorative vein,James Quandt has also talked of some of this group of filmmakers, as the so-calledNew French Extremity.[6]
His 2011 filmHors Satan premiered in theUn Certain Regard section at the2011 Cannes Film Festival.[7][8] His 2013 filmCamille Claudel 1915 premiered in competition at the63rd Berlin International Film Festival.[9]
Dumont is an atheist.[10]
| Year | English title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | The Life of Jesus | La vie de Jésus | Camera d’Or - Special Mention |
| 1999 | Humanité | CannesGrand Prix | |
| 2003 | Twentynine Palms | ||
| 2006 | Flandres | Flanders | CannesGrand Prix |
| 2009 | Hadewijch | International Film Critics' prize atTIFF | |
| 2011 | Hors Satan | ||
| 2013 | Camille Claudel 1915 | ||
| 2014 | Li'l Quinquin | P'tit Quinquin | |
| 2016 | Slack Bay | Ma Loute | |
| 2017 | Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc | Jeannette, l’enfance de Jeanne d’Arc | |
| 2018 | Coincoin and the Extra-Humans | Coincoin et les z'inhumains | |
| 2019 | Joan of Arc | Jeanne | Special Mention -Un Certain Regard[11] |
| 2021 | France | ||
| 2024 | The Empire | L'Empire | Silver Bear Jury Prize |
| 2025 | Red Rocks | Les Roches Rouges | |
Dumont started with the shocking, visionary realism of movies such as The Life of Jesus (1997), Humanity (1999) and Outside Satan (2011). Then he moved boldly and very successfully into broad comedy with his TV miniseries Li'l Quinquin (2014) and the period diversion Slack Bay (2016), amplifying the bat-squeak of humour that was probably there all along.
