Jacques Natteau | |
|---|---|
 Jacques Natteau behind the camera | |
| Born | Jacques Etienne Chiuminatto 15 November 1920 Istanbul, Turkey |
| Died | 17 April 2007 (aged 86) Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Director of Photography |
| Nationality | French |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Catherine Breguet (1943–80) Nicholas Natteau |
Jacques Natteau (15 November 1920 – 17 April 2007) was a Frenchdirector of photography.
Natteau was born on 15 November 1920 inIstanbul, Turkey. His father, Edouard Chiuminatto, was a captain in the French Army who had fought in World War I and was wounded multiple times in the battles of theSomme, Chemin des Dames, andVerdun. After World War I, his father was dispatched to Turkey as part of theAllied occupation force where he met Rosine Foscolo, a direct descendant of the 19th century Italian poet,Ugo Foscolo. Edouard and Rosine married and gave birth to their only child, Jacques Etienne Chiuminatto. Under the terms of the 1919Versailles Treaty, the defeatedOttoman Empire, as an ally ofImperial Germany, surrendered and was occupied byAnglo-French forces. The French Army seized Turkey's railways and Edouard was put in charge of administering the railway network.
When Natteau was three years old,Kemal Atatürk came to power and ended the Allied occupation of Turkey. The family settled in Paris and the young Jacques Natteau won admittance to Paris's prestigiousLycée Henri IV where he graduated in 1938 earning hisBaccalauréat. He later remembered that, on 4 February 1934, he literally ran for his life as violent riots broke out in Paris prior to thecollapse of the French government.
Growing up in Paris's artistic6ème arrondissement in the 1930s, Natteau came to know some of its most successful residents includingJean Cocteau,Jacques Prévert,Jean-Paul Sartre,Simone de Beauvoir,Albert Camus,Pablo Picasso.
In 1939 on the eve of World War II, Edouard, haunted by the horrendous slaughter he had seen as a foot soldier in the bloodyBattle of Verdun, persuaded his son to join the French Air Force. In the summer of 1939, Jacques Natteau enlisted in the air force with his Lycée Henri IV friends, many of whom were scions of theFrench nobility: Jean-Marie de Premontville, Armagnac, Raoul de Vibray, and PrinceLouis Murat (direct descendant ofJoachim Murat,Napoleon's famous cavalry general).
By the time, Natteau and his friends had earned their wings asfighter pilots, the Franco-GermanPhoney War (September 1939 – May 1940) and theBattle of France and Hitler's victoriousblitzkrieg against the West (May–June 1940) had all but ended. But as fighter pilots they had engaged German and Italian enemy fighters on multiple occasions. On one occasion Natteau, flying aMorane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighter, engaged three Italian fighter pilots who were strafing French civilians on the road. He shot down two and the third escaped.
Upon France's collapse in 1940, Jacques Natteau linked up with theRoyal Air Force and fought in theBattle of Britain. His exploits earned him theDistinguished Flying Cross and theFrench Legion of Honor.
In 1938, the legendary French film director,Jean Renoir, gave him his first job as assistant camera man for the filmLa Bête humaine. But his career was interrupted by the onset of World War II.
After the war, he resumed his career in the late 1940s and went on to become one of Europe's most famous cinematographers in the 1950s and 1960s. Natteau was the favoured cinematographer forClaude Autant-Lara.[1]
He served as cinematographer for such French directors includingJean Renoir,Claude Autant-Lara,Marc Allégret,Marcel Carné andJules Dassin. Among the films to his credit as cinematographer areHe Who Must Die,Never on Sunday,Phaedra, andLe Comte de Monte Cristo.Claude Autant-Lara
Natteau was married twice, first in 1942 to Geneviève Langevin, with whom he had a daughter, Catherine; the couple divorced in 1953. In 1961, while working onLe Comte de Monte Cristo, he met actressYvonne Furneaux who starred as "Emma" inLa Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini).[2] They lived between London, Paris, and Rome in the 1960s as they continued to pursue their film careers. They were married from 1962 until his death.[3] He had two children: Catherine with Geneviève and Nicholas Natteau, a director and producer, with Yvonne. Catherine and her only child Alexandre were murdered in 1980 by her estranged ex-husband Maxime Breguet who then committed suicide.
Jacques Natteau died ofpneumonia while traveling inLausanne, Switzerland, on 17 April 2007.
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