Alain Tanner 1929-2022

"The filmmaker Alain Tanner died on Sunday, September 11, 2022 at the age of 92. He was undoubtedly one of the most important Swiss directors, and in 20 feature films and numerous documentaries, he left his mark on the history of cinema with such essential works as LA SALAMANDRE, JONAS QUI AURA 25 ANS EN L'AN 2000, MESSIDOR and DANS LA VILLE BLANCHE. Co-founder of Groupe 5 with Claude Goretta, Michel Soutter, Jean-Louis Roy and Jean-Jacques Lagrange, he was one of the leaders of the "New Swiss Cinema" which was to become established at the end of the 1960s. He was also one of the major actors in the birth of the first Swiss film law in 1963, and fought for a long time for the 7th art to obtain public support and recognition.

Born in Geneva in 1929, he developed a passion for cinema from an early age, founding with his friend Claude Goretta the cine-club of the University in Geneva in 1951. Together, fascinated by British free cinema and particularly the work of Lindsay Anderson, they left for London in 1955 to work at the British Film Institute at the end of the 1950s, where they made the short film NICE TIME (Picadilly la nuit) in 1957, which won them a prize at the Nizza Film Festival and a selection to Venice.

Back in Geneva, they joined the French-speaking Swiss Television where they made numerous reports, notably for the programme Continent sans visa. At the same time, he made various commissioned works such as L'ECOLE (1962), a film in polyvision on school architecture for the 12th Milan Triennial, and LES APPRENTIS, a feature-length documentary on apprenticeship that was shown at Expo 64 in Lausanne. In 1968, Alain Tanner was in Paris filming the events of May for the TSR (Le pouvoir dans la rue). This experience led him to write his first feature film: CHARLES MORT OU VIF (1969), which was selected for the Critics' Week in Cannes and won the Golden Leopard in Locarno.

This first fiction, co-written with John Berger and directed by Renato Berta, then in his early days, and in which Jean-Luc Bideau made his first appearance, is a true marker of the filmmaker's entire work: a committed, resistant cinema, always in tune with the contemporary world. It is striking to note how much this film still resonates today with a young audience through its reflection on freedom, ecology and the refusal of the shackles imposed by society.

Two years later, LA SALAMANDRE (1971), presented at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, established the figure of Rosemonde (Bulle Ogier), the rebel, resistant to all established order, the courageous incarnation of a critique of conformism and bourgeois Switzerland. Although the film was an international success, particularly in France, it was hardly appreciated in Switzerland where Tanner had to distribute it himself!

From then on, Alain Tanner built up a remarkable body of work marked by successes and international awards, in particular JONAS QUI AURA 25 ANS EN L'AN 2000 (1976), in which he revisits the unfulfilled dreams of '68. After MESSIDOR (1978), in which violence erupts in the revolt of his characters, he changes register - and country - and goes to Ireland to shoot the poem LES ANNEES LUMIERE, in which his hero (Trevor Howard) dreams of flying away like Icarus. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. Then, having worked for two years in the merchant navy in his youth, he went to Portugal to film the magnificent wanderings of a docked sailor played by Bruno Ganz: DANS LA VILLE BLANCHE (1983), César for best French-language film.

He then returned to Switzerland to film No Man's Land (1985), alternating between works that were sometimes more intimate, such as La vallée fantôme (1987), in which Paul (Jean-Louis Trintignant), his double, reflects on cinema, and sometimes more political, such as LA FEMME DE ROSE HILLE (1989), about "arranged" marriages with Southern women. He even made a kind of testament film in which he told everyone that he was quitting filmmaking: PAUL S'EN VA (2004). A close friend of Freddy Buache, Alain Tanner has deposited all his archives at the Swiss Film Archive, which devoted a retrospective to him in 2010, in his presence. He returned in 2011 for the launch of the very complete website dedicated to him alaintanner.ch. At the same time, our institution has collaborated with the Alain Tanner Association for the restoration and digitisation of all his films, a task that will soon be completed and has enabled most of his works to be put back into circulation in Switzerland and abroad. Finally, we would like to point out that a major research project is currently underway in our archives, led by Professor Alain Boillat, financed by the SNSF and carried out within the UNIL-Cinémathèque suisse collaboration: Le scénario chez Alain Tanner: discours et pratiques. In the wake of this collective project, Alain Boillat will soon publish a book on Alain Tanner in the Savoir suisse collection published by EPFL Press. On Wednesday 28 September, we will screen LA SALAMANDRE (1971) before paying him a more extensive tribute.

The Swiss National Film Archive sends its condolences to the family and close friends of Alain Tanner."

Frédéric Maire, September 12, 2022