Claude Chabrol

A founding father of French New Wave cinema, director Claude Chabrol's fascination with genre films, and the detective drama in particular, fueled a lengthy and celebrated string of thrillers, including "Les Bonnes Femmes" (1959), "Les Biches" (1968), La Femme Infidèle" (1968) and "Que la bête meure" (1969), which explored the human heart under extreme emotional duress. Chabrol began as a contributor to the celebrated film magazine Cahiers du Cinema alongside such film legends as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard before launching his directorial career in 1957. He quickly established himself as a versatile filmmaker whose innate understanding of genre tropes informed the complex triangular relationships at the center of many of his films, which frequently served as a prism through which commentary on class conflict could be obliquely addressed. Chabrol's mordant sense of humor and penchant for violent scenarios were alternately embraced and rejected by moviegoers over the course of his five-decade career, but the talent he displayed in depicting these dark deeds, as well as his status among the pantheon of French New Wave cinema, underscored his significance as one of his native country's most prolific and wickedly gifted craftsmen.