Jean Vigo

Battling chronic lung disease throughout his life, branded a traitor's son by his fellow countrymen, dead at the untimely age of 29, Jean Vigo left a truncated cinema legacy of four films. Despite his meager output, Vigo has become one of the most influential French filmmakers of the century, even if it was an honor he would never live to see. At the time of their release, the films now considered Vigo's three masterpieces, "A propos de Nice" (1929), "Zero de conduite" (1933) and "L'Atalante" (1934), were largely vilified by the critics, ignored by the public, recut and butchered by producers and exhibitors. Not until the late 1940s, during the postwar art cinema movement, was Vigo's work rediscovered and finally appreciated for its unique combination of lyric realism and daring surrealism and for its and poetic simplicity.