Charles Bitsch

Bitsch was born in Mulhouse in 1931 and moved to Paris with his family in 1934.^[1] He studied at the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière from 1951 to 1953, training as a director of photography.^[2]

He became involved with the Cahiers du cinéma group through the ciné-club Objectif 49, where he met François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. He published his first article for the journal in 1955 and contributed reviews, bio-filmographies, and interviews over the following years, notably conducting interviews with Orson Welles (with André Bazin), Nicholas Ray, Vincente Minnelli, and Anthony Mann.^[3] He also wrote for the magazine Arts, occasionally under the pseudonym Louis Chabert.^[1]

As cinematographer, he shot Rivette's Le Coup du berger (1956), which he co-wrote, and Paris nous appartient (1961), as well as Éric Rohmer's short Véronique et son cancre (1958). As assistant director, he worked on Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958), Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), and Landru (1962), and on Melville's Le Doulos (1962).^[3]

His longest professional association was with Godard, for whom he served as assistant director on Vivre sa vie (1962), Les Carabiniers (1963), Le Mépris (1963), Alphaville (1965), Made in U.S.A. (1966), 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (1967), and La Chinoise (1967), among others.^[3] For Alphaville, Bitsch wrote a thirty-page treatment that Godard submitted to financiers without reading.^[4] He also located the Villa Malaparte on Capri for the filming of Le Mépris and negotiated access to the site.^[5] Writing in Cahiers du cinéma after Bitsch's death, Alain Bergala described him as the person on whom Godard had always known he could rely, at whatever post was needed.^[6]

His sole theatrical feature, Le Dernier Homme (1969), was a science fiction film set in an underground bunker after a global catastrophe, photographed by Pierre Lhomme.^[7] Financed with a loan from Godard's production company Anouchka Films and additional funds from Philippe de Broca,^[8] the film won the grand prize at the Festival of Trieste but was not a commercial success.^[3][8] From the mid-1970s he worked primarily in French television, directing TV films and episodes of series including Pause-café (1989).^[3]

Bitsch died on 27 May 2016 in Villejuif, aged 85.^[9]