Michel Deville

Career overview

Michel Deville was a French film director and screenwriter born on April 13, 1931, in Boulogne-Billancourt, where he resided throughout his life. He entered the film industry by working as an assistant, notably spending nearly a decade working with Henri Decoin. Deville began his own directing career in the late 1950s, a period that coincided with the emergence of the French New Wave. Although he was a contemporary of filmmakers such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claude Chabrol, he was not considered part of that movement.

Throughout his career, which included 42 known credits, Deville maintained a filmmaking style that was more conventional than that of his New Wave peers. While he did not attain the same level of international or critical recognition as some of his contemporaries, his work remained notable within French cinema. His films, particularly his comedies produced during the 1970s and 1980s, achieved popularity in his native France. At one point in his career, he produced a small number of standard commercial films specifically to settle the debts of his own film company following the departure of a business partner. Michel Deville passed away on February 16, 2023, at the age of 91.