Louis Malle

Calcutta

Calcutta

When he was cutting Phantom India, Louis Malle found that the footage shot in Calcutta was so diverse, intense, and unforgettable that it deserved its own film. The result, released theatrically, is at times shocking—a chaotic portrait of a city engulfed in social and political turmoil, edging ever closer to oblivion.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1969
  • 99 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • French

Available In

Collector's Set

Eclipse Series 2: The Documentaries of Louis Malle

The Documentaries of Louis Malle

DVD Box Set

5 Discs

$63.96

Calcutta
Credits
Director
Louis Malle
Producer
Nouvelles Éditions de Films
Screenplay
Louis Malle
Cinematography
Étienne Becker
Cinematography
Louis Malle
Sound
Jean-Claude Laureux
Editing
Suzanne Baron

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Louis Malle

Director

Louis Malle
Louis Malle

Crime dramas, comedies, romances, tragedies, fantasies, documentaries, and, of course, coming-of-age stories­—director Louis Malle did it all. This most unpredictable and eclectic of filmmakers enriched cinema over a nearly forty-year career that took him from Jacques Cousteau’s watery depths (his first film was the Cousteau-codirected Oscar winner The Silent World) to the peripheries of the French New Wave (Zazie dans le métro, The Fire Within) to the vanguard of American moviemaking (My Dinner with André). Malle had an intellectually curious nature that led him to approach film from a variety of angles; he was as comfortable making minimalist works like the wordless Humain trop humain and the talky André as phantasmagorical ones like Black Moon. He is probably best known, though, for his deeply personal films about the terrors and confusions of childhood, such as Murmur of the Heart and Au revoir les enfants. Perhaps not as well-known is his parallel career as a master of the nonfiction form—one of his many documentary achievements was the seven-part Phantom India, which would be a stunning career centerpiece for anyone else; for this director, it was simply a fascinating side project. Malle died in 1995, shortly after directing his final film, the typically experimental Vanya on 42nd Street.