Before the three-month exhibition of Raymond Cauchetier’s Nouvelle Vague pictures goes up in Los Angeles, a smaller selection of the photographer’s work will be on display at the Galerie Polka in Paris, a selection is also featured in the latest issue of the magazine.

Here is another occasion to remark that no man is a prophet in his own country. Everyone is familiar with Cauchetier’s iconic photographs, like Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo strolling down the Champs-Élysées on the set of Breathless (1959), but apparently he was found not “intellectual” enough in France, even if in 2009 the American magazine Aperture (#197) described Cauchetier’s photographs as “central works about the Nouvelle Vague .”

These exhibitions and a new book, Photos de cinéma, autour de la Nouvelle vague 1958-1968, are there to witness the quality of his work. We see all the films, actors and big names of the era: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Varda, Demy, Melville, Tavernier, Jeanne Moreau, Françoise Dorléac and Jean-Paul Belmondo. And we can ask real questions about the sense of publishers once we learn that, not having any, Cauchetier was forced to publish the work himself, while the number of forgettable books destined to the compost heap seems on the increase every year. No publisher, no festival director or institution, no reviews, no magazines covered this important body of work! Today 92 years old (he was born in Paris in 1920), Raymond Cauchetier will have his work presented at the Galerie Polka for the very first time in his native France. It simply cries to be seen.

There was no good reason for Raymond Cauchetier to find himself in the heart of the Nouvelle Vague . As a captain and French Air Force spokesman stationed in Saigon, Cauchetier became a photographer almost by accident. “In the absence of photographers, my superiors told me to figure it out for myself. How complicated can it be? They ended up preferring my pictures to the ones taken by the previous photographer.” It was there that he first met Pierre Schœndœrffer, but it was another chance meeting, with Marcel Camus, that first brought him to films set. “When I understood that I was standing before a genuine cinematic revolution, instead of merely shooting a few pictures after every take, I decided to make a full report.” The famous photograph from Breathless was taken off the set. “There were too many people around, so I took the two actors to the other end of the avenue and took two pictures, this one and a bad one. I broke with the tradition of set photographers who are supposed to position themselves where the camera is pointed during the last take. I wanted to make a report instead.They begged me to stop and chased me away, because the public wasn’t supposed to know what’s going on during the filming.”

After his meeting with Camus, Cauchetier, who had left the army after Diên Biên Phu, stayed in Saigon to take photos, collected in a short book, Saigon, which was well reviewed in the United States.
When the episode with the Nouvelle Vague ended, Cauchetier worked on a twenty-year project documenting Roman sculptures across Europe, going on to do the same across Southeast Asia, in particular in the temples of Angkor— another project looking for of a publisher.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.perrine1@orange.fr

Exhibitions

Raymond Cauchetier
Le cinéma du reporter

Alexander Gronsky
Mountains & Waters
Until March 3, 2012

Polka galerie
12 rue Saint Gilles
75003 Paris

mardi-samedi 11h-19h30
+33 (0)1 71 20 54 97
contact@polkagalerie.com

Edition

"Photo de cinéma"
Autour de la nouvelle vague 1958-1968
Text: Marc Vernet
"Le Photographe escamoté"
Image France Édition
BP 1014
75560 Paris Cedex 12