Jean Vigo

Jean Vigo (April 26 1905 - October 5 1934) was a French film director. The son of the famous French anarchist Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo (also known as Miguel Almereyda]], much of his early life was spent on the run with his parents. His father was found dead in mysterious circumstances after capture in a prison cell in 1917 and Vigo was subsequently sent to boarding school under an assumed name, Jean Sales, to conceal his identity.

He is noted for two highly significant films which significantly affected the future development of both French and world cinema: Zéro de Conduite (1933) (trans.:No Marks for Conduct) and L'Atalante (1934).

He also made two other films: A Propos de Nice (1929), a highly subversive silent film examining social inequity in 1920s Nice and the film Taris (1931), an elegant motion study of swimmer Jean Taris.

His films have been depicted by some and certainly by contemporaneous political administrations as being unpatriotic and were consequently heavily censored by the French government.