Christian Matras

Birth : 1903-12-29, Valence, Drome, France

Death : 1977-05-04

History

Christian Matras (29 December 1903, Valence, Drôme, France - 4 May 1977, Paris) was a French cinematographer who worked on more than hundred feature films, including Grand Illusion (1937), directed by Jean Renoir; The Milky Way (1969), directed by Luis Buñuel; and Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962), directed by Georges Franju; Lola Montès (1955), The Earrings of Madame De... (1953), Le Plaisir (1952), La Ronde (1950), all directed by Max Ophüls; and L'Aigle à deux têtes (1948) directed by Jean Cocteau. Source: Article "Christian Matras (cinematographer)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Movies

Pas folle la guêpe
Cinematography
Varietés
Director of Photography
Spain 1930s. A troupe of performers travel from city to city entertaining audiences and earning a living. The cast includes a magician, a ventriloquist, muscle men, dancers, singers and a full orchestra. The star of the show is Carmen Soler (Trini Alonso) a celebrated singer, now way past her prime, who refuses to retire gracefully and defends her stardom ruthlessly. On her shadow lives and works Ana Marques (Sara Montiel) a younger singer who dreams of the big time and patiently waits for her break.
Le Bal du comte d'Orgel
Director of Photography
Nobles try desperately to cling to the crumbling aristocracy in the days following World War I. The Count (Jean-Claude Brialy) and his Countess Mahe (Sylvia Fennec) delight in throwing lavish costume balls. The couple develops a friendship with a young boy who delights in the parties thrown by the noble couple. Love soon blooms between the Countess and the boy as she searches for something more than a string of endless parties and social affairs. The masquerades are an attempt to freeze time and hold on to the nostalgia of a bygone era. For fear of losing her, the Count allows the Countess to continue her love affair.
Las Leandras
Director of Photography
Esa mujer
Director of Photography
The Milky Way
Cinematography
Two drifters go on a pilgrimage from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Along the way, they hitchhike, beg for food, and face the Christian dogmas and heresies from different Ages.
Risky Business
Director of Photography
A teenage girl accuses her primary schoolteacher, Jean Doucet (Jacques Brel), of trying to rape her. The police and the mayor investigate, but Doucet denies the charges. Two other students come forward to reveal more of Doucet's misconduct – one confessing to be his mistress. Doucet faces trial and hard labor if convicted.
Woman Times Seven
Director of Photography
Seven mini-stories of adultery: "Funeral Possession," a wayward widow at her husband's funeral; "Amateur Night," angry wife becomes streetwalker out of revenge; "Two Against One," seemingly prudish girl turns out otherwise; "Super Simone," wife vainly attempts to divert her over-engrossed writer husband; "At the Opera," a battle over a supposedly exclusive dress; "Suicides," a death pact; "Snow," would-be suitor is actually a private detective hired by jealous husband.
The Desperate Ones
Director of Photography
In 1941, two Polish brothers escape a Soviet gulag. Their only escape route is through the impossible mountains of Afghanistan and the KGB is on their tail.
La mujer perdida
Director of Photography
Sara is the daughter of a fisherman. She leaves her small village but she goes to Madrid to work as a flamenco singer in a club
The Lace Wars
Director of Photography
In the 18th century, as the army of Prince De Beaulieu lays siege on the fortress of Marechal D'Allenberg, a young princess sends a soldier out of the fortress to go find her lover.
La dama de Beirut
Director of Photography
Isabel is a beautiful aspiring singer with great aspirations but persistent bad luck convicted of a crime she did not commit. Serving time in prison she is released under parole and lands a singing gig at a dive in Barcelona where she meets Sandro "The Greek" and his partner lover Gloria. The couple is posing as entertainment promoters but they are really running a prostitution ring based in Beirut. They offer Isabel a two-year contract to perform in "night clubs" in the Near and Mideast even after they learn that she cannot travel abroad due to her legal status. Upon arrival in Beirut, Isabel and the other girls are sped away to a luxurious villa where they discover the real intentions of the pseudo-promoters. They are expected to sing and dance but also to engage in sexual activities with the rich clients that patronize the place. Isabel pretends to go along with the situation but she has a plan to get away
Los pistoleros de Arizona
Director of Photography
Los Pistoleros de Arizona known in the United States as Five Thousand Dollars on One Ace is a 1965 Spanish, Italian and West German Spaghetti Western film directed by Alfonso Balcázar.
This Special Friendship
Director of Photography
A tale of the tender relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and the fourteen-year-old upperclassman who is the object of his desire, all set within the rigid atmosphere of a Jesuit-run school.
Scheherazade
Cinematography
Sheherazade is promised to a powerful Sultan as a gift in exchange for free passage to the Holy Land. When the Sultan's underling saves her from certain death, she falls madly in love with her hero.
Le Coup de bambou
Director of Photography
Therese
Director of Photography
Thérèse is living in a provincial town, unhappily married to Bernard, a dull, pompous man whose only interest is preserving his family name and property. They live in an isolated country mansion surrounded by servants. Early in her marriage her only comforts are her fondness for Bernard's pine-tree forest, which was her primary reason for marrying him, and her love for her sister-in-law and Bernard's half-sister, Anne. The movie recounts in flashback the circumstances that led to her being charged with poisoning her husband.
Crime Does Not Pay
Director of Photography
Husband try to kill his wife with a help of the plan he saw in a film. But reality is not a film.
Cartouche
Director of Photography
In the 18th century, Louis de Bourguignon is working with the Malichot's gang, but their ways are too 'unethical' for him. He creates his own band, acting under the name of Cartouche, making audacious robberies of the rich people, and even distributing the takings with the poor. Thus, cartouche attracts the people's sympathies, Venus's love, and hate from the Police and Malichot... Cartouche can escape all the traps they set at him - except the entrapments of love. Eventually, he will be saved by a woman, at her own cost.
The Game of Truth
Director of Photography
A dozen elegant people are gathered in a writer's desirable mansion. In the grand tradition of Agatha Christie, they all have something to hide.They begin a cruel game of truth, a game where you're not supposed to tell lies. As the questions become more and more intimate and precise, the tempers rise, while outside the storm is raging. Enter a hateful person (played by Paul Meurisse, the nasty headmaster in "Les Diaboliques") who seems to know a lot about them. Someone is murdered. Whodunit?
Paris Blues
Cinematography
During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
The French Game
Director of Photography
Wishing to find an old love that resurfaced, Juan, a Chilean diplomat, Dominique asks his friend François to act as an intermediary.
Vers l'extase
Director of Photography
Die schöne Lügnerin
Director of Photography
In 1815 Vienna, a corsetmaker falls in love with a valet.
Christine
Director of Photography
Vienna, 1906. A passionate love story develops between Franz Lobheiner and the young Christine. Lobheiner is, however, currently seeing the married Baroness von Eggersdorf. Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, the Baron von Eggersdorf provokes a duel with Lobheiner. But the former is no longer a real threat to the Baron. Lobheiner is now passionately in love with Christine. How will this love quartet end?
The Lovers of Montparnasse
Director of Photography
Biographic film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, 1919, who falls in love with a girl from a wealthy family. Her parents are against this relationship and stop financial help. Modigliani worked and died in abject poverty in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.
A Kiss for a Killer
Director of Photography
In Nice, the wealthy widow Betty Farnwell falls for the charms of a handsome young man, Philippe Delaroche. Mrs Farnwell is so taken with Philippe that she persuades her bank to allow him to manage her financial affairs. Philippe, an unscrupulous opportunist, is not slow to turn the situation to his advantage and within no time he is married to his wealthy benefactor. Philippe has barely grown accustomed to wearing a wedding ring when he begins a romantic liaison with his wife’s attractive secretary, Eva. It soon transpires that Eva is even more ruthless than Philippe...
The Spies
Director of Photography
A doctor at a run-down psychiatric hospital is offered a large sum of money to shelter a new patient. Soon the place is full of suspicious and secretive characters, all apparently international secret agents trying to find out who and what the patient is.
Œil pour œil
Cinematography
In North Africa, an anguished husband tests the character of the doctor he believes is responsible for his wife’s death.
Bold Adventure
Cinematography
Based on the book by Belgian XIX century author Charles de Coaster.
Lola Montès
Director of Photography
Lola Montes, previously a great adventuress, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.
The Secrets of the Bed
Cinematography
Four-episode Franco-Italian omnibus film. Four men from different national and cultural background take refuge in a cabin after being sidetracked by bad weather on their way to conference.
Daughters of Destiny
Director of Photography
Three stories, very different in space and time. Lysistrata, a dancer from ancient times, Jeanne d'Arc, medieval warrior and Elisabeth, American war widow who comes on pilgrimage in Italy.
Lucrèce Borgia
Director of Photography
In the early 16th century, Italy is ruled by the powerful Borgia family, led by César Borgia and his sister Lucrèce. In a ruthless power play, César plots to have his sister’s husband murdered. But without her brother’s knowledge, Lucrèce has taken a strong lover who will challenge the Borgias.
The Earrings of Madame de...
Director of Photography
In France of the late 19th century, the wife of a wealthy general, the Countess Louise, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off debts; she claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, & her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.
Imperial Violets
Director of Photography
Fan-Fan the Tulip
Director of Photography
Fanfan is a young handsome peasant. He joins the army to escape marriage and because a gipsy girl predicted he will get glory and the king's daughter as a wife. But the gipsy girl was in fact Adeline, the daughter of the recruiting officer. Once he has discovered the stratagem, Fanfan refuses to forget this dream and decides to fulfill the destiny of the fake prediction. Fantastic swashbuckling adventures in a 18th century setting, with a light criticism of the war and the mighty.
Le Plaisir
Director of Photography
Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.
Adorable Creatures
Director of Photography
Andre Noblet, a 21-year-old French artist falls madly in love with Christine, the mother of two children. He tells Chistine he will tell all to her husband and demand her freedom. Christine learns that her husband has been carrying on a romance of his own and they have a meeting.
Olivia
Cinematography
"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress, Mlle. Julie, and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Mlle. Julie and the other head of the school, Mlle. Cara, in its final months.
La Ronde
Director of Photography
An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
The Wind Is My Lover
Director of Photography
Set in medieval times about the cursed Moonshield family. The young knight Erland Moonshield fall in love with a gypsy enchantress, Singoalla, he meet in the forest.
Stolen Affections
Director of Photography
The ordeal of Françoise who, deceived by her husband, sees her dying child. After a few events in the backdrop of a festival, the husband returns, she pushes him away, driving him to suicide. Another man she thinks she loves is already married.
Man to Men
Director of Photography
The story of the Swiss soldier, Henri Dunant, who was responsible for the founding of the Red Cross, and who was offered the first Nobel Peace Prize.
The Eagle with Two Heads
Cinematography
Political intrigue and psychological drama run parallel. The queen is in seclusion, veiling her face for the ten years since her husband's assassination, longing to join him in death. Stanislas, a poet whose pen name is Azrael, is a suicidal anarchist, his imagination haunted into hate by longing for this queen who's drawn apart. He enters her private quarters intent on killing her then himself, but they fall in love, in part because he looks like the king. Stanislas wants her to regain political power by appearing to the public, and she tries to convince him to find hope and escape. All the while, the queen's enemies plot to keep the lovers together but to thwart their plans.
Eternal Conflict
Director of Photography
Janvier, an embittered teacher, is fed up with his colorless, monotonous life. One day he breaks away and ends up becoming a circus clown. In his new world, he meets a beautiful acrobat nicknamed Lili and grows fonder and fonder of her every day of his life. The trouble is that the lady bestows her favors to two different lovers : wealthy married man Chardeuil and good-looking but listless young Antonio. He now considers his duty to make Lili recover her dignity.
The Chips Are Down
Director of Photography
"Les jeux sont faits," is a fantasy film based on a screenplay by French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. A society heiress and a resistance fighter are tragically killed at the same moment and meet in the afterlife. They are offered a second chance at life if they can prove their love is real or be doomed to roam the earth as ghosts.
The Beautiful Trip
Cinematography
She dragged out a more than mediocre life in the port of Antwerp; he is a renowned pianist-virtuoso. These two solitary beings, totally different, meet by chance on a liner and gradually realize that they complement each other harmoniously.
A Lover's Return
Director of Photography
1946, a man walks in Lyon. He makes a pilgrimage to the places of his childhood. Another man, Edmond Gonin, recognizes him. It was Jean-Jacques Sauvage, whom he had ousted in a "radical" way with a young heiress. Only Savage is not dead, and here he is on the scene of his first love.
The Idiot
Director of Photography
Muichkine, a young Russian prince, returns home to St. Petersburg from a mental institution, determined to spread decency and kindness in the harsh and cruel world. He becomes betrothed to an innocent young girl while trying to save a less-innocent woman from her own travail, but jealousy and his own naivete conjoin to bring about unimaginable tragedy.
Alone in the Night
Director of Photography
A series of crimes is being perpetrated around a famous singer. Strangely, during each of the crimes, the artist's voice is heard humming his favorite song. Suspicions lead to a chase through a nocturnal Paris, ending in a disused theater where the assassin has lured his final victim.
Angel and Sinner
Cinematography
During the stagecoach trip of a frightened group of inhabitants of Rouen, Elisabeth Rousset, known as "Boule de Suif", renders these people a signal service, but comes up against their stupidity and their sufficiency. A little later, Boule de Suif assassinates the formidable Prussian lieutenant whom his friends had nicknamed Fifi and who shamelessly displayed his taste for pillage and his sadistic tendencies.
The Traveler Without Luggage
Director of Photography
Having lost his memory due to serving in World War I, Gaston has spent the past 15 years in a psychiatric hospital. Due to his large disability pension fund, several families claim him as their missing son. Gaston is introduced to the Renaud family by the Duchess Dupont-Dufort and her lawyer. The Renaud family attempt to revive Gaston's memory with stories of his past, but he is apalled by some of the things he hears and dislikes the man he is supposed to be.
Lucrèce
Director of Photography
Lucrèce, a famous actress, is bothered first, then flattered by the passionate testimonies of love given to her by François, a 12th grade student infatuated with her. Taking pity on the boy, Lucrèce decides to heal him of his madness and with this in mind she invites him for a working holiday on her farm. Instead, she falls in love with the cherub. At a time, her young lover grows so jealous of her that he attempts suicide. The mature actress then understands that their love story is going nowhere. She will remain alone while François will forget her.
The Secret of Madame Clapain
Director of Photography
Madame Clapain dies in dubious circumstances at the home of the Cadifon ladies, of which she was a tenant. A friendly inspector and Thérèse Cadifon each carry out their own investigation.
The Wonderful Night
Cinematography
A couple of refugees arrives in a village: he is a cabinet maker, she's pregnant and the innkeeper refuses to give them a room; they wind up in the cowshed of a farm where she gives birth to her baby, the very night of Christmas.
The Last Turning
Cinematography
Frank, a hobo, ends up in a garage-truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Nick Marino, its older, kind and naive owner, is married to Cora, a sexy and mercenary woman half his age. Frank, although not a fan of hard work, accepts Nick's offer to work for him. Of course, it is not for Nick's sake that the young man becomes his attendant, but for the love of Cora under whose spell he has fallen at once. It does not take long before Cora, who despises her husband, asks her lover to help her get rid of him. Frank is reluctant at first but ...
The Southern Trail
Camera Supervisor
As Hélène is conveying her husband's body across the Sahara, her convoy is attacked by looters. The young widow survives only to be taken to a remote desert village called Tirzit amidst a band of lonely, ailing men. She meets her husband's partner who tries to kill her. Hélène does not report him to the police but is curious to learn the reasons for his action. Before dying of a terrible fever, the man confesses that he murdered her husband.
Grand Illusion
Director of Photography
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.
S. S. Tenacity
Director of Photography
Bastien and Ségard decide to leave France for Canada. They buy tickets aboard a rickety craft, the Tenacity, that never quite seems able to leave port. While stuck there they both fall for the innkeeper's daughter, which causes them to rethink their Canadian notions.
Le Scandale
Director of Photography
A woman suffers ill repute when she deserts her husband for a fling with an adventurer and gives the lover jewelry to pay the hotel bill. Will the husband be understanding and forgive her?
The Lady of Lebanon
Director of Photography
The French and the English spy on each other, in this adventure set in post World War I colonial Syria.