Sacha Vierny

Birth : 1919-08-09, Bois-le-Roi, Seine-et-Marne, France

Death : 2001-05-14

History

Sacha Vierny was born on August 10, 1919 in Bois-le-Roi, Seine-et-Marne, France. He was a cinematographer and assistant director, known for The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), The Pillow Book (1996) and Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). He died on May 15, 2001 in Vannes, Morbihan, France.

Movies

Les Mémoires de Don Quichotte
Camera Operator
The Man Who Cried
Director of Photography
A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.
8 ½ Women
Director of Photography
After the death of his wife, wealthy businessman Philip Emmenthal and his son Storey open their own private harem in their family residence in Geneva (they get the idea while watching Federico Fellini's 8½ and after Storey is "given" a woman, Simato (Inoh), to waive her pachinko debts). They sign one-year contracts with eight (and a half) women to this effect. The women each have a gimmick (one is a nun, another a kabuki performer, etc.). Philip soon becomes dominated by his favourite of the concubines, Palmira, who has no interest in Storey as a lover, despite what their contract might stipulate. Philip dies, the concubines' contracts expire, and Storey is left alone with Giulietta (the titular "½", played by Fujiwara) and of course the money and the houses.
Dormez, je le veux!
Director of Photography
Cora is a teenager and has a lot of problems (mostly because of the relationship with her parents). One day she meets Katz, a hypnotizer who makes shows in the whole country, and his assistant Pedro. Then she manages to convince Katz to bring her with him in order to teach her his job. Thus Cora leaves her home without saying any word to her parents and begins a long trip through France with a very tumultuous relationship with Katz and Pedro.
The Pillow Book
Director of Photography
A woman with a body writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.
The Baby of Mâcon
Director of Photography
Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.
Rosa
Director of Photography
A short film based on the work of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.
A Walk Through Prospero's Library
Director of Photography
A short made for TV with director Peter Greenaway discussing the dazzling 3.5 minute opening sequence from his film, 'Prospero's Books'. As Prospero (John Gielgud) walks through his library, Greenaway comments on the historical, mythological, biblical & fictional characters occupying the library.
M Is for Man, Music and Mozart
Director of Photography
Dutch composer Louis Andriessen collaborates with director Peter Greenaway on a commissioned short film to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of Mozart. Gods create Man, Music and Mozart.
Prospero's Books
Director of Photography
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Director of Photography
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.
Drowning by Numbers
Director of Photography
Three related women, all named Cissie Colpitts share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings. The local coroner is in love with all three women and helps to disguise the murders.
The Belly of an Architect
Director of Photography
The American architect Kracklite arrives in Italy, supervising an exhibiton for a French architect, Boullée, famous for his oval structures. Tirelessly dedicated to the project, Kracklite's marriage quickly dissolves along with his health.
A Zed & Two Noughts
Director of Photography
Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.
The Future of Emily
Director of Photography
Emily, a child, stays with her bourgeois grandparents during frequent periods when her mother makes films. Isabelle wraps a picture, flies to her childhood home to pick up Emily, and plans to leave for her place in France. Old wounds between Isabelle and her parents open around Isabelle's life style. It's also apparent that Isabelle's mother, Paula, is unhappy - with her husband and with her youthful hopes dashed when she became pregnant with Isabelle. Unbeknownst to Isabelle, the co-star of the film she's just made has followed her, checked into a nearby hotel, and wants to begin an affair, even though he's married. Can Isabelle sort it out? What's best for Emily?
Love Unto Death
Director of Photography
Elisabeth and Simon have been deeply in love for two months when Simon momentarily dies, but comes back to life. Simon does not want any further medical tests, but the couple are forced to grapple with the possibility of his death. They eventually tell their close friends Jérôme and Judith Martignac about the event. The Martignacs are both clerics, and Judith has just been giving a funeral service for a villager who committed suicide, though Jérôme would have nothing to do with suicide..
The Public Woman
Director of Photography
An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assassination.
Clash
Director of Photography
A woman revisits long-suppressed nightmares as she is being chased through an abandoned warehouse by a strange man.
Three Crowns of the Sailor
Director of Photography
A sailor sees a student killing his teacher and decides to spin a few yarns for him. He tells the boy of his many adventures in exotic South American ports where he visited opium dens and stayed in cathouses. In such dark, dreamlike places, the sailor meets many strange, mystical characters.
Beau Pere
Director of Photography
Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.
My American Uncle
Director of Photography
Prof. Henri Laborit uses the stories of the lives of three people to discuss behaviorist theories of survival, combat, rewards and punishment, and anxiety. René is a technical manager at a textile factory and must face the anxiety caused by corporate downsizing. Janine is a self-educated actress/stylist who learns that the wife of her lover is dying and must decide to let them reunite. Jean is a controversial career-climbing writer/politician at a crossroads in life.
The Lost Way
Director of Photography
While the Easter holidays are over, a young woman named Cécile and her brother Pierre return to the family home. There they meet their grandfather Léon, an old communist militant who has shaken Lenin's hand.
The Suspended Vocation
Director of Photography
The film centers on a Dominican monk named Jérôme (played by one actor in colour and another actor in black-and-white) and his interactions with various higher-ups within the French Catholic Church. Ruiz's intention was to reflect the ideological arguments that plagued Latin American left-wing political parties.
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting
Director of Photography
Two narrators, one seen and one unseen, discuss possible connections between a series of paintings. The on-screen narrator walks through three-dimensional reproductions of each painting, featuring real people, sometimes moving, in an effort to explain the series' significance.
Baxter, Vera Baxter
Director of Photography
In an empty villa, Vera Baxter sits and contemplates her life, as she recounts to a woman who was drawn to the villa when she heard the name Vera Baxter pronounced. Vera tells her about her no-good husband, who has been using her to keep his failing business afloat, up to her present love affair.
500 grammes de foie de veau
Cinematography
A César winning short film about a young woman who was caught stealing 500 grams of calf's liver. The next day she relates the incident to a friend
Stavisky...
Director of Photography
Irresistible charm and talent helps Serge Alexandre alias Stavisky, small-time swindler, to make friends with even most influential members of French industrial and political elite during the early 30s. But nothing lasts forever and when his great scam involving hundreds millions of francs gets exposed result is an unprecedented scandal that almost caused a civil war.
The Burned Barns
Director of Photography
The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.
La Sainte Famille
Director of Photography
"The Holy Family" - A woman of powerful character and a priest create a religious sect, through a nun who practices automatic writing dictated by the Virgin Mary.
Le moine
Director of Photography
Ambrosio (Franco Nero) is a monk who is sexually tempted by an emissary of the Devil, a young girl in monk's robes. After he has committed numerous crimes, it appears that he will be caught and punished by the Inquisition. Instead, he signs up on the Devil's team and wins his freedom.. and eventually, the papacy.
La Nuit bulgare
Director of Photography
A youngish sales employee of a computer firm is blackmailed into helping a group of mysterious Bulgarian industrialists who have come to his office. A government contract is being sought for a businessman who is in danger of bankruptcy.
Who Cares: Anatomy of a Delivery Boy
Director of Photography
Experiencing something of a mid-life crisis after his beloved son marries and moves out, a factory worker makes some drastic changes in his life, moves in with the boy and his wife, and sets them all on the path to a communal lifestyle.
The Hand
Director of Photography
Screenwriter Philippe (Duchaussoy) imagines a crime committed by his wife Sylvie (Delon) and a mutual friend Pierre (Serre): a dead body is put in a trunk but the hand sticks out. Sylvie and Pierre begin to have an affair and things get very dangerous and the imaginary crime is on its way to becoming prophetic.
The Tattoo
Director of Photography
An art dealer wants to buy a Modigliani, which is tattooed on the back of an old soldier.
Dear Caroline
Director of Photography
Against the backdrop of the French revolution, young Caroline tries to reunite with her first love, despite her arranged marriage to an older politician.
Belle de Jour
Director of Photography
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
La Musica
Director of Photography
A husband and wife meet three years after their formal separation, when they return to the provincial town where they once lived to pick up their divorce decree.
The War Is Over
Director of Photography
Diego is one of the chiefs of the Spanish Communist Party. On his way from Madrid to Paris, he is arrested at the border for an ID check but manages to get free. When he arrives in Paris, he starts searching for one of his comrade to prevent him from going to Madrid where he could be arrested.
Little Claus and Big Claus
Director of Photography
Once upon a time there lived in the same village two men bearing the very same name. One of them chanced to possess four horses, the other had only one horse, so, by way of distinguishing them from each other, the proprietor of four horses was called "Great Claus," and he who owned but one horse was known as "Little Claus"...
A Taste for Women
Director of Photography
A writer discovers a link between a vegetarian restaurant and a series of mysterious deaths.
Muriel, or the Time of Return
Director of Photography
In the seaside town of Boulogne, no one seems to be able to cope with their past, least of all Hélène, an antique furniture saleswoman, her stepson Bernard, and her former lover Alphonse.
Last Year at Marienbad
Director of Photography
In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
Paris la belle
Director of Photography
A look at Paris in 1928 in black and white and then color sequences filmed in the same places in 1959.
Le Bel Âge
Director of Photography
Steph, Jean-Claude and Jacques work in a Parisian art shop, but they mainly work in the field of eroticism, which they conceive as a wide-ranging field of exercises and experiments.
The Itchy Palm
Director of Photography
A widow in her fifties,Madame Lacoste ,meets Jean when they both come to put their pussy in a cattery.The man borrows a hefty sum from her ,to send his sick young son to breathe the fresh air of the country ,or so he said;in fact there's no son at all.He gives the money to his mistress who claims she's pregnant by him and who wants to have an abortion.She lies too ,for she does not expect any child and she intends to help the young man she's in love with to buy a scooter.But the latter does not care about her either and intends to marry a "rich " girl ....who's actually the concierge's daughter.
The Song of Styrene
Director of Photography
Le chant du Styrène is a 1958 French documentary film directed by Alain Resnais. The film was an order by French industrial group Pechiney to highlight the merits of plastics.
The Song of Styrene
Le chant du Styrène is a 1958 French documentary film directed by Alain Resnais. The film was an order by French industrial group Pechiney to highlight the merits of plastics.
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Director of Photography
The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.
Diary of a Pregnant Woman
Director of Photography
Impressions of the rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, through the eyes of a pregnant woman.
Letter from Siberia
Director of Photography
One of Chris Marker's earliest documentaries (1957) and probably one of his best, the hour-long Letter From Siberia mixes new and found footage with inventive commentary, and is especially memorable for a passage in which footage is repeated while the offscreen commentary transforms its meaning with a different ideological interpretation. It is perhaps the earliest example we have of Marker's inimitable essayistic manner, hence an indispensable work.
The Mystery of Workshop 15
Director of Photography
A documentary film about occupational diseases shot in 1957 at the Francolor factory in Oissel. It takes the form of a scientific investigation to discover the origin of a mysterious illness that has infected a worker at the factory.
Night and Fog
Director of Photography
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.