Robert Hossein
Actor/Actriz
115
Movies
15
TV Shows
Robert Hossein was a French film actor of Parsi origin, director and writer. He directed the 1982 adaption of Les Misérables, and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute. His most recent roles include starring as Michèle Mercier's husband in the Angélique series and as a Catholic priest who falls in love with Claude Jade and becomes a communist in Prêtres interdits (Forbidden Priests) in 1973.
Hossein started directing films in 1956 with Les salauds vont en enfer from a story by Frédéric Dard whose novels and plays went on to furnish Hossein with much of his later film material. Right from the start Hossein established his characteristic trademarks: using a seemingly straightforward suspense plot and subverting its conventions (sometimes to the extent of a complete disregard of the traditional demand for a final twist or revelation) in order to concentrate on ritualistic relationships. This is the director's running preoccupation which is always stressed in his films by an extraordinary command of film space and often striking frame compositions where the geometry of human figures and set design is used to accentuate the psychological set-up of the scene. The mechanisms of guilt and the way it destroys relationships is another recurring theme, presumably influenced by Hossein's lifelong interest in the works of Dostoyevski.
Although Hossein had some modest international successes with films like Toi, le venin and Le vampire de Dusseldorf, he was much singled out for scorching criticism by the critics and followers of the New Wave for the unashamedly melodramatic frameworks of his films. The fact that he was essentially an auteur director with a consistent set of themes and an extraordinary mastery of original and unusual approaches to staging his stories, was never appreciated. He was not averse to trying his hand at widely different genres and was never defeated, making the strikingly different spaghetti western Une corde, un Colt and the low-budgeted but daringly subversive period drama J'ai tué Raspoutine. However, because of the lack of wider success and continuing adverse criticism, Hossein virtually ended his film directing career in 1970, having concentrated on theatre where his achievements were never questioned, and subsequently returning to film directing only twice. With two or three exceptions, his films remain commercially unavailable and very difficult to see.
He is the son of André Hossein a Zoroastrian French composer of Azerbaijani-Tajik descent, and a Jewish comedy actress from Kiev. He was married three times: first to Marina Vlady (he has two sons with her, Pierre and Igor), later to Caroline Eliacheff (with whom he has a son, Nicholas). He is currently married to actress Candice Patou, with whom he has one son, Julien.
According to an article written by Emannuel Peze, Hossein experienced a conversion to Catholicism in 1971 during a visit to the Marian apparition at San Damiano in Lombardo Italy.
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As Actor/Actress
Champs-Elysées
Self
Sacrée soirée
Self
Vivement dimanche
Self
Apostrophes
Self
Spécial cinéma
Self
Le Grand Échiquier
Self
Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie
Simon
Cinépanorama
Self
Nulle part ailleurs
Self
Stars 90
Self
Téléthon
Self
Reflets de Cannes
Self
El profesional
Commissaire Rosen
Rififí
Rémi Grutter
Angélique, marquise des anges
Jeoffrey de Peyrac
Petits Meurtres en famille
Simon
Les uns et les autres
Simon Meyer / Robert Prat
Le Gorille
Joseph Beaucis
Angélique et le Sultan
Joffrey de Peyrac "Le Rescator"
Denn sie kennen kein Erbarmen - Der Italowestern
Self
Angélique et le Roy
Jeoffrey de Peyrac
Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde
Self
Le Casse
Ralph
Madame Sans-Gêne
Le sergent François-Joseph Lefebvre
Le Repos du guerrier
Renaud Sarti
La Fabuleuse Aventure de Marco Polo
Prince Nayam
Belmondo, itinéraire...
Self
Les Misérables
Le maître de cérémonie
Don Juan ou si Don Juan était une femme...
Louis Prévost
Une corde, un Colt...
Manuel
Behind the Camera
Les Misérables
Guionista, Director
Une corde, un Colt...
Director, Escritor
Les salauds vont en enfer
Director, Guionista
Le Vampire de Düsseldorf
Guionista, Director
Le Jeu de la vérité
Director, Escritor
Toi... le venin
Director, Guionista
Cyrano de Bergerac
Director
La Nuit des espions
Guionista, Director
J'ai tué Raspoutine
Director, Escritor
Point de Chute
Director, Escritor
Une femme nommée Marie
Stage Director
Les Yeux cernés
Director, Historia
Kean
Stage Director
Le Goût de la violence
Guionista, Dialogue, Director
Les Scélérats
Director, Guionista
La Mort d'un tueur
Adaptation, Director, Guionista
La Sentence
Escritor
Antigone
Dir. de Arte
Le Caviar rouge
Guionista, Director
Hernani
Stage Director
Pardonnez nos offenses
Guionista, Director
Au cœur de la vie
Co-Producer