Robert Hossein

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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Hossein, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For	Acting
Most Rating	0.9714
Birthday	1927-12-30
Place of Birth	Paris, France
Also Known As	Abraham Hosseinoff, Робер Оссейн,

Rififi

The Professional

Trivial

Prêtres interdits

Love Is Better Than Life

Versatile Lovers

Cemetery Without Crosses

Angelique and the King

The Burglars

Venus Beauty Institute

The Wax Mask

Bolero

Crime and Punishment

Untamable Angelique

Angelique and the Sultan

Angelique

Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde

The Vampire of Dusseldorf

Love on a Pillow

Children of Chaos

Long March

Hossein, Ronet, Trintignant : Confidences de trois acteurs inoubliables

Forgive Our Trespasses

Raymond Devos dans tous ses sens

San Antonio

Don Juan or If Don Juan Were a Woman

God's Thunder

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

Blonde in a White Car

Sextette

The Devil Who Limped

In the Eyes of Memory

Les Miserables

Maya

Paris Pick-Up

Hitch-Hike

The Game of Truth

Death of a Killer

Marked Eyes

The Battle of El Alamein

A Little Virtuous

Scandalous Crimes

The Phoney

Stranger in the House

The Protector

Marco the Magnificent

Highway Pick-Up

Belmondo, itinéraire...

Tender Moment

Marie-France Pisier, une femme sous influence

Time of the Wolves

Riff Raff Girls

The Taste of Violence

OSS 117 Murder for Sale

The Wicked Go to Hell

The Verdict

Enough Rope

Mademoiselle de Maupin

Madame

A Murder Is a Murder

A Police Officer Without Importance

The Dirty Game

The Road to Shame

The Conspirators

Desert Assault

Falling Point

Double Agents

La Musica

The Scarlet Lady

The Wretches

The Other Truth

Vice and Virtue

I Killed Rasputin

A Man and His Dog

Misdeal

Young Girls Beware

Levy & Goliath

Le Caviar rouge

Surprise-party

Brigade Anti Gangs