Charles, Dead or Alive

Charles, Dead or Alive (1970)

Charles mort ou vif

On the 100th anniversary of the founding of a watchmaking company in Geneva, Charles Dé the founder's 50-year-old grandson has had it: he speaks eccentrically to a reporter, recognizing his grandfather as a craftsman and his son as a businessman, but is evasive about himself. He gives his family the slip and moves in with a young couple he meets by chance, doing the cooking, reading, drinking, and engaging in philosophical discussions with them. The young couple comes to love Charles. In secret, he stays in touch with a daughter, and the rest of the family hires a private investigator to find him, setting in motion a business take-over that threatens his Bohemian happiness.

Date of release
1970-01-15
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (34)
Runtime
1h 33m
Genres
Drama
Director
Alain Tanner

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 0. Including: Golden Leopard

Charles, Dead or Alive is a 1969 Swiss drama film written and directed by Alain Tanner. Starring François Simon, Marcel Robert and Marie-Claire Dufour, it concerns a middle-aged industrialist who tries to break away from his bourgeois life. The film won the Golden Leopard at the 1969 Locarno International Film Festival.

Production

According to Alison Smith, Tanner translated the events of May 1968 in France to a Swiss setting, creating in the film an imagined student revolt in a society that had not experienced the same turmoil or revolutionary possibility.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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