Trivia

Cousin of soundman Tony Leenhardt.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 639-642. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Critic, film theorist and documentary film maker. Studied at the Sorbonne, prior to working as a journalist and critic for several influential film magazines.

Jean-Luc Godard chose him to be the character "Intelligence" in Une femme mariée (1964) and François Truffaut chose him as the publisher in L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977).

Roger Leenhardt appeared in three films as an actor. In Les Dernières vacances, he is the teacher.

His documentary works are numerous and include the creation of more than 60 short films and the production of a similar number.

In 1949, he fostered the creation of the cinema club Objectif 49 of which he was the co-president with Robert Bresson and Jean Cocteau. Destined to promote a new cinema d'auteur, the club resulted in the creation in Biarritz of the Festival of Cursed Films [Festival des Films Maudits].

Thanks to his series of articles known as "La petite école du spectateur," cinema became considered as an art and a language in its own right.

Roger Leenhardt started working for the newsreel program Éclair Journal and in 1934 set up his own production company with René Zuber, "Les Films du Compas," later known as, "Roger Leenhardt Films.".

As a critic in the journal Esprit, he was considered one of the most perceptive observers of pre-war France and strongly influenced André Bazin and the entire "Nouvelle Vague.".