Jean Vigo was more of a passing dream than a person. He made only one feature and three short films before expiring at an age when most directors make their debuts.
He was born on April 26th, 1905, the son of the anarchist Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo, who spent most of his son's childhood on the lam, living under various aliases. He was strangled with his shoelaces when Jean was 12. Out of fear of further retribution against his family, Jean was sent to boarding school under a fake name.
Vigo's films were informed by a combination of his unique poetic sensibility and his father's anarchism. He is Jean Cocteau's radical cousin. He is Francois Truffaut's vagabond father.
