the photographer as photographer:
André Dino with Tati, Truffaut and Chabrol
André Dino with Tati, Truffaut and Chabrol
For a long time I have wondered who is the familiar-looking man in the shot above, behind Bernadette Lafont and Stéphane Audran, from Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes (1960). An immediate clue that he is involved with the film is that he knows not to look at the camera. A further indication is his reappearance later, at the restaurant where the women have lunch:
There is a narrative logic to their being in the same restaurant, on the place de la Bastille, since earlier that day the man and the two women had got off the métro at the same stop, Bastille:
No one in the cast lists for Les Bonnes Femmes seems to correspond to this man, but his distinctive physiognomy, coiffure and glasses can be seen in other films of the period, for example in Claude de Givray's Tire au flanc 62 (1960), where he plays a photographer:
Tire au flanc 62 is sometimes co-credited to Truffaut, and it is in Les 400 coups (1959) that this same man can also be seen playing a photographer:
The cast list for neither of these two films includes a photographer, though a 'photographe de plateau', a stills photographer, is credited for Les 400 coups. That is André Dino, and a little investigation reveals that the stills photographer for Truffaut's film was the man who played the photographer in the film.
He was the stills photographer for Les Bonnes Femmes, and in the absence of a role for him as photographer he is present on screen only as a man in the métro and a man in the restaurant. He is, by this time, used to getting screen time, since in Les 400 coups he not only plays the photographer at a police station in Paris but also, two minutes later, when the film has shifted to a correctional facility in Normandy, he plays a policeman bringing in an escaped inmate:
He was the stills photographer for Les Bonnes Femmes, and in the absence of a role for him as photographer he is present on screen only as a man in the métro and a man in the restaurant. He is, by this time, used to getting screen time, since in Les 400 coups he not only plays the photographer at a police station in Paris but also, two minutes later, when the film has shifted to a correctional facility in Normandy, he plays a policeman bringing in an escaped inmate:
I assume we are not supposed to recognise him in the two roles, but if so you'd think he'd have thought to take off his glasses.
André Dino is the stills photographer for several other Chabrol films. On form we might expect him also to appear on screen in some of them. In Le Beau Serge he has quite a substantial role, as the doctor who delivers the baby at the climax of the film:
André Dino is the stills photographer for several other Chabrol films. On form we might expect him also to appear on screen in some of them. In Le Beau Serge he has quite a substantial role, as the doctor who delivers the baby at the climax of the film:
I have found Dino in eight films but this is his only speaking role. He is credited on IMDB as the Police Inspector in Chabrol's A double tour (1959), which would have been a substantial speaking part for Dino, but in fact the Police Inspector in that film is played by Raymond Pélissier. André Dino plays the gardener:
In this scene he is doing what he would avoid doing in Les Bonnes Femmes, i.e. looking at Bernadette Lafont.
Though he is not the stills photographer for Chabrol's Landru (1963), Dino has a role as a court official, here once again in frame with Stéphane Audran:
Though he is not the stills photographer for Chabrol's Landru (1963), Dino has a role as a court official, here once again in frame with Stéphane Audran:
Only on one other occasion, to my knowledge, does the photographer André Dino play a photographer. There are two stills photographers credited for Jacques Tati's Playtime, Jean-Louis Castelli and André Dino. I don't know if any of the other photographers we see in the film is Castelli, but this is clearly Dino:
Dino had previously worked for Tati as photographer on Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) and Mon oncle (1958). In the latter he appears as a road sweeper:
In Les Vacannces de Monsieur Hulot he doesn't play a photographer but he is involved in a photography-related gag. He helps arrange his family members for a portrait but then the photographer is called to the telephone, leaving the family transfixed in front of the unmanned camera:
Later, Hulot kicks the man with a camera in the backside, but it is Dino that the man suspects of committing the offence:
André Dino was a brilliant photographe de plateau, as we can see from his work for Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants terribles:
Here are some other stills from films he worked on:
Au coeur de la casbah (Pierre Cardinal 1951)
La Rafle est pour ce soir (Maurice Dekobra 1953)
Le Signe du Lion (Eric Rohmer 1959)
Les 400 coups (François Truffaut 1959)
La Millième Fenêtre (Robert Ménégoz 1960)
Les Jeux de l'amour (Philippe de Broca 1960)
Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol 1960)
Les Godelureaux (Claude Chabrol 1961)
Les Vierges (Jean-Pierre Mocky 1963)
Playtime (Jacques Tati 1967)
These examples, from 1955, suggest that Dino was also an accomplished fashion photographer:
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I can find very little further information about Dino's work. In the credits of Chabrol's Landru Dino appears as André Dinot; the website for former students of the Louis Lumière ENS film school lists an André Dinot as a graduate in 1935, the same year as cinematographer Henri Decaë. That would make him born around 1915.
A photograph illustrating an article about the liberation of Mulhouse in November 1944 is credited to André Dino, suggesting that he was then working as a photographer with the French army.
I can find no trace of Dino's activity after Trafic in 1971.
Correction 20.01.2020: André's son Rémy Dinot has written to me saying that his father was born in 1911, not 1915, and that he died in 2004.
A photograph illustrating an article about the liberation of Mulhouse in November 1944 is credited to André Dino, suggesting that he was then working as a photographer with the French army.
I can find no trace of Dino's activity after Trafic in 1971.
Correction 20.01.2020: André's son Rémy Dinot has written to me saying that his father was born in 1911, not 1915, and that he died in 2004.
André Dino filmography
- as stills photographer unless otherwise specified
The André Dinot who worked as assistant cinematographer on Niko Papatakis's Les Abysses in 1963 is probably André Dino.
- as stills photographer unless otherwise specified
- Le Charcutier de Machonville (Vicky Ivernel 1947)
- Scandale (René Le Hénaff 1948)
- Jour de fête (Jacques Tati 1949)
- Scandale aux Champs Elysées (Roger Blanc 1949)
- Les Enfants terribles (Jean-Pierre Melville 1950)
- Les Amants de Bras-Mort (Marcello Pagliero 1951)
- Bibi Fricotin (Marcel Blistène 1951)
- Au coeur de la casbah (Pierre Cardinal 1952)
- Trois femmes (André Michel 1952)
- Un trésor de femme (Jean Stelli 1952)
- Les Amours finissent à l'aube (Henri Calef 1953)
- Je suis un mouchard (René Chanas 1953)
- La Nuit est à nous (Jean Stelli 1953)
- Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati 1953) - also as actor
- Marchandes d'illusions (Raoul André 1954)
- La Rafle est pour ce soir (Maurice Sekobra 1954)
- Le Secret d'Hélène Marimon (Henri Calef 1954)
- Boulevard du crime (René Gaveau 1955)
- Soupçons (Pierre Billon 1956)
- Le Beau Serge (Claude Chabrol 1958) - also as actor
- Mon oncle (Jacques Tati 1958) - also as actor
- Les Cousins (Claude Chabrol 1959)
- A double tour (Claude Chabrol 1959) - also as actor
- Les Quatre cents coups (François Truffaut 1959) - also as actor
- Le Signe du Lion (Eric Rohmer 1959)
- Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol 1960) - also as actor
- Les Jeux de l'amour (Philippe de Broca 1960)
- Les Godelureaux (Claude Chabrol 1961)
- Les Sept péchés capitaux (Philippe de Broca, Edouard Molinaro et al. 1962)
- Landru (Claude Chabrol 1963) - only as actor
- Les Vierges (Jean-Pierre Mocky 1963)
- Marie-Chantal contre le Docteur Kha (Claude Chabrol 1965)
- Oscar (Edouard Molinaro 1967)
- Playtime (Jacques Tati 1967) - also as actor
- Trafic (Jacques Tati 1971)
The André Dinot who worked as assistant cinematographer on Niko Papatakis's Les Abysses in 1963 is probably André Dino.