The most commercially successful of the New Wave French film directors of the 1950's is Louis Malle. He started directing in the early 1950's, but it was his 1958 erotic film "The Lovers" that gained him recognition. Since then, he has continued to make films that offer surprising, and occasionally shocking, perspectives on conventional morality. "Murmur of the Heart" (1971), is about mother-son incest, and the controversial "Pretty Baby" (1978), his first American film, is set in a New Orleans brothel and features a child. His second American film, the critically acclaimed "Atlantic City" (1980), compassionately depicts the romance between an old man and a young woman. Other notable Malle films are "Lacombe, Lucien" (1973), "My Dinner with Andre" (1981), and "Au Revoir les Enfants" (1987), his account of children growing up in Nazi-occupied France. "Damage" (1992) is another shocking story of a father's obsessive love affair with his son's fiancee, and the eventual destruction that results to all the characters.
020