Deville started his filmmaking career in the late 1950s, paralleling the emergence of the French New Wave directors. He never achieved the level of critical and international recognition as some of his contemporaries such as Francois Truffaut and Goddard and Chabrol, possibly because of his more conventional filmmaking style. Nevertheless his films, especially his comedies from the 1970s and 1980s, were popular in his native France.

One of Deville's comedies, La Lectrice ("The Reader") was probably his biggest success with international audiences. La Lectrice is about a woman (played by Miou-Miou), who finds work reading novels for the blind but gradually finds herself unwittingly attracting a clientele of fetishists who enjoyed being read to.

At one time his films were difficult to find in North America but presently(2007) seven of his films are available in DVD in the US.

Partial filmography

• Un monde presque paisible (Almost Peaceful), 2002
• La Maladie de Sachs, 1999
• Le Fils de Gascogne (Son of Gascogne), 1995
• La Lectrice, 1988
• Péril en la demeure (Death in a French Garden (UK title) and Peril (US title), 1985
• Le Voyage en douce (Sentimental Journey), 1980
• Le dossier 51, 1978
• Le Mouton enragé, 1974
• La Femme en bleu (The Woman in Blue), 1973
• Raphaël ou le débauché, 1971
• L'Ours et la poupée (The Bear and the Doll), 1969 (with Brigitte Bardot)

External links

• Michel Deville at the Internet Movie Database