A structure combining Raymond Depardon’s voice, images, and face sketches the autobiographical portrait of a farmer’s son who became a photographer. A landmark film in Raymond Depardon’s body of work. 

Commissioned by the 1984 Arles International Photography Festival, The Declic Years is an autobiography by an image-maker at the height of his career. Raymond Depardon enters an archive spanning twenty years, from 1957 to 1977, along with the eventful memories embedded within it. Facing the camera directly, he recounts the exhilaration and anguish of beginning as a photographer and filmmaker, his journey from his family’s farm in Villefranche-sur-Saône to Paris, and his path between photography and cinema, agency work and freelancing.
The film portrays French society during a period of upheaval while summoning the works, figures, and witnesses that defined photojournalism’s golden age. Among its many striking moments are several clips from the making of San Clemente (1980). Patients and doctors at the psychiatric hospital regard Depardon and his crew as voracious hunters of images, revealing his self-consciousness about the identity of the artist behind the camera. Before offering an understanding of Depardon as a person, the film provides a broad account of him as an image-maker and shows how an artist’s perception gradually takes shape. Above all, his monotone, slightly cracked yet gently enveloping voice mysteriously complements photographs and films charged with widely varying impressions and emotions.

• Edit Camille MESTRE-Mel
• Sound Claude BERTRAND

Les Films du Losange | Hussein AKBARALY | h.akbaraly@filmsdulosange.fr