Antoine Bonfanti

Antoine Bonfanti was a French sound-engineer, chief-operator and sound-mixer, professor at cinema schools (regularly at INSAS in Brussels, at EICTV in Cuba and occasionally at Fémis and at ENSLL), and cinema-institutes in France and in foreign countries. Born 26 October 1923 in Ajaccio (Corsica), died 4 March 2006 in Montpellier (Hérault-France).

He began learning his profession as a trainee boom-operator on the film La Belle et la Bête by Jean Cocteau. He is considered as being one of the pioneers of direct-sound in film-making on location: “the school of direct-sound is French - said the sound-engineer Jean-Pierre Ruh- it began with Antoine Bonfanti”.

He is characterised by his collaborations with directors as Bernardo Bertolucci, André Delvaux, Amos Gitaï, Jean Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Chris Marker, Gérard Oury, Alain Resnais, René Vautier, and Paul Vecchiali. (see filmography below).

His primary occupation is the authenticity of sound: above all he likes building the whole universe of sound of one film, through every stage from filming to sound-mixing (that means the live-sounds, the ambiances in location and after the sound-effects, the dubbing and the mixing in auditorium). In this pattern, he had 120 films of which 80 feature films. Otherwise, his filmography includes about 420 titles of long and short Films of fiction or documentary; and within this number, some can be still missing because - as involved in cinema as in politics - Antoine did lots of "for free" that, may be, haven't been listed.

Member of the Résistance and, after, volunteer soldier in the war-years 1943-1945; militant, communist by spirit, vigilante, he is part of SLON collective - which later becomes ISKRA - and of the Medvedkine-groups.

He shared his sound-artist's talent and he has trained several generations of sound-engineers in many countries (Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Morocco, Mozambique, Peru, Portugal, Tunisia, Venezuela), where to make of the cinema is a matter of fight.

The film "Antoine Bonfanti - Traces sonores d’une écoute engagée"by Suzanne Durand,reconstitutes a professional path of more than 50 years which demonstrate a commitment going far-beyond the simple trade and his collaboration with a lot of film-makers; it isalso an original approach of the sound's practical.

He recounts it himself also, interviewed by Noël Simsolo in a transmission on France-Culture, called "Mémoire du siècle, Antoine Bonfanti" on 20 August 1997, and broadcast during "Les Nuits de France-Culture" at midnight of 25 January 2016.

Antoine, nicknamed "Nono" by his Corsican family, "Toni" by his war comrades, "Bonbon" within the world of cinema, was born in Ajaccio in 1923. The family leaves again for Africa in 1926, having already spent some years in Conakry in "République de Guinée", (formerly "Guinée française"). His father is "receveur principal des postes" in Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina-Faso (formerly "Haute-Volta"). Antoine spends some of his youth there but, when his eldest brother must go to high-school,the family returns to Corsica, before his father be appointed "percepteur" (tax-collector) at Saint-Rambert d’Alban, and after at Touquet-Paris-Plage.

As a child, he discovers the paroquial-cine in Corsica. At Touquet, the family goes to the cinema pretty often. He remembers fondly the showing of the film "Les marins de Kronstadt" d’Efim Dzigan, organised by his father to mark the death of Roger Salengro in 1936, where spectators leave the theater singing "l’Internationale".He is 13 during the "Front populaire". AtBoulogne-sur-Mer in the boarding-school at the "Collège Mariette" - and on his train journeys - he uses to pass near the steelworks, red flags hanging from the rooftops; and he remains very touched by the striking workers who were raising their fists to salute the train. The "pros and con" fight in the school-yard. There, Antoine "has been lucky enough to have Jean Marcenac as his teacher ofPhilosophy and French, who opened up the eyes and his library".

His political awareness began in June 1940, after the "drôle de guerre". He didn't understand Paul Reynaud’s phrase who said after the debacle: "I don’t believe in miracles, but if someone were to tell me that a single miracle could save France, I’d believe in that miracle". But two days later the Germans were occupying Touquet.

Later, boarding at College in Orléans (his "correspondent" is a Corsican chief of police), he was expelled in November 1941 for knocking out the chief-supervisor who deprives him of his meal; Antoine was a lightweight boxer, (he was also a talented and competitive swimmer).

He feels the pull of the resistance. He produces pamphlets on linoleum "in private", and tries on several times to reach England by small boats with friends. He is becoming dangerous for his father who is part of one resistance-movement; and when Antoine is called up, in May 1942, for the construction of the "Mur de l’Atlantique", his father orders him to escape to Corsica (it’s his formerly correspondent who obtains a pass for him).He then forms part of the “ Résistance armée urbaine” at the “Front National” (at this time: Front national pour la libération et l’indépendance de la France): “we were in a war of liberation against the Germans, and also in a war of revolution against the Petain-regime”. In 1943, he commit himself as voluntary-soldier in the “Bataillon de choc”. He becomes “chasseur” in the fourth company. After the Toulon-loading, his batallon goes up as far as Tyrol; Antoine loses numerous comrades on the way. To his great detriment, he is only demobilized in September 1945.

He has two children from a first marriage, Jean-Claude and Francis. Years later, he married Maryvon Le Brishoual whom he met in Brazil in 1968, during the filmingof “Le grabuge” (O tumulto) by Edouard Luntz, produced by Fox. They have three children: Kalanna, Solène and Maël.

En 1946, he took correspondence lessons from the “Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers”; and thanks to his cousin, Mathieu Bonfanti, he was chosen as boomer-trainee on “ La belle et la bête” by Jean Cocteau, at the “Studios de St Maurice” where, in the following time, he learns all the roles, all the trades of sound. In 1948, he started to work at “ Radiodiffusion française” (which become RTF en 1949 and ORTF in 1964) where he learns “ à faire ce qu’il ne faut pas faire” (what not to do). Ardent militant, he fights against the American politics which refuses to accept quotas; but with the “Accords Blum-Byrnes”, Léon Blum sacrifices French cinema, in order “ to put France back on the right track” with the Plan Marshall accepted, and announced in June 1947.

This activism didn’t stop him entering M.G.M. France (Metro Goldwyn Mayer), very famous at the time,where he acquired control of post-synchronisation and sound-mixing.In 1958, he began working with most of directors “ who counted during a period which counted and who fit, more or less, the Nouvelle vague movement”. He becomes acquainted with them at the SIMO - auditorium at Boulogne-Billancourt where he admired and learned lots with Jean Neny, the great inventor of many techniques of dubbing and mixing in auditoriums. When the film is shooting on location, he looks for other microphones, makes wind covers (bonnettes) for little booms for documentary; and later, he will spend a lot of time creating a model of square boom.

In 1962, he makes the sound, with Pierre Lhomme as cameraman, for the now mythical “Le joli mai”, film by Chris Marker. He is part of SLON, which late becomes ISKRA (whose he is manager for some years). He is part also of the Medvedkine groups: it’s the extraordinary adventure with the workers from Rhodiaceta in Besançon in 1967, and those of Peugeot factories in Sochaux in 1968.

Also in 1962, he begins teaching several times a year at l’INSAS in Brussels until the mid eighties.

He took a keen interest by Cuba in 1963 during the filming of the documentary of Claude Otzenberger “Fidel si, Fidel no” (“Cuba 63”). He donated then to the ICAIC his favorite appliances (Nagra III and his fetish micro Beyer M160). For him “Cuba is the discovery of a single application of a socialist concept, but the Cubans, remarkable people, don’t deserve what they were to endure afterwards”. He is rebelling constantly against l’embargo (called blocus in Cuba) that U.S.A. established in 1962, and still applied.

En 1989, he began teaching at EICTV, each year until February 1999.

Directors such as René Vautier, Yann Le Masson, Bruno Muel, and Jacqueline Meppiel are his comrades, brothers and sister by spirit. But Antoine also is collaborator of people very different of his political family, so long as he can “make his sound to become the sound of thefilm”, andwhen it is all the easier for him to imposehis direct sound on films where the actors improvise and can’t be dubbed in post-production (as Louis de Funès in the films of Gérard Oury).

He is invitedto talks, seminars and conferences on sound, is a jury member or president at film festivals, but he is mostly solicited to institutes, centers and cinema schools in numerous countries; the Cinemathèque of Lisbonne devoted a week to him in 1985.

In September 2000, being sick, he “goes down” to Montpellier to live with his wife Maryvon, near his beloved Mediterranean sea. That is there he dies in March 2006. Follow an uncountable number of messages of love and gratitude (both professional and private), and tributes.

• Césars 1977 : nomination au César du meilleur son pour le film Je t'aime moi non plus de Serge Gainsbourg.

• Bonfanti, Antoine; Ley, Pierre (1993). "Le film".In Eyrolles (ed.). Le Livre des Techniques du Son, Tome 3 : L'exploitation (in French). Paris. pp. 327–389.