René Vernadet, born in 1927 in Paris, is a French director and camera operator.
René will never know his father, a dentist, who died in 1930. His mother, Marguerite, is a film makeup artist and little René, an only son, follows her from set to set. This artistic environment is their universe, they rub shoulders with Christian Jacques, Bourvil, Sacha Guitry, Cocteau… He could have become an actor but, at the time, it was above all the technique that motivated him. He therefore embarked on advanced studies in a film laboratory. Friend of Charles Aznavour and especially of Gilbert Bécaud, his “brother” for whom he would later write the lyrics of one or two songs, as well as for Yves Montand.
The encounter between his camera and the practice of climbing in Fontainebleau with the big names of the time such as Lucien Bérardini, Robert Paragot or Edmond Denis would trigger the trigger for his career: he followed them to Chamonix, met the photographer and filmmaker Georges Tairraz, with whom he shot, in 1947, the images of the International Ski Week. And off he went... A series of short films such as "Escale au Saussois", "La République Nous Appelle", "Glaces Eternelles", "Les Belles Vacances", bear his signature always marked by didacticism and humor.
After an "interlude" of seventeen documentaries shot during the Algerian War for the General Government, and many trips back and forth between Paris and Chamonix, he settled, in 1958, at the foot of Mont Blanc, with his wife Mireille who already had a great career as a film editor behind her. René Vernadet shot film after film as a cameraman specializing in dizzying scenes, including his two bravura pieces, "Les Étoiles De Midi" by Marcel Ichac in 1959 and "Mort D’Un Guide" by Jacques Ertaud in 1975. The same year, he created the images for "Horizons Gagnés" by the great Gaston Rébuffat, who was impressed by his mastery. This film was a huge success at the Connaissance du Monde conferences, of which Vernadet would become a regular. René Vernadet is also in demand for feature-length fiction films, and not the least, "Le Train" by John Frankenheimer, "Fifi La Plume" by Albert Lamorisse, "Sur un Arbre Perché" by Serge Korber, with Louis de Funès, or even "La Voie Jackson," a long-running TV film by Gérard Herzog shot in Chamonix in 1979...
In the 1950s, he had the opportunity to travel around India to make films commissioned by Secours Catholique. Later, his friendship with the Italian philosopher Lanza del Vasto led him to Tibet, which would truly attract him; seventeen films and four books.
Very active in the association Les amis du Vieux Chamonix, he spends a crazy amount of time going through dusty documents and old postcards in a cluttered little room, digitizing glass plates and reels of films from another age. Extremely in demand, he is there to host evenings at the cinema or at the prestigious Majestic cinema in Chamonix, capable of brilliantly commenting on silent films live and telling often very funny anecdotes from the filming. But when asked again why he doesn't get dizzy, he simply replies: "I don't know, I don't worry about it".
In 2017, René Vernadet has just started his twenty-sixth trip to Tibet. He is 90 years old...
1959
