Vigo's

And so does Vigo's rare gift for cinematic composition, simultaneously unfussy and precise.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

Lamenting Vigo's early death is another matter, though even here his oeuvre comes to the rescue.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

A fusion of gimlet-eyed social commentary and puckish surrealism, the film—Vigo's only silent—has lost none of its potency more than 80 years on.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

Call it Vigo's spiritedness, a sort of joie de vivre that infuses every frame of this picture.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

Courtesy of the Criterion Collection The famous pillow-fight scene in Jean Vigo's 'Zéro de Conduite.'

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

Vigo's next film, his first with sound, was the nine-minute "Taris" 1931, an industrial commission that in lesser hands might have been nothing more than a swimming primer.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

"Zéro de Conduite" 1933 is Vigo's best-known movie.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

Cinematic references are so much a part of the culture here that most moviegoers are aware that the boat's name, Zéro de conduite, is an allusion to Jean Vigo's 1933 film about a boarding-school rebellion.

All Aboard for le Cinéma Français Lennox Morrison 2011

Less is not more in Vigo's case, but he left enough work to attest to his gifts and importance—both as a filmmaker and as a spur to others who followed in the field, including François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011

"L'Atalante" 1934 was Vigo's first and only full-length feature.

Brief Glimpse of Brilliance From an Abbreviated Life David Mermelstein 2011