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Ghislain Cloquet

Belgian cinematographer (1924-1981)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ1521771 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ghislain Pierre Cloquet (18 April 1924 – 2 November 1981) was a Belgian-French cinematographer and academic. He won an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Cesar Award for his work on Tess (1979).

Early life and education

Cloquet was born in Antwerp in 1924. He was educated in Brussels and, after 1940 in Paris. He graduated from the ENS Louis-Lumière in 1945, and the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in 1947, and became a naturalized French citizen.

Career

Cloquet is known for his work with Robert Bresson, though he also collaborated with other prominent French directors like Louis Malle, Claude Sautet, Jacques Demy, André Delvaux, Chris Marker, and Marguerite Duras. He shot Jacques Becker's last film, Le Trou, and then worked several times with Becker's son Jean, who was Cloquet's brother-in-law. He won an Oscar (on his first and only nomination) for his work on Roman Polanski's Tess, which he completed after the death of Geoffrey Unsworth.

He also worked with several non-French directors, including Woody Allen (Love and Death) and Arthur Penn (Mickey One, Four Friends).

Teaching

Cloquet was the head of the cinematography department at his alma mater at the IDHEC from 1954 to 1962, and was its director of studies from 1975 to 1979.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ghislain Cloquet” as belgian cinematographer (1924-1981). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ghislain, Cloquet and Belgian.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1924, 1981, 1979, 1940—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1924-04-18. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ghislain, Cloquet and Belgian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ghislain Cloquet”, the useful work is to connect “belgian cinematographer (1924-1981)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1521771. VIAF identifies the subject as 37113790. The Library of Congress control number is n87812490. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 1981, 1979 and 1940.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ghislain Cloquet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.