Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1956: recognition for Commander Jacques-Yves Cousteau

On May 10, 1956, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for their documentary "The Silent World"

In the age of special effects, the film "The Silent World" may seem a little outdated today. But when it was released in 1956, it was a real shock.

It was in July 1953 that Jacques-Yves Cousteau , a native of Saint-André-de-Cubzac, in Gironde, undertook the filming project. Looking for a student to assist him, he first contacted IDHEC (Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies). The school's management suggested Louis Malle, then aged 21: he was a good swimmer and could easily be trained in scuba diving.

Throughout the summer of 1953, Louis Malle participated in a training course with the divers of the "Calypso," the oceanographic ship used by the maritime explorer for his scientific campaigns and documentary filming. The ship set sail from Toulon in 1954 and traveled with its crew and divers to the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. Filming lasted three months.

Passionate about the ocean floor, Jacques-Yves Cousteau began filming it in 1943, after developing a waterproof camera, placed in a sort of tube, with a glass wall in front of the lens. For "The Silent World," the team created a system of lamps that could be turned on after immersion. It is thanks to these inventions that the film takes the viewer to meet Jojo the grouper, tropical turtles, and sharks. A world inaccessible to most people at the time.

On Saturday, April 28, 1956, a small white boat anchored in the Bay of Cannes. It was by this unusual means, aboard the "Calypso," that Cousteau had decided to present his film at the festival.

"Sud Ouest", in its edition of April 30, 1956, bears witness to this event: "On the fifth day of screenings, the Festival (of Cannes), which seemed bogged down in productions of a fairly average level, was brutally awakened by a French film, the admirable "World of Silence", by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle, which earned its authors the first great ovation of this festival."

Cousteau didn't wait for the announcement of the winners, already off on a four-month oceanographic campaign. On the evening of Thursday, May 10, the audience at the Palais des Festivals, standing, applauded wildly the awarding of the Palme d'Or to this documentary; it was by radio that Cousteau learned the news. The following year, "The Silent World" received the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. This award crowned twenty years of research, development, and technical innovations that made it possible to reach depths of 75 meters.

As for the oceanographic vessel "Calypso", damaged during a stopover in Singapore in 1996, it was transported in 1998 to La Rochelle, where it deteriorated for more than nine years, moored at the Bassin des Chalutiers. A disagreement between the heirs of Commander Cousteau, who had died the previous year, blocked repairs. In 2007, it was a ship in very poor condition that left the port of La Rochelle at night for a second attempt at repairs, this time in Concarneau (29).