During the 70s, Pierre William Glenn, until then director of photography and camera operator, decided to strike out on his own and became a director. He staged the motorcycle Grands Prix of the time with his first feature film as a director. The Iron Horse tells the story of the “fantastic ride”, in 1974, of the best drivers in Europe on the twelve Grand Prix circuits which then constituted the World Championship.
At 25, Glenn started as a cinematographer. After working in particular with Marin Karmitz (Camarades, 1969), André Téchiné (Paulina s'en va, 1969) and Jacques Rivette (Out one, 1970), he stood out on the feature film Wheels of Ashes (1970) by Peter Goldman. At the beginning of the 1970s, he began a collaboration with José Giovanni (One Way, 1971) and especially Bertrand Tavernier (The Judge and the Assassin, 1973). He worked at the same time with directors from the New Wave, first and foremost François Truffaut, with American Night (1972), A Beautiful Girl Like Me (1972) and Pocket Money (1975).
In 1974, Pierre-William Glenn directed his own film, Le Cheval de fer, about the world of motorcycles, which received considerable critical acclaim. He then worked as a camera operator for Joseph Losey (Monsieur Klein, 1975), and Les Routes du sud, 1977).
In the early 1980s, his work was particularly praised on the films Série noire and The Choice of Arms by Alain Corneau – with whom he had previously worked on France société anonyme (1973) and Ronde de nuit by Jean-Claude Missiaen. Glenn also signed the photography for two films by Maurice Pialat, Passe ton bac d'abord (1978) and Loulou (1980), with whom relations were difficult.
He then devoted himself to directing his two films Les Enragés (1985) and Terminus (1987), which went relatively unnoticed. He then took over the direction of photography, becoming more rare in the 1990s; then he began a collaboration with Claude Lelouch (Hasards ou Coïncidences, 1997, And now… Ladies and Gentlemen, 2001 and 11'09″01, 2002).
He has written and developed around fifteen screenplays since 1974. Collaborations with Jean Cosmos (Top model, Farewell old Europe), Gérard Brach (Les enragés), Alain Reynaud-Fourton (L'Intrus), Frédéric Fajardie (Farewell to Hollywood ), Philippe Lasry (The Illusion of a Fauve), Sébastien Doubinsky and Jeff Cox (Skin n'gold), Éric Nataf (Evil through evil), Patrick Raynal (Once upon a time there was a magician of light). The last two scripts: In the upper room and Jerusalem of the Caribbean, written in 2014 and 2015, are in pre-production.
