His films as cinematographer include Les Valseuses, Barocco, La meilleure façon de marcher, The Bronte Sisters, Brubaker, Garde à vue, Possession, Fort Saganne, So Long, Stooge (Tchao Pantin), Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (US title: Manon of the Spring).

He wanted to be a cartoonist and prepared for the competitive entrance examination to the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, but he failed it.

[3] He also prepared to study at France's most prominent film school, the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC), but failed the entrance examination.

By listening to the directors, he learned how to use fixed shots and lighting without contrast when requested by Marguerite Duras (La Femme du Gange (1974), India Song (1975), Son nom de Venise (1976)), or an exaggeratedly expressionist style and a shoulder camera with Andrzej Zulawski (Possession, 1981).

[citation needed] Bruno Nuytten went into directing for Camille Claudel, at the express request of actress Isabelle Adjani, who co-produced the film (with Christian Fechner) and took the leading role.

He heard me.”[5] A few years earlier, Nuytten had remarked: “The only interesting thing that I discovered while talking with a journalist is that in fact I had put myself in scene in the inversion of powers: at the end of the film I had become Camille Claudel and Isabelle Adjani had become Rodin.