Tavernier, Bertrand 1941-
Tavernier, Bertrand 1941-
PERSONAL
Born April 25, 1941, in Lyon, France; son of Rene (a writer and publicist) and Genevieve (maiden name, Dumond) Tavernier; married, wife's name Colo (a screenwriter; also known as Claudine O'Hagan), February 16 1965 (divorced, 1980); children: Nils (an actor), Tiffany (a writer). Education: Attended Sorbonne, University of Paris; also studied law.
Addresses:
Office—Little Bear, 7-9 rue Arthur Groussier, 75010 Paris, France. Agent—Sam Cohn, International Creative Management, 10250 Constellation Way, 9th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90067.
Career:
Director, producer, and writer. Assistant to film director Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961; press agent for film producer Georges de Beauregard; freelance press agent, 1965-1972; Lumiere Institute, president; Little Bear, Paris, principal and producer.
Member:
French Directors Guild (past president), Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (vice president).
Awards, Honors:
Prix Louis Delluc and Nugo Award, Chicago Film Festival, both 1973, OCIC Award, Silver Berlin Bear, and nomination for Golden Berlin Bear, all Berlin International Film Festival, 1974, for L'Horloger de Saint-Paul; Cesar Awards (with Jean Aurenche), best director and best screenplay, and Cesar Award nomination, best film, all Academie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema, and Critics Award, best film, French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, all 1976, for Que la fete commence …; Cesar Award (with Aurenche), best screenplay, and Cesar Award nominations, best director and best film, all 1977, for Le Juge et l'assassin; nomination for Golden Berlin Bear, Prix Unifrance, and Golden Asteroide, all 1980, and Cesar Award nomination (with David Rayfiel), best original script, 1981, all for La Mort en direct; nomination for Golden Palm, Cannes Film Festival, 1980, for Une semaine de vacances; Academy Award nomination, best foreign film, 1981, Cesar Award nominations, best director, best film, and best screenplay (with Aurenche), 1982, and Critics Award, best film, French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, 1982, all for Coup de torchon; Cannes Film Festival Award, best director, and nomination for Golden Palm, both 1984, Boston Society of Film Critics Award, best director, Film Award (with Alain Sarde), best foreign language film, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cesar Award (with Colo Tavernier), best screenplay adaptation, Cesar Award nominations, best director and best film, New York Film Critics Circle Award, best foreign film, and National Board of Review Award, best foreign film, all 1985, and Mainichi Film Concours Award, best foreign language film, 1986, all for Un Dimanche a la campagne; Silver Ribbon, best director of a foreign film, Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, 1987, and Bodil Award, best European Film, Bodil Festival, 1988, all for 'Round Midnight; Special Prize of the Jury, European Film Awards, and Tokyo International Film Festival Award, best artistic contribution, both 1989, Film Award, best film not in the English language, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and Cesar Award nominations, best director, best film, and best screenplay (with Jean Cosmos), all 1990, for La Vie et rien d'autre; Golden Palm nomination, Cannes Film Festival, 1990, for Daddy Nostalgie; special mention, Bergamo Film Meeting, 1992, for La Guerre sans nom; Cesar Award nominations, best director, best film, and best screenplay (with Michel Alexandre), all 1992, for L.627; Golden Berlin Bear and nomination for Golden Kikito, best Latin film, Gramado Film Festival, both 1995, for L'Appat; FIPRESCI Award, Solidarity Award, and nomination for Golden Seashell, all San Sebastian International Film Festival, 1996, Cesar Award, best director, and Cesar Award nominations, best film and best original screenplay (with Cosmos), Best European Film Award and People's Choice Award, both Denver International Film Festival, and Critics Award, best film, French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, all 1997, all for Capitaine Conan; Crystal Iris Award, Brussels International Film Festival, 1998; FIPRESCI Award, honorable mention for speciality of the topic, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and nomination for Golden Berlin Bear, all Berlin International Film Festival, Audience Award, San Sebastian International Film Festival, and Ecumenical Film Award, Norwegian International Film Festival, all 1999, and Fotogramas de Plata Award and Sant Jordi Award, both best foreign film, 2000, all for Ca commence aujourd'hui; Lifetime Achievement Award, Istanbul International Film Festival, 2001; nomination for Golden Berlin Bear, and Jury Awards, best director, best film, and best screenplay (with Cosmos), Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, all 2002, for Laissez-passer; Audience Award, San Sebastian International Film Festival, 2005, for Holy Lola.
CREDITS
Film Director:
"Baiser de Judas" in Les Baisers (also known as I Baci and Una Voglia matta di donna), Rome-Paris Films/Flora Films, 1963.
"Une Chance explosive" in La Chance et l'amour (also known as Chance at Love and L'Amore e la chance), Rome-Paris Films/ROTOR Film, 1964.
Assistant director, Maciste, gladiatore di Sparta (also known as The Terror of Rome against the Son of Hercules and Maciste, gladiateur de Sparte), 1964.
Assistant director, Una Questione d'onore (also known as A Question of Honour), 1965.
L'Horloger de Saint-Paul (also known as The Clockmaker, The Clockmaker of St. Paul, and The Watchmaker of St. Paul), Lira Films, 1972.
Que la fete commence … (also known as Let Joy Reign Supreme), Fildebroc, 1975.
Le Juge et l'assassin (also known as The Judge and the Assassin), Lira Films, 1976.
Des Enfants gates (also known as Spoiled Children), Gaumont/Sara/Films 66/Little Bear, 1977.
(And coproducer) La Mort en direct (also known as Deathwatch, Death Watch-Der Gekaufte Tod, Death in Full View, Der Gekaufte Tod, and The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe), Selta/Sara/Little Bear/FR-3/Gaumont, 1979.
(And producer) Une Semaine de vacances (also known as A Week's Brief Vacation, A Week's Holiday, and A Week's Vacation,), Sara Films/Little Bear Productions, 1980.
Coup de torchon (also known as Clean Slate and Clean Up), Films de la Tour/Little Bear Productions, 1981.
Philippe Soupault (also known as Philippe Soupault et le surrealisme), 1982.
(And producer, both with Robert Parrish) Mississippi Blues (also known as October Country and Pays d'octobre), Corinth Films, 1983.
Cine citron, 1983.
La 8eme generation, 1983.
(And producer) Un Dimanche a la campagne (also known as A Sunday in the Country), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1984.
'Round Midnight (also known as Autour de minuit), Warner Bros., 1986.
La Passion Beatrice (also known as Beatrice, The Passion of Beatrice, and Quarto comandamento), Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1987.
La Vie et rien d'autre (also known as Life and Nothing But), Orion, 1989.
Daddy Nostalgie (also known as Daddy Nostalgia and These Foolish Things), Avenue Entertainment, 1990.
50 Ans de cinema Americaine, 1991.
La Guerre sans nom (also known as The Undeclared War), 1991.
"Pour Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar" segment, Contre l'oubli (also known as Against Oblivion, Lest We Forget, and Ecrire contre l'oubli), 1992.
L.627, Kino International, 1992.
La Fille de d'Artagnan (also known as D'Artagnan's Daughter, The Daughter of D'Artagnan, and Revenge of the Musketeers), Miramax, 1994.
L'Appat (also known as The Bait, Fresh Bait, and Live Bait), 1995.
(And producer) Capitaine Conan (also known as Captain Conan), Bac Films, 1996.
De l'autre cote du periph (also known as The Other Side of the Tracks), 1998.
Ca commence aujourd'hui (also known as It All Starts Today), Independent Artists, 1999.
Spotlights on a Massacre: 10 Films Against 100 Million Antipersonnel Land Mines, 1999.
Histoires de vies brisees: les "double peine" de Lyon (documentary), Pierre Grise Distribution, 2001.
Laissez-passer (also known as Safe Conduct and Salvocunducto), subtitled version, Empire Pictures, 2002.
Holy Lola, TFM Distribution, 2004.
Film Producer:
La Question (also known as The Question), 1976.
Rue du pied de Grue, 1979.
La Trace (also known as The Trace), 1983.
Veillees d'armes (also known as The Troubles We've Seen: A History of Journalism in Wartime, The Troubles weve seen—Die Geschichte der Kriegsberichterstattung, and Veillees d'armes: Histoire du journalisme en temps de guerre), 1994.
Co-executive producer, Fred, 1997.
Coproducer, Pas d'histoires! (animated; also known as Don't Make Trouble!), Gebeka Films, 2001.
Film Appearances:
(Uncredited) La Boulangere de Monceau (also known as The Baker of Monceau, The Baker's Girl of Monceau, and The Girl at the Monceau Bakery), 1963.
Hotel Terminus: Klaus Barbie, His Life and Times, Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1988.
Infant of Paradise: Alexadre Trauner and the Development of Film Production Design, 1993.
Francois Truffaut: Portraits voles (also known as Francois Truffaut: Stolen Portraits), 1993.
Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (also known as The Young Girls Turn 25), 1993.
L'Univers de Jacques Demy (also known as The Universe of Jacques Demy and The World of Jacques Demy), 1995.
Narrator, Lumiere: The First Picture Show (documentary), Kino Video, 1996.
Narrator, The Lumiere Brothers' First Films, 1996.
In the Shadow of Hollywood (documentary; also known as A l'ombre d'Hollywood), National Film Board of Canada, 2000.
Himself, Claude Sautet ou La magie invisible (documentary; also known as Claude Sautet or the Invisible Magic and Claude Sautet oder die unsichtbare magie), Les Grands Films Classiques, 2003.
Himself, L'homme au cigare (documentary), Rattlesnake Pictures, 2003.
Himself, Cineastes an accio (documentary; also known as Cineastas en accion), Kilimanjaro Productions, 2005.
Television Appearances; Specials:
Lyon, le regard interieur (also known as Lyon, Inside Out), 1988.
Un Film sur Bertrand Tavernier, 1996.
Cannes … les 400 coups, 1997.
Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz, Bravo, 1997.
Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows, PBS, 2000.
Television Appearances; Episodic:
American Cinema, PBS, 1995.
Interviewee, "Michael Powell," Artworks Scotland, 2005.
Magacine, 2005.
Himself, L'hebdo cinema, 2006.
Television Appearances; Other:
Dialogue pour un portrait: Philippe Noiret, 1981.
Le petit Mitchell illustre, 1981.
Gilles Grangier, 50 ans de cinema, 1990.
Jean Renoir: Part One—From La Belle Epoque to World War II, 1993.
Jean Renoir: Part Two—Hollywood and Beyond, 1993.
The Making of an Englishman, 1995.
Philippe le bienheureux, 1996.
Quand le chat sourit, 1997.
Positif, une revue, 2003.
Jacques Deray: Le cinema … ma vie, 2005.
Member of audience, Premio Donostia a Willem Dafoe, 2005.
(In archive footage) Ceremonia de clausura, 2005.
Television Director:
Lyon, le regard interieur (special; also known as Lyon, Inside Out), 1988.
La Lettre (movie), 1997.
Les enfants de Thies, 2001.
RECORDINGS
Videos:
Compositeurs/realisateurs, dialogue impossible?, 2002.
WRITINGS
Screenplays:
"Baiser de Judas" in Les Baisers (also known as I Baci and Una Voglia matta di donna), Rome-Paris Films/Flora Films, 1963.
"Une Chance explosive" in La Chance et l'amour (also known as Chance at Love and L'Amore e la chance), Rome-Paris Films/ROTOR Film, 1964.
Entre las redes (also known as Mexican Slayride, Coplan ouvre le feu a Mexico, Coplan III, and Moresque: obiettivo allucinante), 1966.
Capitaine Singrid (also known as Captain Singrid, Capitao Singrid, and I mercenari muoiono all'alba), 1967.
(With Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost) L'Horloger de Saint-Paul (also known as The Clockmaker, The Clockmaker of St. Paul, and The Watchmaker of St. Paul; based on novel L'Horloger d'Everton by Georges Simenon), Lira Films, 1972, Joseph Green Pictures, 1976.
(With Aurenche) Que la fete commence … (also known as Let Joy Reign Supreme), Fildebroc, 1975, Specialty Films, 1977.
(With Aurenche) Le Juge et l'assassin, Lira Films, 1976, released as The Judge and the Assassin, Libra Films, 1982.
(With Charlotte Dubreuil and Christine Pascal) Des Enfants gates (also known as Spoiled Children), Gaumont/Sara/Films 66/Little Bear, 1977, Corinth, 1981.
(With David Rayfiel) La Mort en direct (also known as The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, Death in Full View, Deathwatch, Death Watch-Der Gekaufte Tod, and Der Gekaufte Tod; based on story "The Unsleeping Eye" by David Compton), Selta/Sara/Little Bear/FR-3/Gaumont, 1979, Quartet Films, 1982.
(With Colo Tavernier and Marie-Francoise Hans) Une Semaine de vacances (also known as A Week's Brief Vacation, A Week's Holiday, and A Week's Vacation), Sara Films/Little Bear Productions, 1980, Biograph International, 1982.
(With Aurenche) Coup de torchon (also known as Clean Slate and Clean Up; based on novel Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson), Films de la Tour/Little Bear Productions, 1981, Biograph International/Quartet Films/Frank Moreno Co., 1982.
La Trace (also known as The Trace), 1983.
Mississippi Blues (also known as October Country and Pays d'octobre), Odessa/Little Bear Productions, 1983.
La 8eme generation, 1983.
(With Colo Tavernier) Un Dimanche a la campagne (also known as A Sunday in the Country; based on novel Monsieur Ladmiral va bientot mourir by Bost), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1984.
(With Rayfiel) 'Round Midnight (also known as Autour de minuit), Warner Bros., 1986.
(With Laurent Heynemann and Phillippe Boucher) Les Mois d'avril sont meurtriers (also known as April Is a Deadly Month), Sara Films/CDF, 1986.
(With Cosmos) La Vie et rien d'autre (also known as Life and Nothing But), Orion, 1989.
(Dialogue) Daddy Nostalgie (also known as Daddy Nostalgia and These Foolish Things), Avenue Entertainment, 1990.
Der Gruene Berg, 1990.
La Guerre sans nom (also known as The Undeclared War), 1991, published (with Patrick Rotman) as La Guerre sans nom: Les appeles d'Algerie, 1954-1962, Editions du Seuil, 1992.
(With Michel Alexandre) L.627, Kino International, 1992.
La Fille de d'Artagnan (also known as D'Artagnan's Daughter, The Daughter of D'Artagnan, and Revenge of the Musketeers), Miramax, 1994.
(With C. Tavernier O'Hagan) L'Appat (also known as The Bait, Live Bait, and Fresh Bait), 1995.
(With Cosmos) Capitaine Conan (also known as Captain Conan), Bac Films, 1996.
(With Dominique Sampiero and daughter Tiffany Tavernier) Ca commence aujourd'hui (also known as It All Starts Today), Independent Artists, 1999.
Il avait dans le coeur des jardins introuvables, 2000.
(With Jose Giovanni) Mon pere, il m'a sauve la vie (also known as My Father Saved my Life), Bac Films, 2001.
(With Cosmos) Laissez-passer (also known as Safe Conduct and Salvocunducto), subtitled version, Empire Pictures, 2002.
Holy Lola, TFM Distribution, 2004.
Television Specials:
Lyon, le regard interieur (also known as Lyon, Inside Out), 1988.
Other:
(With Jean-Pierre Coursodon) Trente ans de cinema Americaine (nonfiction book; title means Thirty Years of American Cinema), Editions C.I.B., 1970.
(Compiler) Amis americains: Retretiens avec les grands auteurs d'Hollywood, Institut Lumiere, 1993.
50 Years of American Cinema (book), 1995.
Also contributed to periodicals, including Cahiers du cinema and Positif.
OTHER SOURCES
Books:
Zants, Emily, Bertrand Tavernier: Fractured Narrative and Bourgeois Values, Scarecrow Press, 1999.
Periodicals:
Cineaste, summer, 1998, p. 20.
Film Comment, November, 1998, p. 71.
Sight and Sound, July, 1999, pp. 12-15.
Tavernier, Bertrand
TAVERNIER, Bertrand
Nationality: French. Born: Lyons, 25 April 1941. Education: Studied law for one year. Family: Married writer Colo O'Hagan (separated), two children. Career: Film critic for Positif and Cahiers du Cinéma, Paris, early 1960s; press agent for producer Georges de Beauregard, 1962; freelance press agent, associated with Pierre Rissient, 1965; directed first film, L'Horloger de St. Paul, 1974. Awards: Prix Louis Delluc, for L'Horloger de St. Paul, 1974; Cesar Awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (with Jean Aurenche), for Que la fête commence, 1975; European Film Festival Special Prize, for La Vie et rien d'autre, 1989.
Films as Director and Co-Scriptwriter:
- 1964
"Une Chance explosive" episode of La Chance et l'amour
- 1965
"Le Baiser de Judas" episode of Les Baisers
- 1974
L'Horloger de Saint-Paul (The Clockmaker)
- 1975
Que la fête commence (Let Joy Reign Supreme)
- 1976
Le Juge et l'assassin (The Judge and the Assassin)
- 1977
Des enfants gâtés (Spoiled Children)
- 1979
Femmes Fatales
- 1980
La Mort en direct (Death Watch)
- 1981
Une Semaine de vacances (A Week's Vacation)
- 1982
Coup de torchon (Clean Slate); Philippe Soupault et lesurréalisme) (doc)
- 1983
Mississippi Blues (Pays d'Octobre) (co-d)
- 1984
Un Dimanche à la campagne (A Sunday in the Country)
- 1986
Round Midnight (Autour de minuit)
- 1987
Le Passion Béatrice
- 1988
Lyon, le regard intérieur (doc for TV)
- 1989
La Vie et rien d'autre (Life and Nothing But)
- 1990
Daddy Nostalgie (These Foolish Things)
- 1991
La guerre sans non (The Undeclared War)
- 1992
L.627
- 1994
Le fille de D'Artagnan (The Daughter of D'Artagnan); Anywhere but Here
- 1995
L'appat (Fresh Bait)
- 1996
Capitaine Conan (Captain Conan)
- 1997
La Lettre (for TV) (d only)
- 1998
De l'autre côté du périph (The Other Side of the Tracks) (d only)
- 1999
Ça commence aujourd'hui (It All Starts Today)
Other Films:
- 1967
Coplan ouverte le feu à Mexico (Freda) (sc)
- 1968
Capitaine Singrid (Leduc) (sc)
- 1977
Le Question (Heynemann) (pr)
- 1979
Rue du pied de Grue (Grandjouan) (pr); Le Mors aux dents (Heynemann) (pr)
- 1993
Des demoiselles ont en 25 ans (The Young Girls Turn 25) (Varda) (appearance); Francois Truffaut: portraits voles (Francois Truffaut: Stolen Portraits) (Toubiana, Pascal) (appearance)
- 1994
Troubles We've Seen: A History of Journalism in War-time (pr)
- 1995
The World of Jacques Demy (Varda) (appearance); AmericanCinema (role)
- 2000
Il avait dans Le coeur des jardins introuvables (co-sc)
Publications
By TAVERNIER: book—
30 ans de cinéma américaine (30 Years of American Cinema), with Jean-Pierre Coursodon, Paris.
Amis americains: entretiens avec les grands auteurs d'Hollywood, Paris, 1993.
Fragments: Portraits from the Inside, with Andre De Toth and Martin Scorsese, New York, 1996.
By TAVERNIER: articles—
"Il n'y a pas de genre à proscrire ou à conseiller . . . ," an interview with D. Rabourdin, in Cinéma (Paris), May 1975.
"Les Rapports de la justice avec la folie et l'histoire," in Avant-Scènedu Cinéma (Paris), June 1976.
"Notes éparses," in Positif (Paris), December/January 1977/78.
"Blending the Personal with the Political," an interview with L. Quart and L. Rubinstein, in Cineaste (New York), Summer 1978.
"Director of the Year," International Film Guide (London, New York), 1980.
"Cleaning the Slate," an interview with I. F. McAsh, in Films (London), August 1982.
Interviews in Films in Review (New York), March and April 1983.
Interview with Michel Ciment and others, in Positif (Paris), May 1984.
Interview with Dan Yakir, in Film Comment (New York), September/October 1984.
"Round Midnight," an interview with Jean-Pierre Coursodon, in Cineaste (New York), vol. 15, no. 2, 1986.
"All the Colors: Bertrand Tavernier Talks about Round Midnight," an interview with Michael Dempsey, in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1987.
Interview with M. Ruuth, in Chaplin (Stockholm), vol. 29, 1987.
Interview, in Skrien (Amsterdam), Spring 1987.
Interview, in Positif (Paris), September 1989.
Interview by F. Laurendeau, in Sequences (Montreal), November 1989.
"La guerre n'est pas finie," an interview with K. Jaehne, in Cineaste (New York), vol. 18, no. 1, 1990.
Obituary, of Michael Powell, in Positif (Paris), May 1990.
"A la rencontre de Budd Boetticher," in Positif (Paris), July/August 1991.
"Journey into light," an interview with Patrick McGilligan, in FilmComment (New York), March/April 1992.
Interview by F. Aude and H. Niogret, in Positif (Paris), April 1992.
"Police State," an interview with Geoff Andrew, in Time Out (London), 6 January 1993.
"Tavernier on Mackendrick," in Sight and Sound (London), August 1994.
Interview with Jean-Claude Raspiengeas, in Télérama (Paris), 3 May 1995.
Interview with Philippe Piazzo, in Jeune Cinéma (Paris), January-February 1997.
"Filming a Forgotten War: An Interview with Bertrand Tavernier," in Cineaste (New York), April 1998.
On TAVERNIER: books—
Bion, Danièle, Bertrand Tavernier: cinéaste de l'émotion, Renens, 1984.
Mereghetti, Paolo, editor, Bertrand Tavernier, Venice, 1986.
Douin, Jean-Luc, Tavernier, Paris, 1988.
Mehle, Kerstin, Blickstrategien im Kino von Bertrand Tavernier, Frankfurt, 1991.
La vida, la muerte: el cine de Bertrand Tavernier, Valencia, Spain, 1992.
Zants, Emily, Bertrand Tavernier: Fractured Narrative and Bourgeois Values, Lanham, 1999.
Hay, Stephen, Bertrand Tavernier: The Film Maker of Lyon, I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2000.
On TAVERNIER: articles—
"L'Horloger de Saint-Paul Issue" of Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), May 1974.
Auty, M., "Tavernier in Scotland," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1976/77.
Hennebelle, G., and others, "Le Cinéma de Bertrand Tavernier," in Ecran (Paris), September and October 1977.
Magretta, W. R. and J., "Bertrand Tavernier: The Constraints of Convention," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Summer 1978.
"Bertrand Tavernier Dossier" in Revue du Cinéma (Paris), April 1984.
Ciment, Michel, "Sunday in the Country with Bertrand," in American Film (Washington, D.C.), October 1984.
Harvey, Stephen, "Focus: Beatrice," in American Film (New York), March 1988.
Riding, Alan, "Bertrand Tavernier Films Small Romances amid Wide-Scale History," in New York Times, 11 September 1990.
Seidenberg, Robert, "Daddy Nostalgia," in American Film (New York), February 1991.
Loiseau, Jean-Claude, and others, "Capitaine Conan," in Télérama (Paris), 16 October 1996.
Vincendeau, Ginette, "Black to the Blackboard," in Sight and Sound (London), July 1999.
* * *
It is significant that Bertrand Tavernier's films have been paid little attention by the more important contemporary film critics/theorists: his work is resolutely "realist," and realism is under attack in critical quarters. Realism has frequently been a cover for the reproduction and reinforcement of dominant ideological assumptions, and to this extent that attack is salutary. Yet Tavernier's cinema demonstrates effectively that the blanket rejection of realism rests on very unstable foundations. Realism has been seen as the bourgeoisie's way of talking to itself. It does not necessarily follow that its only motive for talking to itself is the desire for reassurance; nor need we assume that the only position realist fiction constructs for the reader/viewer is one of helpless passivity (Tavernier's films clearly postulate an alert audience ready to reflect and analyze critically).
Three of Tavernier's films, Death Watch, Coup de torchon, and A Week's Vacation, while they may not unambiguously answer the attacks on realism, strongly attest to the inadequacy of their formulation. For a start, the films' range of form, tone, and address provides a useful reminder of the potential for variety that the term "classical realist text" tends to obliterate. To place beside the strictly realist A Week's Vacation the futurist fantasy of Death Watch on the one hand and the scathing, all-encompassing caricatural satire and irony of Coup de torchon on the other is to illustrate not merely a range of subject-matter but a range of strategy. Each film constructs for the viewer a quite distinct relationship to the action and to the protagonist, analyzable in terms of varying degrees of identification and detachment which may also shift within each film. Nor should the description of A Week's Vacation as "strictly realist" be taken to suggest some kind of simulated cinéma-vérité: the film's stylistic poise and lucid articulation, its continual play between looking with the protagonist and looking at her, consistently encourage an analytical distance.
Through all his films, certainly, the bourgeoisie "talks to itself," but the voice that articulates is never reassuring, and bourgeois institutions and assumptions are everywhere rendered visible and opened to question. Revolutionary positions are allowed a voice and are listened to respectfully. This was clear from Tavernier's first film, The Clockmaker, among the screen's most intelligent uses of Simenon. Under Tavernier, the original project is effectively transformed by introducing the political issues that Simenon totally represses, and by changing the crime from a meaningless, quasi-existentialist actegratuit to a gesture of radical protest. But Tavernier's protagonists are always bourgeois: troubled, questioning, caught up in social institutions but not necessarily rendered impotent by them, capable of growth and awareness. The films, while basically committed to a well-left-of-center liberalism, are sufficiently open, intelligent, and disturbed to be readily accessible to more radical positions than they are actually willing to adopt.
Despite the difference in mode of address, the three films share common thematic concerns (most obviously, the fear of conformism and dehumanization, the impulse towards protest and revolt, the difficulties of effectively realizing such a protest in action). They also have in common a desire to engage, more or less explicitly, with interrelated social, political, and aesthetic issues. The caustic analysis of the imperialist mentality and the kind of personal rebellion it provokes (itself corrupt, brutalized, and ultimately futile) in Coup de torchon is the most obvious instance of direct political engagement. Death Watch, within its science fiction format, is fascinatingly involved with contemporary inquiries into the construction of narrative and the objectification of women. Its protagonist (Harvey Keitel) attempts to create a narrative around an unsuspecting woman (Romy Schneider) by means of the miniature television camera surgically implanted behind his eyes. The implicit feminist concern here becomes the structuring principle of A Week's Vacation. Without explicitly raising feminist issues, the film's theme is the focusing of a contemporary bourgeois female consciousness, the consciousness of an intelligent and sensitive woman whose identity is not defined by her relationship with men, who is actively engaged with social problems (she is a schoolteacher), and whose fears (of loneliness, old age, death) are consistently presented in relation to contemporary social realities rather than simplistically defined in terms of "the human condition."
In Tavernier's films through the early 1990s, he has covered a wide variety of moods, styles, and settings, with the most representative of these works linked by a common contemplative quality. His concerns are the passage of time and its effect on human relationships and the individual soul. In particular, he is interested in characters who are aged and ill, or have seen too much of the seamier aspects of human behavior. These latter works investigate how they come to terms with loved ones—especially their children.
A Sunday in the Country, set at the turn of the twentieth century, is the story of an elderly painter who resides in the country and is visited one Sunday by his reserved son and daughter-in-law, their three children, and his free-spirited daughter. The film is a pensive, poignant tale of old age and the choices people make in their lives. There is much drama and emotion in Life and Nothing But, a thoughtful war film which in fact takes place at a time when there is no fighting and bloodshed. Set after the conclusion of a war, the film concerns a soldier (Tavernier regular Philippe Noiret) who is assigned to chronicle his country's war casualties. Meanwhile, a couple of women have set out in search of their lovers, who are missing in action.
In Round Midnight, Tavernier caringly recreates the community of black jazz artists in exile in France. The film is a character study of an aged, alcoholic tenor sax legend, a composite of Bud Powell and Lester Young (and played by Dexter Gordon, himself a jazz great). He settles in Paris in 1959 and plays nightly at a famed jazz club; at the core of the story is his friendship with a young, adoring Frenchman, a dedicated jazz fan. Finally, in Daddy Nostalgia, the filmmaker examines the complex alliance between a father (Dirk Bogarde) and daughter (Jane Birkin). He is seriously ill; she visits him for an extended stay and attempts to understand their relationship, and his life.
The fact that Tavernier's recent films have (unaccountably) had very little exposure in North America must not be taken as evidence of decline. Only Daddy Nostalgie has had any wide release; the rest have gone direct to video after brief screenings in specialist theaters. All are well worth searching out, conceived and directed with Tavernier's customary intelligence and complexity. His mastery of mise-en-scène is complete, from the intimate oedipal tensions of the family scenes in Daddy Nostalgie to the spectacular and horrifying battles of Capitaine Conan, though one would not easily guess this from the wretched video of Daddy Nostalgie, a widescreen film presented in the wrong format and suggesting that Tavernier doesn't know how to frame. The other films have been treated by their distributors with more respect.
L.627 (the title refers to the Public Health Card for junkies, who get check-ups every twenty-four hours) is among the most intelligent movies in any language about the inner workings of the police, a fine example of Tavernier's refusal to make simple statements or offer the spectator clear and uncompromised moral positions, implying severe criticisms of the organization while showing sympathy and some respect for the officers who try to preserve a modicum of decency and self-respect within it. The "bait" of L'Appat is a young woman used by her two male friends to seduce wealthy men to unlatch their apartment doors so that her colleagues can burst in and rob them; while no character is admirable, none is presented without some sympathy, so that the underlying implication is, as usual with Tavernier, that it is the culture that is pervasively "wrong," not the individuals caught within it. Capitaine Conan is a fascinating study of the complexities of military service, centered on a dedicated "career officer" who has constructed for himself a personal code of honour the inherent contradictions and misguidedness of which are exposed at every step.
Tavernier remains a major figure in contemporary cinema; it is time for festivals and cinematheques to take note and honour him with retrospectives, which might serve to rectify the terrible neglect into which his work seems to have fallen.
—Robin Wood, updated by Rob Edelman and Robin Wood