Bertrand Tavernier Movies
One of France's premiere directors, screenwriters, and producers, Bertrand Tavernier is renowned for making dramas encompassing themes as diverse as familial relationships, World War I, and contemporary social ills. Regardless of the subjects they explore, Tavernier lends his films great introspection and humanity, something that has established him as one of the French cinema's more progressive and compassionate figures.Born in Lyon on April 25, 1941, Tavernier grew up with a love of film and wanted to be a director from the age of 13. He was particularly influenced by such American directors as Joseph Losey, John Ford, Samuel Fuller, and William Wellman, and -- during a spell at the Sorbonne, where he studied law -- he became involved in the film industry as an assistant director for Jean-Pierre Melville. By his own admission, he was not very good at the job, so Tavernier became a film critic. While working for such prestigious publications as Positif and Cahiers du Cinema, he wrote two books on the American cinema, one of which has had numerous editions.
During a stint as a press agent for producer Georges de Beauregard, Tavernier was given the opportunity to direct some short sketches as part of a collective filmmaking project. He helmed his first feature film, L'Horloger de St. Paul, in 1974. The tale of a clockmaker and his complex relationship with his violent son and the bourgeois society that has produced him, it received international acclaim and a Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. It also featured a starring turn by Philippe Noiret, whom Tavernier featured often in subsequent projects.
Only one year later, the director again found acclaim, this time for two films. The first, Que La Fête Commence... (Let Joy Reign Supreme), was a historical drama set in pre-revolutionary France that centered around the emotional and ideological dilemmas of the humanist regent Phillippe D'Orleans; it won four Césars, including one for Best Direction. Tavernier's second film that year, Le Juge et l'Assassin (The Judge and the Assassin), also earned a number of Césars, including a Best Screenplay award for Tavernier. An exploration of the relationship between a convicted child killer and the judge who must decide his fate, it focused on one of Tavernier's major themes, a preoccupation with the relationships between completely opposite people and the irreducibility of social barriers.
Familial relations and social concerns were once again viewed through Tavernier's lens in Des Enfants Gatés (Spoiled Children) (1977); he subsequently went in an entirely different direction for the sci-fi La Mort En Direct (Death Watch) (1980), a disturbing reflection on voyeurism and the dark realms of the human psyche. Tavernier then returned to his native Lyon and the subject of family drama to make Une Semaine de Vacances (A Week's Vacation) (1980), before again collaborating with Noiret for Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate), in 1981. Adapted from an American novel set in Texas, the film took place in colonial Africa during the 1930s. A black comedy about a local police chief who goes on a murder spree after being treated like dirt for too long, it both provided a statement about the morality of power and contained a spate of affectionate references to the noir genre and Tavernier's beloved films of the '30s.
Tavernier had his next great critical success with Un Dimanche à la Campagne (A Sunday in the Country) (1984). Expanding on the themes explored four years earlier in Une Semaine de Vacances, it focused on the relationship between an aging painter and his children and grandchildren. The film won a number of honors, including the Director's Prize at Cannes and a Best Screenplay César that was shared between Tavernier and his then wife, Colo Tavernier O'Hagan. Two years later, Tavernier had possibly his greatest international success to date with Round Midnight, his tribute to jazz and jazzmen. Starring Dexter Gordon as a self-destructive American saxophonist living in self-exile in Paris, the film was a moody portrait of the friendship between the saxophonist and the French fan who becomes his caretaker. Gordon was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, and Herbie Hancock won an Oscar for the film's score.
Following a look at colossal family dysfunction in La Passion Béatrice (1987), Tavernier again earned international acclaim, this time for La Vie et Rien d'Autre (Life and Nothing But) (1989). Starring Noiret as a World War I major obsessed with making amends for the wartime carnage he took part in, it was a brilliant commentary on the absurdity of war. Both Noiret and Tavernier received honors from the European Film Academy for their work, in addition to a number of other awards.
Following another examination of parent-child relationships in Daddy Nostalgie (1990), which featured an excellent performance from Dirk Bogarde, Tavernier turned his attentions to the problems and social issues facing contemporary France. L.627 (1992) focused on drug abuse and HIV, while La Guerre Sans Nom (1992) was a documentary about the Algerian War. More anti-war sentiment followed in Captaine Conan (1996), a post-World War I drama about a captain whose proclivity toward killing people becomes something of a problem during peacetime. A frightening, pointed commentary on the darker shades of human nature and the monstrosity of war, it earned a number of honors, including a Best Director César for Tavernier.
In 1998, Tavernier, along with his son Nils, returned to the realm of contemporary social issues with De L'Autre Cote Du Periphe (The Other Side of the Tracks), a documentary about life in one of Paris' more infamous housing projects. A powerful portrait of racism, poverty, and social injustice, it formed a suitable precedent for Tavernier's next feature, Ça commence aujourd'hui (It All Begins Today) (1999). A social drama revolving around the efforts of a schoolteacher to bring change to his demoralized, largely impoverished community, the film was Tavernier's first major effort since Captaine Conan. Powerful and compassionate, it earned a number of awards at the Berlin Film Festival that year, including the Jury's Special Mention Prize for its subject matter. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- 1963
La Boulangere De Monceau (The Girl at the Monceau Bakery is the first of six short films that make up the Six Moral Tales series by French New Wave director Eric Rohmer. This 25-minute segment was shot in Paris with 16 mm black-and-white film. Barbet Schroeder (who also produced) plays a young university student who is initially attracted to a girl he sees on the street. While searching for her over several days, he makes frequent stops to a bakery. When he finally finds the girl and arranges a date, it conflicts with the date he has made with the bakery salesgirl. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbet Schroeder, Michéle Girardon, (more)
French film critic Bertrand Tavernier made his directorial debut in The Clockmaker. The title character, played by Tavernier's "alter ego" Philipe Noiret, is benumbed by the nihilistic activities of his son Sylvain Rougerie. Arrested on charges ranging from arson to murder, Rougerie offers the standard-issue explanation: the establishment is full of pigs who deserve to be "offed". Noiret must ask himself if his son's behavior is the result of stifling under the bourgeois lifestyle that Noiret has always championed. The Clockmaker is based on the Georges Simenon story L'Horlonger de Saint-Paul, which was also the French title of this film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, (more)
The humanistic actions of Philippe D'Orleans, the cultured gentle regent to young Louis the XV in pre-revolutionary France (1719) are chronicled in this French costumer. Though the regent endeavors to keep his subjects cultured and happy to stop the peasants from rising up, he knows he has no real royal authority. To assist, D'Orleans enlisted the aid of a priest, who unfortunately cared nothing for his God, nor anyone but himself. The regent becomes distraught after his daughter, with whom he has been accused of committing incest, dies. His natural idealism is also shaken when he must execute a band of revolutionaries. True joy will only be found when the peasants successfully overthrow the aristocrats who held them down so long. The film's soundtrack features the music of the real Phillippe D'Orleans. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, (more)
- 1975
Le Juge et L'Assassin probes a curious relationship between condemner and condemnee. Philippe Noiret plays Rousseau, a French judge who holds the fate of convicted child killer Bouvier (Michel Galabru) in his hands. Should Rousseau decide that Bouvier is insane, the killer will not go prison. As they come to know each other better, both are given the rare opportunity of exploring the vagaries of the human mind. The previously unbendable judge alters several long-held opinions concerning criminals, while Bouvier is for the first time in his life able to articulate the thought processes which motivate his actions. It is clear at times that much of the dialogue in Judge and the Assassin stems from Bertrand Tavernier's own lifelong feelings of loneliness and isolation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Michel Galabru, (more)
- 1977
Charlegue (Jacques Denis) is a small-time publisher who ran a left-wing newspaper in Algeria and worked in support of that country's independence movement. When the country is taken over by right-wing French military types in the 1950s, he is forced to go underground. The country's rulers eventually capture him, imprison him, and subject him to brutal torture. Despite this, he maintains his morale and even manages to smuggle out a book about his experiences. When the book is published in France, it provokes cries of outrage against the regime in Algeria. This movie is based on Henri Alleg's best-selling autobiographical book. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Denis, Nicole Garcia, (more)
- 1977
Spoiled Children (Des enfants gates) finds director Bertrand Tavernier tempering his New Wave impulses with an overwhelming desire to entertain a mass audience. The "children" of the title are actually artistically inclined grown-ups. Filmmaker Bernard (Michel Piccoli), who is suffering a creative block, enters into an affair with the much-younger Anne (Christine Pascal). Meanwhile, Bernard's idealistic neighbors go head-to-head with their more pragmatic (and crueler) landlord. While a very personal film, Spoiled Children is broad enough in its appeal to reach even those who've never attempted anything of an artistic nature. Actress Christine Pascal co-wrote the script with director Tavernier, reportedly drawing on their own relationship. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Christine Pascal, (more)
- 1978
- R
An idyllic May-December romance becomes unraveled when the much-older man begins suspecting that his tender young lover may be his own daughter, the result of an illicit affair many years before. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francisco Rabal, Anja Pieroni, (more)
- 1980
- R
French director Bernard Tavernier once again successfully translates the fragile intimacy of human relationships to the screen in A Week's Vacation, which he also co-produced and co-wrote. Nathalie Baye stars as a schoolteacher whose efficiency is compromised by her troubled private life. She takes a vacation and heads for her family home in Lyons, hoping to clear her head by commiserating with her parents. Tavernier would later expand on the theme of family interactions with his 1984 prize-winner A Sunday in the Country. A Week's Vacation was released in France in 1980 as Une Semaine de Vacances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nathalie Baye, Gérard Lanvin, (more)
- 1980
- R
Director Bertrand Tavernier provides an unexpected feminist slant to the otherwise standard sci-fi trappings of Death Watch. Harvey Keitel plays a man of the future who has had a camera implanted in his brain. The mechanism, which is endowed with special X-ray properties, is activated by the user's eyes. Keitel is assigned by ruthless TV producer Harry Dean Stanton to secretly probe the subconscious of a dying woman, played by Romy Schneider. Stanton is only interested in the grim spectacle of what goes on inside the brain of someone who knows she's doomed. Keitel, on the other hand, becomes increasingly compassionate--and disgusted by the tawdriness of his assignment--as he stares into Schneider's tortured psyche. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Romy Schneider, Harvey Keitel, (more)
- 1981
Henri Natange (Richard Berry) and Cecile Delvert (Francoise Lebrun) are both newly divorced, and going through the painful adjustments of regaining a lost equilibrium while trying to keep up with their jobs. Both work at a Parisian newspaper and find themselves thrown together as the paper undergoes its own transformation into the computer age. Along with the paper's transition into a new life of sorts, with the attendant retraining of personnel, Henri and Cecile have to undergo a kind of "retraining" if their mutual attraction is to lead anywhere at all. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Berry, Francoise Lebrun, (more)
Based on pulp master Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon is a sardonic thriller that remains true to its source's spirit, even as it transposes the action from the American South to colonial West Africa. Lucien (Philippe Noiret) is the bumbling police chief of Bourkasa, a dusty outpost in rural Senegal. Badgered by local thugs, Lucien initially comes across as a pathetic oaf unable to stand up for himself. Things at home are scarcely better, as Lucien finds himself harried by his nagging wife, Huguette (Stéphane Audran), who is carrying on an affair with a man she claims to be her brother (Eddy Mitchell). Without warning, Lucien embarks on a nonchalant killing spree, murdering everyone who has ever mistreated him. As he sets about "cleaning the slate," Lucien intensifies his affair with ditsy Rose (Isabelle Huppert), all the while pining for the newly arrived schoolteacher, Anne (Irene Skobline). Remaining above suspicion even as bodies pile up, the seemingly witless Lucien gradually develops a twisted logic for his actions, animating his crusade with an evangelical purpose. By movie's end, Tavernier leaves little room for redemption, leaving the joyless Lucien mired in a moral quagmire of his own making. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, (more)
- 1983
Director Bernard Favre has created the "look and feel" of a moment in time that has long since disappeared -- 1859-60 in the Savoy Alps. Joseph (Richard Berry) is a young Savoyard peasant who has been established in a village with his wife and two children for some time, and like others before him, makes a living by crossing the Alps into Italy in the winter months and selling his wares to the villagers. This story traces a winter's itinerary as the man encounters various adventures in his always-dangerous journey, but he seems oblivious to all the nuances and reverberations of social change going on around him. When he finally returns to his family after many months away, he discovers to his surprise that his village is now a part of France and it looks like a Savoyard would soon be sitting on the throne of a unified Italy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Berry, Bérangere Bonvoisin, (more)
French stage actor Louis Ducreux makes his film debut as a 76-year-old traditionalist painter, Monsieur Ladmiral, in this bittersweet portrait of a brooding artist. A widower, Ladmiral lives on an estate in the countryside near Paris with only his housekeeper, Mercedes (Monique Chaumette), and his paintings to keep him company. The action of the film takes place on a bright autumn Sunday in the early 1900s when Ladmiral's son, Gonzague (Michel Aumont), and Gonzague's wife, Marie-Therèse (Geneviève Mnich), come out from Paris with their three children to visit the old man. While making small talk with Gonzague, Ladmiral hints ever so subtly that his son has become too bourgeois, too conformist, too accepting of the status quo. Apparently, Ladmiral doesn't want his son to face what he is facing: self-recrimination for failing to take risks, failing to go beyond the bounds of tradition. Outdoors, the couple's two boys are only too eager to risk and dare. At one moment, they try to set fire to an insect and, failing, have the audacity to ask for a magnifying glass to do the job. Their father, Gonzague, disapproves, of course, but Ladmiral pronounces his blessing on the project, and he authorizes them to use his glass. No doubt, the old man hopes they survive childhood with their gumption and gall intact -- like Irène. Irène is Ladmiral's other child -- a vivacious, free-spirited beauty who speaks her mind and follows her whims. She is everything that Gonzague is not. Later, she drives her Papa to a dancehall. There, he tells her about his ruminations -- that maybe he should have experimented with impressionism. After examining his current project, he considers whether to make a decision, one that may change nothing -- or perhaps everything. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Ducreux, Sabine Azéma, (more)
- 1984
A pleasant and sometimes off-the-wall journey through Southern culture, in a local manifestation, is offered in Mississippi Blues by the French co-director Bertrand Tavernier (with American Robert Parrish). A broad spectrum of politics, gospel and blues, literature (native son William Faulkner), religion, and social customs perceived from a foreigner's viewpoint is presented and discussed with interest and warmth in this documentary on the multifaceted South. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Fred (Jean-Pierre Marielle) follows hired killer Gravier (Jean-Pierre Bisson) in this routine crime drama. He knows Gravier is responsible for a gangland murder but must shadow the killer to provide solid evidence of the crime. The two engage in a psychological game of cat-and-mouse before the inevitable showdown. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Pierre Marielle, Jean-Pierre Bisson, (more)
A French music lover befriends a once-great American jazz artist and attempts to save him from self-destruction in this moody drama. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon portrays Dale Turner, a fictional musician inspired by a number of famed jazz figures, including Bud Powell and Lester Young. Largely forgotten in his home country, Turner has moved to Paris in search of a more appreciative audience. He finds it in the form of Francis Borler (Francois Cluzet), a bebop aficionado who befriends the expatriate player. Borler soon becomes familiar with Turner's darker side, including his struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression. Fearing for the musician's life, the fan becomes his caretaker, an arrangement that leads to a brief improvement in Turner's health and fortunes but places great emotional strain upon them both. Director Bertrand Tavernier pays great attention to the visual and aural details of the jazz world, with outstanding musical supervision provided by Herbie Hancock. 'Round Midnight's greatest asset, however, is Gordon's Academy Award-nominated performance, informed by his own life experiences. His naturally fascinating presence combines with the film's obvious love of the music and its milieu to provide what many have hailed as one of the more authentic and affectionate presentations of the jazz world on the silver screen. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dexter Gordon, François Cluzet, (more)
- 1987
- R
In this 1987 film, director Bertrand Tavernier depicts French life in the Middle Ages as dreary, unromantic, and brutal. The story begins when a warrior leaves home to fight in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between France and England. Before his departure, he gives his young son, François, a sword to safeguard his mother and her virtue. One day, after the boy opens a bedroom door to find his mother willingly submitting to a man, he uses the sword to kill the man and becomes traumatized with guilt and enmity toward his mother. Years later, François (Bernard Pierre Donnadieu) must go off to war as a chevalier, or knight. While he is away, his daughter, the gentle and loving Béatrice (Julie Delpy), sees to the needs of her little brother and her feckless mother. Although the castle in which they live is a sepulcher of shadows and stone, Béatrice maintains her spirits as she looks forward to the day when her father's voice will once again echo in the corridors. After four years of war in which he was held captive for a time by the English, he returns to the castle, a hardened warrior who has renounced God. Inside his twisted mind, he still carries the memory of that terrible day long ago, the day he discovered his mother was an adulteress. Giving the demons within him free rein, he begins to abuse everyone around him: He insults, bullies, and pillages the local village. He even forces his son Nils Tavernier to wear women's clothes and become the prey in a hunt. As he descends deeper into depravity, it is innocent Béatrice who suffers the most. Whether he has completely destroyed her, or whether she will rise up and destroy him, becomes the central focus of the film as it moves toward its conclusion. The dialogue is in French with English subtitles. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Julie Delpy, (more)
The grim post-World War I era in Europe is grist for director Bertrand Tavernier's mill in Life and Nothing But. Philipe Noiret portrays a French major who is supervising the gruesome task of counting and identifying the corpses still strewn over the battlefield. Noiret is obsessed with the notion that, by doing his job above and beyond the call of duty, he can somehow make up for the carnage in which he participated a few years earlier. The major's mission is intercut with short vignettes involving the families and loved ones of the dead, and with the efforts by another officer to find a suitable candidate for an Unknown Soldier testimonial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Sabine Azéma, (more)
In Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia, Caroline (Jane Birkin of Agnes Varda's Kung Fu Master), a Parisian screenwriter who has recently left her husband and their young son, travels to the countryside when she hears that her British father, Tony (Dirk Bogarde of Death in Venice, in his last film role) is in poor health and has just had a serious operation. Caroline accompanies Tony and her taciturn French mother, Miche (Odette Laure), to their beautiful seaside home. Miche is determined to keep Tony from drinking or overextending herself, where Caroline is more willing to indulge her father in the few pleasures he has left. They playfully speak English with each other, while Miche speaks only French. Miche doesn't like to talk about the past, so Tony reminisces with Caroline about his former life as a sophisticated, well-traveled young man. Caroline is getting along well with her father, but as he talks about his cocktail parties and trips around the world, she remembers him neglecting her when she was a young girl. "I have no memory of you before you were 20," he admits. Tony speaks sadly of his relationship with Miche, which has deteriorated in the past few years. He notices that she used to say, "Come to bed," and now she tells him, "Go to bed." As the seriousness of his illness becomes clearer, Caroline takes Tony on a day trip to Cannes, where her deep reserve of anger toward him comes to the surface. When he speaks of his "beautiful life," and how things were better for everyone back then, she explodes -- "I don't care about your beautiful life! It was a beautiful, selfish life!" But Caroline also yearns for Tony's acceptance and love, and they both dread the day when she has to return to Paris. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Jane Birkin, (more)
- 1991
Amnesty International produced this film, which features more than two dozen greats of French cinema making pleas for the lives of political prisoners around the world. Each filmmaker speaks passionately on behalf of an individual whose life has been warped by political intolerance, imprisonment, torture or murder, as the lives of those prisoners or sufferers are documented onscreen. A variety of directors contributed shorts with this theme, and the ways in which the appeals are dramatized differ markedly from one to the next. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine Deneuve, Philippe Noiret, (more)
- 1992
Due to the fact that the French-Algerian War (beginning in 1954) brought down several governments and led to the creation of the Fifth Republic, a deeply divided France struggled over whether to retain Algeria as the southern outpost of France proper, and this conflict was never formally declared as a war. Feelings within France ran high over the conflict, as those who wished to retain the north African country in French hands viewed it not as a colony, but as part of France itself, and this lent ferocity to their actions; those who viewed it as a colony were puzzled by the whole affair and its divisive nature and were ashamed of their country's actions. Meanwhile, the Algerian freedom fighters themselves were deeply divided, with some merely wanting a "civilized" independence with good relations with France, and others wanting to punish their oppressors. Terrorism on both sides became commonplace, and the conflict is often considered to be France's "Vietnam." This documentary explores the conflict through the recollections of a some veterans living in Grenoble and uses their personal photographs with telling effect. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1992
Bertrand Tavernier directed this gritty, unglamorous look at the grunge work police officers perform in attempting to uphold the law. Didier Bazace stars as Lucien Marguet, a drug squad cop who is dedicated to getting drugs off the street. Lucien is passionate about eradicating drugs, even though his small drug busts barely put a dent in the rampant drug use throughout the city. But still Lucien persists. He confronts HIV-positive prostitute Cecile (Lara Guirao) about her drug habit and criticizes his paper-shuffling boss Dodo (Jean-Paul Comart) for not making the big drug busts and concentrating, instead, on the small-timers. Tavernier takes his camera into the drab goings-on of a dedicated cop, and the fascination lies in the intensity of Lucien's appointed cause as he continues unappreciated and ignored. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Didier Bezace, Jean-Paul Comart, (more)
