Patrick Bauchau Movies
A versatile character actor who maintains a busy schedule in both Europe and the United States,
Patrick Bauchau was born in Brussels, Belgium, on December 6, 1938. His father, Henry Bauchau, was a noted author, psychoanalyst, and philosopher, while his mother was an educator who also helped operate a publishing company. Coming from an intellectual family, it's not surprising that
Bauchau won an academic scholarship to Oxford University, where he received a degree in Modern Languages. In the early '60s,
Bauchau became interested in film, and worked as an assistant to French filmmaker
Eric Rohmer; this led to
Bauchau being cast as Adrien in
Rohmer's 1967 "moral tale,"
La Collectionneuse;
Bauchau and his fellow leading actors
Haydee Politoff and
Daniel Pommereulle were also credited with the film's dialogue. While this got
Bauchau's acting career off to an impressive start, his naturalistic performance left many believing that
Bauchau was simply playing himself; after
Tuset Street (also released in 1967),
Bauchau moved away from acting, as he built furniture and worked for
Salvador Dali, constructing large pillow-like animal sculptures.
In 1980,
Bauchau re-launched his film career in
Robert Kramer's
Guns, and in 1982,
Wim Wenders cast him in the leading role of his drama
Der Stand der Dinge, which finally established his credentials as a working actor. In 1984,
Bauchau made his American film debut in
Alan Rudolph's typically eccentric romantic comedy
Choose Me, and through much of the rest of the decade he worked regularly on both sides of the Atlantic, though he appeared in as many low-budget exploitation efforts as art films. In 1991,
Bauchau scored an impressive role in
Michael Tolkin's superb drama
The Rapture, and four years later the same director gave him a meaty role in the satire
The New Age. In 1996,
Bauchau was cast in the television series Kindred: The Embraced as a patriarch of the living dead; while the series lasted only a few weeks, it did lead to the recurring role of Sydney in another series, The Pretender, which debuted the same year and ran for four seasons.
Bauchau's higher profile in television helped him win notable roles in high-profile films such as
Clear and Present Danger,
The Cell, and
Panic Room, though he's also played notable roles in the independent features
Twin Falls Idaho and
Secretary.
When not busy with acting,
Bauchau lives in Los Angeles, where he is an avid gardener. In his private life, he's married to
Mijanou Bardot, who played a small role in
La Collectionneuse and also happens to be
Brigitte Bardot's sister. They have an adult daughter, Camille. ~ Rovi

- 1988
- PG
The title character in the Belgian-French The Music Teacher is a retired opera star, played by Jose Van Dam. The teacher's most gifted pupil is singer/musician Anne Roussel. Her love for her teacher is one of the motivating factors of the story, as is Roussel and Van Dam's relationship with another pupil, petty thief Philippe Volter. Complicating matters is one of Van Dam's old enemies, who endeavors to exploit the talents of the pupils. Written and directed by Gerard Corbiau, The Music Teacher unfortunately drags whenever the principals stop singing and start talking. But what singing! And what cinematography! Small wonder that this film was nominated for a "Best Foreign Picture" Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Jose van Dam, Anne Roussel, (more)

- 1987
-
Made for TV on a feature-film budget, Love Among Thieves stars Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wagner--but fails to be worthy of the talents of either star. Ms. Hepburn plays a widowed baroness and classical pianist, who steals three Faberge eggs from a museum in order to ransom her kidnapped fiance. En route to the "drop", Audrey is rescued from a mysterious assailant (Jerry Orbach) by suave stranger Robert Wagner. Wagner proceeds to demonstrate that he's not all he seems by swiping the valuable jeweled eggs. The rest of the film is a maelstrom of double-crosses, clinches and hairbreadth escapes, all evidently intended to emulate Hepburn's 1963 theatrical feature Charade and Wagner's popular 1960s TV series It Takes a Thief. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- 1987
-
French pop singer Michel Sardou plays detective Thomas "Cross" Crosky in this uneven thriller. When Cross's ex-wife and daughter are kidnapped, he hires notorious hit man Eli Cantor (Roland Giraud) to help carry out his plan of vengeance. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Roland Giraud, Patrick Bauchau, (more)

- 1987
-
The conflict in Palestine during the '70s provides the setting for this challenging political sci-fi film that centers on an alien woman from a distant galaxy who has come to make peace. As the tale begins, archival films of the "Black September," battles that leveled Amman, Jordan are shown. The PLO then blows up a jet and as the smoke billows in the background a woman is questioned for being there without a passport. A nearby journalist (with sympathy for the PLO) intervenes and takes her back to his hotel. She tells him of the mission and the two have a long and fascinating dialogue. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Bill Paterson, Tilda Swinton, (more)

- 1987
-
Leo just broke up with his wife, and the handsome architect wants to enjoy his sadness at this event in solitude. Unfortunately for him, his young girlfriend, an unperceptive sprite, is too much in love with him to let him out of her sight. He is on his way to a resort in the south of France, and despite his persistent, obvious and repeated attempts to get her to leave him alone, she sticks to him like glue. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Patrick Bauchau, Sandrine Dumas, (more)

- 1987
-
In this highly symbolic, moody and artistic film, a young composer supposes that he has given his life over to passion. When his girlfriend dies, he impetuously promises her ghost that he will commit suicide in one month if he doesn't hear the word "passion" from the lips of a woman. The woman he decides to seek the word of life or death from is a French woman named Aphrodite. He became acquainted with Aphrodite, when she was a young girl, in Greece after an air crash which took the lives of all the other passengers. He follows her to Paris and begins his dangerous, suicidal and extremely intellectual game in earnest. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Antonis Kafetzopoulos, Isabel Otero, (more)

- 1987
-
In this drama, a former US agent attempt to rejoin society as he endeavors to reopen his deceased father's chateau. Soon he again finds himself surrounded by mystery and danger. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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- 1986
-
Renowned director Constantin Costa-Gavras (whose 1969's feature Z won multiple international awards and was a box office success) tries his hand at an unusual mix of comedy and crime in this story. When a father (Johnny Hallyday) gets out of prison, he comes home to his wife (Fanny Ardant) and two teen-age kids to pick up where he left off. That is to say, he intends to raise his kids right and continue burglarizing his way into the easy life. He joins up again with his old partner Faucon (Guy Marchand), but early on Papa's wily son cons him into making him a partner too. The years go by, and just when the family seems poised for the big time, an obstacle pops up from a totally unexpected sector. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Johnny Hallyday, Fanny Ardant, (more)

- 1986
-
aka: Flies in the Light Although it is stylistically developed and refined, this thriller does not live up to its name since any "thrills" are sacrificed for the look and feel of B-movies in moods, sets, and camerawork. The plot wanders around in several directions at once but in a general sense, it is motivated by a pricey painting and those who would like to own it. A sophisticated art thief steals this painting from display in an art gallery and then has to turn around and steal it away from the site of a religious cult. Set up to recall mystery thrillers like The Maltese Falcon, Motten im Licht is a good formal imitation but would need a Dashiell Hammett to bring it up to par. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- 1986
-
Captain Luis Dantas (Patrick Bauchau) is the escaped military officer found murdered in this often surrealistic crime drama. Inspector Elias (Raul Solnado) is called on to investigate the man's death, and the story is told by the sleuth in narrative form with the help of flashbacks. The inquiry leads to Mena (Assumpta Serna), the sexually vibrant daughter of a wealthy countess who was romantically involved with Dantas. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Raul Solnado, Assumpta Serna, (more)

- 1985
-
This suspense thriller about a bad relationship concerns Lola (Angela Molina), who is working hard for a living but becomes caught up in a sado-masochistic affair with the vicious Mario (Feodor Atkine). Finally breaking away from her own neurosis and a punishing lifestyle, Lola meets and marries Robert (Patrick Bauchau) and starts a new life with him in Barcelona. They have a young daughter but after a few years, Mario suddenly bursts into their lives claiming that the daughter is really his. Nothing but trouble lies ahead. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Ángela Molina, Patrick Bauchau, (more)

- 1985
-
Leading man Gabriel Byrne adds a "Harlequin Romance" dash to the two-part, six-hour TV movie Christopher Columbus. Seeking out a swifter route to the lucrative Indies, Genoa-born Columbus begs King John of Portugal (Max Von Sydow) to finance a westbound expedition. Failing this, he turns to Spain's Queen Isabella (Faye Dunaway), who is entranced by Columbus' near-religious fervor. After the famous 1492 expedition, Columbus is bankrolled for future forays into the New World, which win him both adulation and vilification. Originally telecast May 19 and 20, 1985, Christopher Columbus was filmed on location in Spain, Malta and the Dominican Republic, making full use of a $15 million budget. It isn't an earth-shattering cinematic experience, but is lots more worthwhile (and less ponderous) than the brace of Columbus biopics inflicted upon movie audiences in 1992. Those concerned with political correctness should be satisfied with the film's second half, which explores the more sinister elements of chauvinistic colonization. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- 1985
- PG
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Secret Agent 007 must stop a megalomaniacal technology mogul from destroying Silicon Valley in this fourteenth episode of the long-running James Bond series. Computer baron Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) is planning to trigger a major California earthquake in order to wipe out his competitors. Bond is dispatched to stop him in Europe, where he is partnered with Sir Godfrey Tibbet (Patrick MacNee). Sent in to slow down Bond and Company is Max Zorin's sadistic and murderous sidekick May Day (Grace Jones), the first of two Bond girls in the film (the other being Tanya Roberts). The expected high-wire confrontations ensue, including a parachute jump off the Eiffel Tower, a drive through the streets of Paris with a car cut in half, and a life-or-death struggle with a blimp on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. This production is most notable for the fact that it marked the final appearance of Roger Moore as the dashing Bond. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, (more)

- 1985
-
In this surreal psychological thriller, Yvi (Margit Carstensen) is experiencing a selective amnesia after she suffers a bullet wound to the head and is now in the care of doctors in the very same Institute where she was working as a doctor. After a new friend named Adrian (Christopher Donnay) decides to take Yvi to his spacious villa so she will recuperate faster, her presence antagonizes Adrian's butler, a heavy who has an S&M relationship with Adrian. Meanwhile, back at the Institute, the doctors -- especially the head doctor -- are more loco than the patients. After several explosions of violence, killings, and some shocking glimpses at the life of prostitutes, Adrian manages to solve the riddle of Yvi's amnesia, even though he himself is persecuted by the docs at the clinic. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Margit Carstensen, Christophe Donnay, (more)

- 1984
-
The title Emmanuelle 4 is explicit in letting viewers know how many Emmanuelles have gone before, and the film is just as explicit in its bid for sexsational scenes, but as in other films of this type, the profit motive is implicit. The storyline is more of a story thread, wherein the preceding Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel) decides to go to Brazil for total plastic surgery in order to escape an ex-lover (Patrick Bauchau). She emerges as a blond with a new, virginal body (Mia Nygren) and proceeds to go after the very lover she wanted to avoid in the first place. Untouched by the later fear of AIDS, the new Emmanuelle has sex with almost anyone who strikes her fancy, male or female, and when no one is available, that does not stop her either. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Sylvia Kristel, Mia Nygren, (more)

- 1984
-
An aspiring young actress (Valerie Kaprisky) accepts a leading role in a film version of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed. Dissatisfied by her performance, the eccentric filmmaker (Francis Huster) begins a rigorous course of indoctrination, sexual domination, and acting lessons, leaving the mentally exhausted girl unable to distinguish between the real world and that of the film. Arty, challenging, and some say over the top, the film was honored with the Special Jury Award at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1984. ~ Yuri German, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Francis Huster, Valérie Kaprisky, (more)

- 1984
- R
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Declared "my most personal film" by Italy's premier horror director Dario Argento, this production marked the director's return to the eerie thematic territory he pioneered in 1977 with the horror classic Suspiria. Much like that film, Phenomena conforms to the logic of nightmares. Jennifer Connelly stars as Jennifer Corvino, the daughter of an American film star, who enrolls in a prestigious Swiss boarding school under the tutelage of the prudish Mrs. Bruckner (played by frequent Argento collaborator and former beau Daria Nicolodi). Possessing a unique telepathic gift, Jennifer is capable of communicating with insects on an instinctive level, often while sleepwalking. This trait soon brands her a "freak" among her snooty classmates but makes her a valuable asset to entomologist Dr. MacGregor (Donald Pleasence), who is currently employing the innate forensic skills of insects to aid police in tracking a serial killer targeting the boarders at Jennifer's school. As Jennifer's tiny friends (including the corpse-hunting Sarcophagus Fly) guide her closer to the murderer's lair, everything from MacGregor's revenge-driven pet chimpanzee to Bruckner's monstrously disfigured son figure into the mix, providing not one but three shocking endings. Shot in English and re-dubbed for various European markets, this graphic thriller was released in drastically edited form as Creepers in the U.S. and England; Argento's original cut runs 110 minutes. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, (more)

- 1984
-
Spread too thin, with a neutral stance on its many protagonists, this political drama about terrorists active in Italy delivers too mild a message to make much of an effect. Based on a book by Luce D'Eramo, the three-hour story is about leftists who renounce guerrilla tactics and turn to common robberies instead while maintaining bourgeois and/or mainstream lifestyles as doctors, secretaries, and other workers. Their objective is to raise money for future guerrilla activities. The central group manages to pull off three big robberies in the same neighborhood within 30 minutes of each other -- and the chase is on. Most viewers will be rooting for the terrorists disguised as criminals at this point. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is more of a pedantic exercise on the effects of their actions, and includes courtroom proceedings that are not as interesting as the crime sequences. The end result makes law and order look boring. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Patrick Bauchau, Antonella Murgia, (more)

- 1984
- R
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The lives of five L.A. natives intertwine in this romantic comedy from independent filmmaker and former Robert Altman protégé Alan Rudolph. Eve (Lesley Ann Warren) is a bar owner who has sworn off permanent commitments, seeking only the temporary sexual satisfaction of men. Her roommate Ann (Genevieve Bujold) is her polar opposite. In reality, Ann is secretly the radio sex therapist Dr. Nancy Love, but she has little romantic experience despite her profession. Into their lives comes Mickey (Keith Carradine), a recent mental patient who might be an enigmatic pathological liar. Though she's powerfully attracted to Mickey, Eve's kept at arm's length by her lover Zack (Patrick Bauchau), a married man whose wife (Rae Dawn Chong) also finds Mickey irresistible. When Nancy sleeps with Mickey, he proposes marriage, but she rejects him, though the assignation does have a positive effect on her radio show. Considered Rudolph's seminal work, Choose Me (1984) was the third in a thematically-linked trilogy from the quirky low-budget director, the first two being Welcome to L.A. (1977) and Remember My Name (1978). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Geneviève Bujold, Keith Carradine, (more)

- 1983
-
In this complex muddle of a spy story, Salomon (Miescyslaw Voit) is a Russian agent who was sent to West Berlin to complete an assassination and steal a notebook -- but ends up looking for his former lover and her son in Brussels while secret agents from all colors of the political spectrum are out to kill him. The son himself has his own marital problems to contend with, and soon he also becomes a focus of attention. Salomon's job is to somehow stay alive, though after many twists and turns in the plot, suspended disbelief has probably come crashing down for most viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Patrick Bauchau, Mieczyslaw Voit, (more)

- 1983
-
In yet another, conventional softcore sex film, three women are stranded on a resort-like island when they lose their boat in a storm. Each finds an appropriate male for sexual encounters, but one has her heart set on a millionaire -- a married man, in fact. She waits until the millionaire's wife leaves for an extended period of time, and then when the news comes through that the wife has died in a plane crash, the nubile young woman consoles the bereaved widower all night in his bedroom, and then goes bouncing off to join her friends in the morning, end of film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Monica Broeke, Patrick Bauchau, (more)

- 1983
- PG
French filmmaker Diane Kurys directs the period drama Coup de Foudre (distributed in the U.S. as Entre Nous), adapted from a book she co-wrote with Olivier Cohen. The semi-autobiographical story is based on the life of the director's mother. Lena (Isabelle Huppert) is a Jewish refugee from Belgium living in occupied France during WWII. In order to avoid being sent to a German concentration camp, she agrees to marry the discharged military officer Michel (Guy Marchand). He tries to provide a decent life for her by running an auto repair business. They have two children together, but Lena is unhappy and stifled by her domestic life. Michel doesn't offer her the sensitivity and affection that she requires. Meanwhile, in Paris, the extroverted artist Madeleine (Miou-Miou) mourns the accidental death of her husband. After the liberation of France, she marries actor Costa (Jean-Pierre Bacri) and has children of her own. In 1952, Lena and Madeleine meet by chance in Lyons. The two women develop an emotional relationship that borders on romantic involvement. Their bond is only strengthened by a mutual dissatisfaction with their husbands, children, and home life in general. Entre Nous was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1983. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Miou-Miou, Isabelle Huppert, (more)

- 1982
-
Wim Wenders' The State of Things (Der Stand der Dinge) was financed by one of the director's chief mentors, Francis Ford Coppola. This highly autobiographical work concerns a shoestring movie producer and his ragtag crew. Stranded in the outer reaches of Portugal, the director doesn't even have any film in his camera. There's nothing left to do but scare up a potential backer--preferably one of those rich, movie-mad Americans. In illustrating the plight of the fictional filmmakers, Wenders strikes a blow on behalf of the homeless and disenfranchised everywhere; it is also an a clef recreation of the difficulties faced by the director during production of his first American film Hammett (also made under the auspices of Coppola). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Patrick Bauchau, Isabelle Weingarten, (more)

- 1982
- PG
- Add Enigma to Queue
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Directed by TV-anthology veteran Jeannot Szwarc, Enigma has a certain small-screen "feel" to it. Adopting a musical-comedy foreign accent, Martin Sheen plays Alex Holbeck, an Iron Curtain defector who returns to East Germany at the behest of the CIA. His mission is to save five political "undesirables" from the communists. Holbeck runs up against some formidable opposition, namely ambitious KGB agent Dimitri Vasilkov (Sam Neill) and a quintet of highly trained Soviet assassins. Brigitte Fossey co-stars as Holbeck's former love, whom he involves in his escape plans by asking her to romance the susceptible Vasilkov. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Martin Sheen, Brigitte Fossey, (more)

- 1982
-