Jean-Claude Carrière Movies

The heiress Claire (Charlotte Rampling) in this movie is the daughter of the Miss Blandish of the film No Orchids for Miss Blandish. She has been raised under the unsympathetic eye of her aunt (Edwige Feuillere), who has no intention of seeing her receive her large inheritance. A somewhat violent girl (her father was a mentally retarded killer), she has been confined in a mental asylum. All the men who help her meet tragedy and death in the course of the film, but Claire gets help from other quarters, and her prospects look good. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Richard (Michel Piccolo) is a medieval nobleman. After his first wife dies in an accident and is buried in the family vault, he remarries and has children by his second wife. A mad longing for his first wife Leonor (Liv Ullmann) comes over him, and he sells his soul to the devil for a chance to get her back. When she returns, she is a murderous vampire, but his ardor for her continues unabated. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Among the other interesting features of this French crime drama is a brief consideration of the dire consequences of the legalization of drugs. The Chief (Michel Bouquet) is a drug dealer whose empire ranges beyond the country guilty of legalizing drugs. He has been captured and nearly killed by an American rival and is being kept painfully alive by life-support machinery. The film begins in the future when the Chief is awakened from suspended animation and in flashback recounts his story to the naked woman who has freed him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

One of Luis Buñuel's most episodic films, The Phantom of Liberty focuses on no one particular narrative. In the beginning, a man sells postcards of French tourist attractions, calling them "pornographic." A sniper in Montparnasse is hailed as a hero for killing passersby. A "missing" child helps the police fill out the report on her. A group of monks play poker, using religious medallions as chips, and in the most infamous sequence, a formally dressed social group gathers at toilets around a table, occasionally excusing themselves to go into little stalls in a private room to eat. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide

Adapting the Gothic novel The Monk, by Matthew G. Lewis, Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière wrote the screenplay for this French film, directed by Buñuel's friend, Ado Kyrou. In the story, Ambrosio (Franco Nero) is a monk who is sexually tempted by an emissary of the Devil, a young girl in monk's robes. After he has committed numerous crimes, it appears that he will be caught and punished by the Inquisition. Instead, he signs up on the Devil's team and wins his freedom...and eventually, the papacy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This French-produced thriller was shot entirely in English. Jean-Louis Tritignant stars as Lucien, a hit man who goes to Los Angeles to end the life of an important local mobster. The mobster's heirs, who hired Lucien, had already hired yet another hit man (Roy Scheider) to kill him. He speaks very little English, and the lifestyles and customs of Los Angelenos puzzle him completely. One of the films highlights is its use of many unusual decayed and shabby sites in the Los Angeles area, such as Venice Beach. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This dark offbeat comedy features Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve. Mastroianni plays Giorgio, who lives on a island somewhere off the Mediterranean coast of France. He lives there with his dog, and the remains of an old German World War II airbase. He earns his living drawing cartoons. Liza (Deneuve) swims to the island from a rich man's yacht, and the yacht's crew confirm the end of her relationship with the owner by bringing her luggage to the island. She and Giorgio meet and become involved. She is jealous of his relationship with the dog and kills her rival while assuming its duties: wearing a collar, fetching sticks, etc. A great deal more happens in this movie, all of it symbolic. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Czech filmmaker Milos Forman's first American production stars Linnea Heacock as Jeannie Tyne, a runaway teenager. While she wanders aimlessly around New York, her suburban parents, Lynn (Lynn Carlin) and Larry (Buck Henry), desperately search for their "missing" daughter. Larry and his best friend, Tony (Tony Harvey), inaugurate a search, but their expedition is sidetracked by a drinking binge at a local bar. Meanwhile, Lynn and Tony's wife, Margot (Georgia Engel), begin discussing their sex lives. Jeannie does finally return home, to constant questioning by her parents about which drugs she has taken; later, after Lynn and Larry join a support group for the parents of runaway children, they turn around and get stoned on marijuana themselves during one of the group meetings, then lapse into a randy game of strip poker -- little realizing that their daughter is close at hand and within earshot. As a critically revered lampoon of late-'60s sensibilities, Taking Off is full of "unknown" Manhattan-based performers who became famous during the '70s and '80s, including Paul Benedict, Vincent Schiavelli, Allen Garfield, Audra Lindley, and, in fleeting roles as auditioning singers, Carly Simon, who performs "Long Time Physical Effects," and Kathy Bates (billed as Bobo Bates), who performs "Even the Horses Had Wings." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hughes (Jean-Claude Carriere), a veterinarian, contacts an agency for people who are seeking marriage. Through the agency, he meets and marries Jeanne (Anna Karina), a woman with a large house where he can use the space to care for animals. Later, he turns jealous and suspects his wife has a secret life. She discovers he has followed her and retaliates by giving one of his poisonous snakes to a zoo. Eventually, the two lovers reconcile to combine forces against the animals that may be extraterrestrials who have taken on human form in this fantasy comedy effort. Carriere wrote both the original story and screenplay for the film. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A young man nervously waits in a church on his wedding day. His daydream splashes time forward 10 years as he finds himself married and working for his father-in-law. He has a brief but profound affair with a new secretary before returning to his wife. His nocturnal dreams have his bed taking off like an automobile cruising to exotic locales with beautiful women. He passes other men in beds on their way to destinations they will only reach in their dreams. His wife expresses a desire for a vacation and her bed turns into a train in this film that relies heavily on symbolism. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

While arch surrealist Luis Bunuel never made a secret of his skepticism about the existence of God, he was also raised as a strict Spanish Catholic and remained fascinated with the church's teaching throughout his life, and his obsessions with both faith and the contradictions of dogma provided the basis for this episodic satiric comedy. Jean (Laurent Terzieff) and Pierre (Paul Frankeur) are two threadbare vagabonds who are making their way from Paris to Spain on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of Saint James are believed to be kept. While Jean and Pierre's journey begins in the 20th Century, as they travel they seemingly develop the ability to move through time and space as they pass through a variety of historical scenes taken from a broad range of theological texts -- and all involving heresy in one form or another. As they walk the long road to Santiago de Compostela (when they can't catch a ride), Jean and Pierre encounter Jesus (Bernard Verley), who decides not to shave his beard to keep his mother happy; a young boy with stigmata and unusual powers; the Marquis de Sade (Michel Piccoli), who patently struggles to teach atheism to a young girl he's captured; an eccentric priest who has an irreversible belief in transubstantiation until he changes his mind; two men who put their debate over Catholic dogma to the test in a duel with swords; and Satan (Pierre Clementi), who shows up just in time for a car wreck. La Voie Lactee (aka The Milky Way) was scripted by Bunuel and his frequent screenwriting collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere; each of the film's historic episodes was adapted faithfully from an actual biblical text or historical account. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Belle de Jour dramatizes the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favorite themes of director Luis Buñuel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree, and gang-raped. It turns out that this is only a daydream, but her subsequent visits to a neighboring brothel, where she offers her services, certainly seem to be real. This illusion/reality dichotomy extends to the final scenes, in which we are offered two possible endings. Thanks to a question of copyright and ownership, Belle de Jour disappeared from view shortly after its 1967 release, not even resurfacing on videotape. When it was reissued theatrically in 1994, many critics placed the perplexing but mesmerizing film on their lists of that year's best films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While his icy wife is away tending to a sick friend, Benedict Boniface (Alec Guinness) has an affair with Marcelle Cot (Gina Lollobrigida), the pretty but neglected wife of the pompous architect Henri (Robert Morley). When Henri unexpectedly returns, Marcelle and Benedict don disguises and hide out to avoid being caught by her husband. The comedy of errors allows for several sight gags and farcical bedroom situations. Peggy Mount is particularly effective as the dominating wife who makes her husband tremble with fear by her very presence. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide