Filmmaker Jean-Louis Trintignant died this Friday, June 17, 2022 at the age of 91, his wife Mariane Hoepfner Trintignant announced to AFP via a press release sent by his agent. He is “died peacefully, of old age, this morning, at his home, in the Gard, surrounded by his loved ones”said his wife.
Read also: Our last interview with Jean-Louis Trintignant: “I think I have made progress”
A huge career in theater and cinema
An unmistakably recognizable voice, a magnetic presence tinged with melancholy: Jean-Louis Trintignant led an immense career in theater and cinema for half a century, from And God created the woman at Love.
Entered the history of cinema with A man and a woman, by Claude Lelouch – Palme d’or at Cannes in 1966 -, Jean-Louis Trintignant notably won an interpretation prize at Cannes for Z by Costa Gravas in 1969, and a César for best actor for Love by Michael Haneke in 2013, whose film received the Palme d’or. Three peaks in his career.
This perfectionist was also a worried and reserved man who admitted to having had suicidal temptations: “I admit that I have never been very cheerful”.
This pessimism accompanies him long before the death of his daughter Marie, with whom he maintained a great bond. She is died in 2003 under the blows of her companion, the singer Bertrand Cantat.
A few months earlier, father and daughter had performed on stage as a duo Poems to Lou of Apollinaire.
This tragic death would never cease to haunt him: “I could have stopped my life at that moment”. Pushed by his relatives, he went back on stage, finding a “therapy” in poetry and theatre. The boards, its “real job”he told theAFP. “We make movies a bit out of vanity”, “to stop being shy”.
Liaison with “BB”
Born on December 11, 1930 in Piolenc in the Vaucluse, this son of an industrialist was brought up the hard way. A shy young man, he took Charles Dullin’s comedy lessons in Paris.
He made his stage debut in 1951, in Mary Stuart by Schiller, and on screen in If all the guys in the world, by Christian-Jaque (1956).
He toured the same year alongside Brigitte Bardot (And God created the woman, vadim). His affair with “BB” is much talked about.
Upon returning from a traumatic military service in Algeria, the actor leaves with Dangerous relationships (Vadim). His nervous and sensitive playing seduces.
With its composition of romantic lovers in A man and a woman, alongside Anouk Aimée, he becomes the actor who tours the most, like Belmondo and Delon. In total, he will play in some 120 films…
He has a predilection for ambiguous, impenetrable, disturbing characters. He is equally at home in mainstream films (Is Paris Burning? René Clément) than in the avant-garde (The man who liesby Alain Robbe-Grillet, earned him the Silver Bear for best actor in Berlin) or political, like Z.
He also tours in Italy, notably in The Braggart by Dino Risi and The Conformist by Bernardo Bertolucci.
Jean-Louis Trintignant directed two films himself, A full day and The lifeguard, without much success.
Big comeback in 2012
In the 80s, this non-conformist refocused his career on the theater. This does not prevent him from turning some great roles in the cinema, in Watch the men fall Where Three colors: Redwhere he plays a taciturn former judge.
After the death of her daughterhe moved away from film sets for almost ten years, before coming back in force in 2012 in Love by Haneke, in which he plays an octogenarian confronted with the slow agony of his wife, played by Emmanuelle Riva.
He then finds Haneke for the role of a suicidal old bourgeois in happy ending, in competition at Cannes in 2017, the year in which he offered himself a final show of readings of poems by Prévert, Vian and Desnos in Paris, then on tour.
Closing the loop, in 2019 he reunited with Claude Lelouch and his partner Anouk Aimée for The best years of a lifefollowingA man and a woman 53 years later.
Married three times, he married actress Stéphane Audran then director Nadine Marquand (Trintignant) with whom he had three children, Marie, Pauline (died when she was a baby) and Vincent. Since their divorce, this motor racing enthusiast shared the life of racing driver Marianne Hoepfner.
Jean-Louis Trintignant had lived for thirty years near Uzès (Gard), not far from his beloved vines.
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Actor Jean-Louis Trintignant dies aged 91