The director Jacques Rozier, to whom we owe in particular films like “On the side of Orouët” or “Maine Océan”, has died.
Jacques Rozier died on Friday June 2 at the age of 96, as his collaborator announced to AFP on Saturday evening.
A graduate of IDHEC in 1947, the young Jacques quickly made a name for himself in the world of short films. In 1955, he produced his first short work, Rentrée des classes, quickly followed by Blue jeans, which paints an endearing portrait of post-war youth. In the two short films that follow, Paparazzi and Le Parti des choses: Bardot et Godard, he films Brigitte Bardot confronted by the paparazzi on the set of Contempt (1963), the legendary film by Jean-Luc Godard.
Assistant on film sets (notably that of Jean Renoir for French Cancan in 1955), he ended up joining the Buttes-Chaumont television studios. This first job gradually led him to a career as a documentary filmmaker, which helped him between two films, since his feature films, although often covered with rave reviews, were financial failures.
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In 1960, Rozier made his first film, Adieu Philippine, a bittersweet chronicle of French youth against the backdrop of the Algerian war. Although the feature film was not released until 1963, the filmmaker received a very favorable critical and public reception. This first production became one of the flagship films of the New Wave, and François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, in person, even publicly come to his defense. His next film, Du Côté d’Orouët, was released nine years later, in 1969. This film, a story of a middle-class family on vacation, stars Bernard Ménez and Caroline Cartier.
In 1974, Jacques Rozier calls on Pierre Richard to interpret The Castaways of Turtle Island. There are certain aspects ofFarewell Filipina : a humor on the verge of cynicism and a penchant for dreams, dreamlike climates. Maine Océan (1985) is an opportunity for the filmmaker to approach a more intimate style, bringing together several actors (Bernard Menez, Luis Rego, Yves Afonso) in a strange train journey, filmed in real time. Thanks to this work, he received the Jean-Vigo prize in 1986. Two other prizes will reward his entire career: the René-Clair prize in 1997 and the Carrosse d’or in 2002.
In 2001, at the Venice Film Festival, the director presented his latest film, Fifi Martingale, a comedy set in the Enghiens-les-bains casino, where Jean Lefebvre, Yves AfonsoAlexandra Stewart and Jacques François give the reply.
The death of Jacques Rozier occurred at the hospital on the night of Thursday to Friday, a clarification provided by his collaborator, Michèle Berson, who had worked with him for fifteen years.