Director and author Jean-Jacques Beineix died at the age of 75, we learned this Friday, January 14…
French cinema is once again in mourning: director and writer Jean-Jacques Beineix died on January 13, 2022, at the age of 75, AFP learned from his family. It is in 1980 that he will know, from his first film, a dazzling success: Diva will allow him to meet a popular but also critical success, since he will be crowned with four César. Other notable feature films will follow, such as The Moon in the Gutter, 37°2 in the morning – which will bring success to Beatrice Dalle, then totally unknown – or even IP 5: The island of pachyderms, Yves Montand’s latest film. It was in 2001, after a long period of absence, that he made his last feature film Deadly transfer, which did not meet with the expected success.
A “demanding” director
Interviewed by our colleagues from Le Parisien as part of the promotion of this film, Hélène de Fougerolles evoked a man “very demanding. But also very emotional while trying to hide it.” And to analyze: “There has been a shift in cinema that has changed things. And that a director today must accept certain conditions. Soften up. Jean-Jacques probably didn’t take that turn. It’s hard to know that someone with so much talent can’t express themselves.“
A real jack-of-all-trades
Since then, leaving cinema aside, Jean-Jacques Beineix has embarked on numerous artistic projects as diverse as they are varied. The director has thus signed numerous documentaries for television, while also embarking on the theater, signing his first staging on the boards in 2015 with Kiki de Montparnasse. His latest project: a novel, released in 2020 by Michel Laffont, Toboggan. Jean-Jacques Beineix died on Thursday January 13, following a long illness.