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Jean-Claude Carriere

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A screenwriter does not usually attract too much attention in a film among the general public, always aware of the stars. Jean-Claude Carrière affirmed upon receiving his honorary Oscar that those of his profession are “very often the forgotten, the ignored, like shadows that cross the history of cinema.” Yet his many scripts over nearly six decades have shed light on the human condition in many valuable films. Carrière has passed away at his home in Paris in his sleep at the age of 89.

Jean-Claude Carrièrre was born in Colombières-sur-Orb, in the Languedoc region of France, in 1931, in an area known for its vineyards. But as a teenager he moved to the city, Montreuil-sous-Bois, where his parents, from modest backgrounds and without studies, would take care of running a cafe. An alert boy, he immediately became interested in the humanities, and after finishing high school, he will study literature and history at the university, although it will be the first that immediately takes up his time, he is passionate about writing, to the point that he publishes his first novel, “ Lézard”, with only 26 years. Many will follow, for example between 1957 and 1959 he publishes half a dozen, an astonishing production rate, Frankenstein. But a versatile and culturally restless person, he is also interested in science and philosophy, nothing in the world is alien to him.Pierre Étaix , influenced by Jacques Tati . Surrealism undoubtedly appeals to him.

For this reason, meeting the Spanish Luis Buñuel changes his life. In 1964, she co-wrote Diary of a Waitress with him., where he also has a small role as an actor, an acting facet to which he will return intermittently throughout his professional career, but always in small roles, in the case at hand as a priest. With the handy filmmaker he shares a fruitful professional relationship, the age difference, thirty years, is not an impediment. Buñuel will leave written in his memories that, of the 18 writers with whom he has worked, he is the one with whom he feels most identified. His comment about essentials in a script applies perfectly to Carrière: “the interest maintained in a good progression, which does not leave the attention of the spectators at rest for a moment”, and that is that for Buñuel a film “should never be boring” . So with him he writes the scripts for Belle de jour (1967),The Milky Way (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Ghost of Liberty (1974) and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), two of them nominated for an Oscar. The golden statuette will resist him, also when he is considered for adapting the Hungarian novelist Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), with Philip Kaufman , although he will finally receive an honorary Oscar for his lifetime in 2006.

Intellectual who sinks his roots in Europe, directors of Eastern Europe, when it is under the communist boot, come to him as an effective collaborator. With the Czech Milos Forman he contributed his pen in Hopeless Youth (1971), Valmont (1989) and Goya’s Ghosts (2006), while with the Pole Andrzej Wajda he did the same with Danton (1983) and The Possessed (1988) . , from a work by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

He has no problem adapting quality literary texts, on the contrary, so that with Jean-Paul Rappeneau he delivers a wonderful Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), based on Edmond Rostand ‘s classic , with Gérard Depardieu as the immense protagonist, and the adaptation of a most recent novel, The Hussar on the Roof (1995). Tremendously popular will be The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), which adapts a novel by Janet Lewis, about the identity doubts of a man who returns from the war, and which would have an American remake. With the German Volker Schlöndorff he even dares with Marcel Proust in Swann’s Love(1984), after tackling The Tin Drum (1979), the Palme d’Or at Cannes, based on the novel by Günter Grass , and Circle of Deceit (1981), and then The Ogre (1996), which is adapted by Michel Tournier .

The truth is that the vitalist Carrière never stops working, and not only in cinema, he also writes poems and essays, and plays. It is amazing to see his name associated with over a hundred films, many notable, he is never frivolously immersed in any project. A detective story in his hands will be remarkable, as is the case with La piscina (1969), by Jacques Deray . With Spanish directors, in addition to Buñuel, he works with Luis García Berlanga in Natural Size (1974), and more recently with Fernando Trueba in El artista y la modelo (2012). He collaborates with the Japanese Nagisa Oshima in Max, my love(1986), and with Wayne Wang from Hong Kong in The Chinese Box (1997). Side by side with his compatriot Louis Malle he made The Thief of Paris (1967), and two decades later, Milou in May (1990); while with Jean-Luc Godard he wrote Salve que puede, la vida (1980). He also directed At the Gates of Eternity , a look at the painter Van Gogh after his approach to Goya with Forman, directed by Julian Schnabel . His last film was Le sel des larmes by Philippe Garrel .

Carrière was married to the Iranian writer, Nahal Tajadod, who has translated poetry by compatriot filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami into French . Precisely our screenwriter had one of his brief acting appearances in one of his films, Certified Copy (2010). He has a daughter with her. He also welcomed Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani into his home for several years, almost as if she were some sort of adopted daughter.

About today’s cinema, he complained in an interview-lunch with Carles Geli in El País: “It is governed today by an ignoble law: the falsification of the action, which is no longer on the screen but in the camera; a lack of imagination and work on the scripts”.

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