French director broke new ground
Had hit films with Diva and Betty Blue
Jean-jacques Beineix, who died Jan. 13 aged 75, was a French writer-director and key figure in what became known as the cinema du look, a heavily stylized form of filmmaking that imported the sheeny aesthetic of advertising into the cinematic mainstream; he enjoyed two substantial successes with Diva (1981) and Betty Blue (1986).
Diva, a propulsive urban runaround involving postmen, hit men and a touring American soprano, generated dismissive reviews in France before achieving cult status overseas. After winning a Bafta nomination for Best Foreign Film, a chastened French Academy handed it four Cesar awards, including Best First Film.
Beineix’s detractors soon retaliated: The Moon in the Gutter (1983), torn from the novelist David Goodis’s dockside noir, provoked loud boos at Cannes. Yet Betty Blue, an adaptation of Philippe Djian’s novel 37° 2 le matin, about the amour fou between a beach-house painter (Jean-hugues Anglade) and a troubled young woman (Beatrice Dalle), was a phenomenon, its unabashed couplings prompting much the same scurrilous gossip that had dogged Don’t Look Now.
Roger Ebert dismissed it as “a movie about Beatrice Dalle’s boobs and behind ... everything else is just what happens in between the scenes where she displays them.” Yet it became a defining work of its time. Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film, it made an icon out of Dalle.
In 1980s, Beineix struggled to match his earlier triumphs.
He turned down offers to direct Alien Resurrection (1997) and The Avengers (1998), instead clinging to the hope he might some day restore The Moon in the Gutter to his original vision. But Studio Gaumont had destroyed everything removed from the theatrical cut.
Jean-jacques Beineix was born on Oct. 8, 1946, to Robert Beineix and Madeleine. His early years were marked by the after-effects of war, described in his 2006 memoir Les Chantiers de la Gloire: “I have a vague memory of shrouded women lying on black marble tombs and brimming over with tears. It seems to me that I became aware of death before I did life.” Beineix is survived by his wife Agnes and daughter Frida.
SHE SEEMED SURE, FREE, BOLD AND UNAFRAID AT A TIME WHEN
WOMEN AND BLACK PEOPLE WERE SUPPOSED TO FEEL AFRAID OR
LIMITED. SHE PRESENTED HERSELF AS SOMEONE WHO WASN’T CAPTIVE
BY ALL THAT. — SINGER MACY GRAY ON BETTY DAVIS