Jean-Pierre Jeunet
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| Jean-Pierre Jeunet | |||||||||||||||
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| Born | September 3, 1953 Roanne, Loire, France |
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| Spouse(s) | Liza Sullivan | ||||||||||||||
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Jean-Pierre Jeunet (born 3 September 1953) is a French film director. His films are idiosyncratic fantasies characterized by detailed sets and story-lines.
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[edit] Life and career
Jean-Pierre Jeunet was born in Roanne, Loire, France. He bought his first camera at the age of 17 and made short films while studying animation at Cinémation Studios. He befriended Marc Caro, a designer and comic book artist who became Jeunet's longtime collaborator and co-director.
Together, Jeunet and Caro directed award-winning animations. Their first live action film was The Bunker of the Last Gunshots (1981), a short film about soldiers in a bleak futuristic world. Jeunet also directed numerous advertisements and music videos.
Jeunet and Caro's first feature film was Delicatessen (1991), a black comedy set in a famine-plagued post-apocalyptic world, in which a block of flats above a delicatessen is ruled by a butcher who kills people in order to feed his tenants.
Next came The City of Lost Children (1995), a dark, multi-layered fantasy film with a twisting plot about a doctor who kidnaps children in order to steal their dreams.
The success of The City of Lost Children led to an invitation to direct the fourth movie in the Alien series - Alien: Resurrection (1997). Like his subsequent films, this one is credited only to Jeunet, although Caro did some work on the art design. Though not well received by critics, Alien: Resurrection turned a profit at the box office.
Jeunet returned to France. The clout of having a Hollywood film under his belt gave him free rein on his next project, Amélie, starring Audrey Tautou. Amélie is lighter and more romantic than his previous films, a fact sometimes attributed to Caro's minimal participation. This story, about a girl who takes pleasure in doing good deeds but cannot find love herself, was a huge commercial and box office success worldwide, and was nominated for several Academy Awards. For this film he also got an European Film Award for Best Director.
In 2004, Jeunet released A Very Long Engagement, an adaptation of the novel by Sébastien Japrisot set after World War I, during which a woman (played by Audrey Tautou) searches for her missing lover.
In 2007, Jeunet pulled out of directing Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi due to budget reasons. Jeunet has now gone on to direct his own film Micmacs a tire-larigot
[edit] Style
Jeunet seeks out actors with unusual faces for his films, and frequently uses wide-angle lenses to distort human features and sets.
He was influenced by Jacques Prévert and the Nouvelle Vague. This is seen in movies such as Amelie where he uses surrealism.
[edit] Collaborators
Jeunet likes to work with the same team of filmmakers and repeatedly casts similar actors. His usual 'team' includes the following:
- Dominique Pinon has appeared in all five of Jeunet's feature-length films
- Rufus and Ticky Holgado appear in all of his feature-length films except Alien: Resurrection
- Jean-Claude Dreyfus has appeared in all of his feature-length films except Alien: Resurrection and Amélie
- Ron Perlman appears in both City of Lost Children and Alien: Resurrection
- Audrey Tautou appears in both Amélie and A Very Long Engagement.
- Darius Khondji was the cinematographer on Delicatessen, City and Alien.
- Bruno Delbonnel was the cinematographer on Amélie and A Very Long Engagement.
- Hervé Schneid was the editor for all Jeunet's feature-length films
- Aline Bonetto was the set designer for Amélie, Delicatessen and A Very Long Engagement.
[edit] Filmography
| Year | Title | French Title | No. of Oscar nominations | No. of Oscar wins |
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| 1978 | The Escape | L'Évasion | ||
| 1980 | Le Manege | |||
| 1981 | The Bunker of the Last Gunshots | Le Bunker de la derniere rafale | ||
| 1984 | Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko | |||
| 1989 | Things I Like, Things I Don't Like | Foutaises | ||
| 1991 | Delicatessen | |||
| 1995 | The City of Lost Children | La Cité des enfants perdus | ||
| 1997 | Alien: Resurrection | |||
| 2001 | Amélie | Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain | 5 | |
| 2004 | A Very Long Engagement | Un long dimanche de fiançailles | 2 | |
| 2009 | Micmacs à Tire-Larigot | |||
| TBA | Life of Pi |
[edit] External links
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet at the Internet Movie Database
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet Official Site
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet at MySpace
- GreenCine's interview with Jeunet
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