French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant has died at the age of 91. According to his wife Marianne Hoepfner, the interpreter of films such as “Three Colors: Red, Z” or “The Great Silence” died of prostate cancer. Almost four years ago, in July 2018, Trintignant decided to say goodbye. I could not anymore. “I think the cinema is over for me,” he announced in an interview with the Nice Matin newspaper. “I don’t fight. I let things happen. There is a doctor from Marseille who wants to try something new. But I’m not doing chemotherapy, even though I was prepared,” he assured. By then he had become a titan of European cinema. Jean-Paul Belmondo or Alain Delon might have been more famous, but Trintignant moved better with elegance and stillness. With a majestic physique and a flair for screenplay selection (or openness to the projects that came to him that prompted him to leave his beloved theater temporarily), the careers of filmmakers like Lelouch, Haneke, or Costa-Gavras would not be the same if he had not been a French actor there.
Jean-Louis Trintignant, a great figure in French cinema, has died at the age of 91. The interpreter, who retired in 2018, was suffering from cancer. In the picture the actors in “My night with Maud”.
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Isabelle Huppert at the screening of ‘Amour’ during the 65th Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2012. Dominique Charriau (WireImage)
Jean-Louis Trintignant in 1994’s Three Colors Red directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski.
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva in Love, a 2012 film directed by Michael Haneke that won awards including an Oscar and a Golden Globe. 
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Vittorio Gassman in ‘The Escape’ a 1962 Italian film directed by Dino Risi.
Palme d’Or winners for “Amour” Emmanuelle Riva, Michael Haneke and Jean-Louis Trintignant pose during the 65th Cannes Film Festival Stephane Cardinale – Corbis (Corbis via Getty Images)
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée in The Most Beautiful Years of a Life, from 2019. Maillard. Lucy
A picture from “Happy End” (2017) by Michael Haneke. Jean-Louis Trintignant is second from left. assign
This interview served as both an announcement and a review of his career and his fears, both those related to his age and cancer and those he had experienced over a career spanning 120 titles and half a century, and the pain caused by the murder of his daughter , also an actress Marie Trintignant, 41, killed by her partner, musician Bertrand Cantat, in the summer of 2003. “I’ve been dead for 15 years,” he told Nice Matin. “I experienced two dramas that influenced me a lot. Especially the last one, that of my daughter Marie. And when I say I’m dead, I mean it.”
Of his amazing career, he said he’s still amazed. “I’m extremely shy (…) I’m not made for a public job,” he assured. “Besides, I’ve never really cared about fame. It’s funny the first time. But not anymore.” Curious reflection for someone who started on the stage and put it before the cinema at the beginning of the 21st century. “I simply refused to work on a Bruno Dumont film. It was interesting , but I’m afraid I’m not physically able to do it. I don’t move on my own anymore, I always need someone by my side to tell me: Look, there’s a piece of furniture in front of you, you’ll meet,” he said not without a certain irony. By that year, 2018, I had already stopped leaving my home. “I can’t read because I’m going blind. And the books have been a great joy. I watch TV, I listen to music, I sleep a lot . I stay on the couch and think about the good and bad things. Luckily without boredom.”
From the beginning of his career, Jean-Louis Trintignant gave a face to the concerns of the European culture of his time, or at least the obsessions that fueled the creativity of French and Italian filmmakers (although he was always dubbed in that language). The son of a middle-class family, two of his uncles were racing drivers, and this family passion was reflected in his character in A Man and a Woman (1966) by Claude Lelouch: the actor changed the script so that his role would go from doctor to pilot. Born in Piolenc near Avignon in 1930, he moved to Paris at the age of 20 to study acting. A year later he had already made his theatrical debut, where he gained a certain reputation and Roger Vadim gave him the great opportunity in the cinema: together with Brigitte Bardot he starred in And God Created Woman. The title changed the lives of all three. The already well-known Bardot became a world star, Trintignant appeared out of nowhere and became one of the male faces of French cinema, and Vadim saw before his eyes how his wife Bardot and Trintignant began a romantic relationship. By the way, the actor was also married to the actress Stéphane Audran (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie). Both marriages broke up.
Trintignant, however, had his career cut short by military service. He served in Algiers and upon his return, Vadim, who bore no grudge against him, hired him for Dangerous Relations, his 1959 version of the book of letters by Choderlos de Laclos. Three years later, he starred in another the mythical title of European cinema , The Escape (El sorppass), together with Vittorio Gassman, with whom Dino Risi made a satire on Italian reality, and a sharp reflection on the masculinity of the moment with the journey of two friends, one rather shy, the other more playful and unbridled by the Tuscany.
All the culture that suits you awaits you here.
Subscribe to
Four years later, A Man and a Woman followed with Anouk Aimée. The romantic blockbuster based on the relationship of two widowers to the rhythm of composer Francis Lai’s “Dabadabada” had a sequel in 1986 and a late third part: until 2019, Lelouch did not dare to face this film. The best years of a life because the one from 1986 had left a bad taste in the mouth. At its premiere in Spain, the director emphasized: “Time worked like a miracle. I don’t make them, although I know how to film them when they arrive. Looking at Jean-Louis and Anouk made me want to keep shooting them. Jean-Louis has had a complicated life, terrible things have happened to him, including the murder of his daughter. If there’s anyone who can tell us anything about life, it’s him. The truth resonates in his voice, he cannot lie. He is unable to say anything he does not mean. The entire film is based on his voice.”
More information
Alongside this performer of sentimental dramas, thrillers or major productions such as Is Paris Burning?, The Attack or The Los Angeles Burial, there was also the most political Trintignant, that of El Conformista (1970) by Bernardo Bertolucci and his analysis of fascism; or that of Z by Costa-Gavras (Best Actor in Cannes). In the 1960s and 1970s he shot continuously in Italy and France. Even in English The Great Silence (1968) by Sergio Corbucci, master of the spaghetti western, in which he worked on the condition that his character be mute and therefore not have to learn the dialogues. In the same year he won the Silver Bear for best performance for The Man Who Lies in Berlin.
Gradually, he became disillusioned with cinema. In addition, there were various health problems after a car accident. He was much more selective in his performances: he appeared with Fanny Ardant in Truffaut’s last film Alive Sunday (1983), and Krzysztof Kieslowski called him on for Three Colors: Red (1994). Among these recent works, Those Who Love Me with the Train (1998) by Patrice Chéreau stands out.
After the death of his daughter in 2003, only the Austrian-German Michael Haneke could count on his talent – apart from the third part of A Man and a Woman mentioned above. First in Love (2012), a hymn to life in a film about death, with which Trintignant eventually won the César. In this film Haneke wrote one of his best sentences about life: “I keep getting worse and then it’s over.” And five years later in Happy End, in which his character, anchored in a wheelchair, longs for death and his family, his Asking friends and even strangers on the street to help him die until he manages to dive further into the sea up a ramp in Calais. It’s not his end on screen, nor Trintignant’s in life, but it did illustrate the spirit of a man who was devastated by the murder of his daughter in real life.