Bertrand Tavernier’s Last Voyage
Born in Lyon on 25 April 1941 to a father who was a poet and a member of the Résistance, Bertrand Tavernier developed a passion both for reading and for the images he used to see in the movie theaters he assiduously frequented. At 20, he wrote his first article for Positif on the film Temps sans pitié, by Joesph Losey, and then, during the 1960s, for other specialized journals such as Cinéma 60, Cahiers du Cinéma, Présence du Cinéma, and Les Lettres françaises. He worked simultaneously as a publicist and a screenwriter before he shot his first feature-length film in 1973, L’Horloger de Saint-Paul.
Here, we will leave it to others to sift through his over forty years of passion for cinema, covering an oeuvre whose last film was Voyage à travers le cinéma français in 2016. However, we will list a few links towards a text written by Tavernier, as well as articles and memorials written by people who were close to him. Once, in a letter, he referenced some lines from the screenplay of his film Laissez-passer, between two screenwriters, and so, in conclusion, we’d like to cite, using his own words, the “good work” that any director might take on, meaning that if filmmakers as storytellers are good for anything, it is that they can “shed light on life”.*.
- Text by Bertrand Tavernier written following the death of cinematographer Bruno de Keyser
- In Memoriam of Bertrand Tavernier by Thiery Frémaux, on the website of the Institut Lumière
- In Memoriam of Bertrand Tavernier, by Martin Scorsese, on the website of the the Institut Lumière
- Memorial by Serge Toubiana, on the website of UniFrance
- Letter by Pierre-William Glenn, AFC, sharing memories from the 2015 remastering of L’Horloger de Saint-Paul
- Memorials by AFC member cinematographers Richard Andry, Agnès Godard, Pascal Lebègue, Denis Lenoir, Gilles Porte, Myriam Vinocour and by director Laurent Heynemann.
- Memorial by set designer Emile Ghigo, ADC, on the website of the Association des Décorateurs de Cinéma (Association of Production Designers).
* Letter from Bertrand Tavernier to Xavier Gianno, reprinted on the website of France Inter.
The thumbnail image above shows Bertrand Tavernier shooting Quai d’Orsay – Photo Etienne George
Translated from French by A. Baron-Raiffe