- Born
- Died
- A rabid movie fan when he was young, Jean-Jacques Beineix first studied medicine before entering the movie business. During the seventies, he became an established assistant director, working with Claude Berri, René Clément, Claude Zidi and even Jerry Lewis. But, like many assistants, Beineix's ultimate dream was to direct. He had a pass at it in 1977 with the short Le chien de Monsieur Michel (1977). A promising debut, it won the first price at Trouville Festival and earned a César nomination for best short film (fiction).
In 1981, came his first long feature Diva (1981), a stylish thriller based on a book by Delacorta. When it came out, Diva was not supported by French critics and seemed at first well on its way to crash and burn. But slowly the film gained momentum due to good word of mouth and positive reactions in various festivals like Moscow and Toronto. Ultimately, the film became a great success internationally, winning four Césars along the way.
Next came the expensive The Moon in the Gutter (1983). An adaptation of a David Goodis novel, the film was even more radical than 'Diva' in its deliberate artificiality. Premiering in competition at the 36th Cannes Film Festival in 1983, the film was booed and most critics found it pretentious and boring. Only few voices rose up to defend the movie but it was not enough to save it. It flopped at the box office but manage to win one César for set design.
At that point, Beineix's career was in serious danger of biting the dust, but he came back in force in 1986 with Betty Blue (1986) (aka 'Betty Blue'), based on a 'Philippe Djian' novel. Despite mixed reviews, the film was another international hit, won the top price at Montréal festival, and was nominated for best foreign film at both the Oscars and Golden Globes, each time losing to Fons Rademakers' 'De Aanslag'. It also earned 9 César nominations including best film and best director ... but won only for best poster !
Beineix's next movie Roselyne and the Lions (1988), set in the circus world, came and went unnoticed. In 1992, IP5: The Island of Pachyderms (1992) got attention mostly for being Yves Montand's last role. Beineix then resurfaced where he was least expected with social documentaries. He did a film about children in Romania; Otaku (1994) was shot in Japan; Assigné à résidence (1997) was about locked-in syndrome victim Jean-Dominique Bauby.
In 2001, he came back to fiction with Mortal Transfer (2001), a psycho-thriller based on a Jean-Pierre Gattegno novel. Once again, critics were lukewarm and the film performed poorly at the box-office. In 2002, however, Beineix drew strong ratings with made for TV documentary Loft Paradoxe (2002), an attempt to analyse the success of reality show 'Loft Story'.
With his intense focus on the power of images, Beineix paved the way for directors like Luc Besson, Leos Carax and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. A self-proclaimed misanthropist who never hid his contempt for producers and was often deemed excessive and irascible, he will go down in the history books as a director who raised controversy not for the subjects he tackled but for his stylistic approach. Still, with Diva (1981) and Betty Blue (1986), he directed two of the few French films of the eighties that reached an international audience.
- IMDb mini biography by: François Leclair
- SpouseAgnès(? - January 13, 2022) (his death)
- Children
- RelativesJean-Claude Beineix(Sibling)
- As a child Beineix described himself as "a great Jerry Lewis fan" and was thrilled to be hired on Lewis' unreleased film, The Day the Clown Cried (1972) as an assistant director.
- He was offered the chance to direct The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) but declined as he considered that he had already covered the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby in his documentary feature Assigné à résidence (1997).
- His favourite films include Children of Paradise (1945), To Have and Have Not (1944), In the White City (1983) and The Fire Within (1963).
- Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 1987.
- President of the jury at the entrance examination of La Fémis (France's national film school) in 1994.
- Films are the expression of what you are, what you feel and what your feelings are about the world.
- I think France is a very strange country. There is great intelligence there yet narrowness at the same time. Yet I could say that no one profits in his own country. In France there are some American directors not recognized in America. Or if you say Peter Greenaway or Alan Parker in England it's the same - they'll smash you. You have to understand that I have two films on the Variety list of the best foreign films of the last twenty years. In America, Diva (1981) is taught at the university. In France they're told not to like it.
- In documentaries, the dramaturgy is fulfilled and produced by reality. In fiction, you have the right to alter, to modify, to transform reality into something else, to give it the shape and form you want to give it. This is a very old debate in art history. A lot of people want art to serve the cause of reality. That was the basement of the Nouvelle Vague. But I think that some artists want to show things with their own eyes. I have never, ever made one picture which is reality. It is always something else - bigger, more baroque.
- I came up the hard way; I was a gopher for Jacques Becker and René Clément, an assistant director to Claude Berri and Claude Zidi. I was never the kind of cinephile who belonged to any club. I didn't get down on my knees at the Cahiers du Cinéma altar.
- I'm an anxious person in an anxious world.
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