Jean-Pierre Jeunet (French: [ʒɑ̃ pjɛʁ ʒœnɛ]; born 3 September 1953) is a French film director and screenwriter known for the films Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Alien: Resurrection and Amélie.
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 his 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, such as Jean Michel Jarre's Zoolook (together with Caro).
Jeunet and Caro's first feature film was Delicatessen (1991), a melancholy comedy set in a famine-plagued post-apocalyptic world, in which an apartment building above a delicatessen is ruled by a butcher who kills people in order to feed his tenants.[1]
They next made The City of Lost Children (1995), a dark, multi-layered fantasy film about a mad scientist who steals children's dreams so that he can live indefinitely.[2] The success of The City of Lost Children led to an invitation to direct the fourth film in the Alien series, Alien: Resurrection (1997).[3]
Jeunet directed Amélie (2001), starring Audrey Tautou.[4] Amélie is the story of a woman who takes pleasure in doing good deeds but has trouble finding love herself, was a huge critical and commercial success worldwide and was nominated for several Academy Awards. For this film, Jeunet also gained a European Film Award for Best Director.
In 2004, Jeunet released A Very Long Engagement, an adaptation of the novel by Sébastien Japrisot. The film, starring Audrey Tautou and Jodie Foster, chronicled a woman's search for her missing lover after World War I.[5]
In 2009, he released Micmacs.[6]
Jeunet has also directed numerous commercials including a 2'25" film for Chanel N° 5 featuring his frequent collaborator Audrey Tautou.
In 2013, Jeunet released The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet an adaptation of Reif Larsen's book: The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet that starred Kyle Catlett. The film was shot in English at various locations in Canada and in Washington, D.C. It was released in 3D.
Filmography
Collaborations
Decorations
References
- ↑ Maslin, Janet (October 5, 1991). "Review/Film Festival; Please, How Many Lentils for Your Musical Saw?". The New York Times.
- ↑ Holden, Stephen (December 15, 1995). "FILM REVIEW;Out of the Fever Dreams of a Child". The New York Times.
- ↑ Maslin, Janet (November 26, 1997). "FILM REVIEW; Ripley, Believe It or Not, Has a Secret, and It's Not Pretty". The New York Times.
- ↑ Zalewski, Daniel (October 28, 2001). "Film; Going Sweet and Sentimental Has Its Rewards". The New York Times.
- ↑ Dargis, Manohla (November 26, 2004). "A Love That Won't Surrender to War, Death and Oblivion". The New York Times.
- ↑ Murphy, Mekado (May 21, 2010). "An Eye for Detail, an Imagination at Play". The New York Times.
- ↑ "Nomination dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres janvier 2016". culturecommunication.gouv.fr. March 31, 2016.
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