Tavernier, Bertrand

Round Midnight

Like the music it celebrates, Round Midnight is long on atmosphere, short on formal structure, alert and open to improvisation, making this 1986 drama the most authentic glimpse of jazz yet filmed. Its subject, Dale Turner (played by Dexter Gordon), is a composite of brilliant but bruised jazz warriors who left America behind for self-imposed European exile, finding a more tolerant and appreciative audience while never completely eluding their private demons. Drugs and drink have battered the tall, laconic saxophonist, whose diffident, somewhat distracted manner only partly conceals a deeper exhaustion as he plays a 1959 engagement in a Parisian club and tries to stay sober. His burnished solos drift behind the tempo with a languor that can't be fully explained as a point of style. But when an ardent, impoverished French fan (François Cluzet) intercepts his idol and then offers him simple acts of kindness, the gesture inspires a brief but glowing second wind in the aging musician, reflected in his playing. Even as the film contemplates Turner's return to his homeland as a portent of his own death, his moments on the Parisian bandstand suggest a glimpse of redemption.

If Turner's frail character echoes real-life ex-pats like Bud Powell and Lester Young, director Bertrand Tavernier's insistence upon casting the role with veteran tenor player Dexter Gordon breathes startling authenticity into the figure. Gordon's own drug arrests and an extended idyll abroad give him direct access to Turner's isolation, and Tavernier elicits a natural but compelling performance that earned Gordon (who died in 1990) an Academy Award nomination. Likewise, the director cast his cinematic band with world-class musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, and Ron Carter, and shot these sequences as live performances. Hancock's score deservedly won both British and American Academy Awards, as well as a French César. --Sam Sutherland

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 04/19/2005 Run time: 131 minutes Rating: Nr

Life and Nothing But

Revenge of the Musketeers

Back and better than ever, the heroic Three Musketeers deliver rollicking good movie fun in the action-adventure tradition of THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK! Sexy international star Sophie Marceau (FIRELIGHT, BRAVEHEART) plays Eloise, the beautiful daughter of renowned Musketeer D'Artagnan (Philippe Noiret -- CINEMA PARADISO). When she discovers a murderous conspiracy to overthrow the King of France, the feisty Eloise calls upon her father and his famous ... though now retired ... brothers-in-arms to reunite in the name of justice! A wildly entertaining story of courage, love, and betrayal -- you're sure to enjoy all the excitement as the classic trio takes comic adventure to epic proportions!

'Round Midnight

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 07/22/2008 Rating: R

Like the music it celebrates, Round Midnight is long on atmosphere, short on formal structure, alert and open to improvisation, making this 1986 drama the most authentic glimpse of jazz yet filmed. Its subject, Dale Turner (played by Dexter Gordon), is a composite of brilliant but bruised jazz warriors who left America behind for self-imposed European exile, finding a more tolerant and appreciative audience while never completely eluding their private demons. Drugs and drink have battered the tall, laconic saxophonist, whose diffident, somewhat distracted manner only partly conceals a deeper exhaustion as he plays a 1959 engagement in a Parisian club and tries to stay sober. His burnished solos drift behind the tempo with a languor that can't be fully explained as a point of style. But when an ardent, impoverished French fan (François Cluzet) intercepts his idol and then offers him simple acts of kindness, the gesture inspires a brief but glowing second wind in the aging musician, reflected in his playing. Even as the film contemplates Turner's return to his homeland as a portent of his own death, his moments on the Parisian bandstand suggest a glimpse of redemption.

If Turner's frail character echoes real-life ex-pats like Bud Powell and Lester Young, director Bertrand Tavernier's insistence upon casting the role with veteran tenor player Dexter Gordon breathes startling authenticity into the figure. Gordon's own drug arrests and an extended idyll abroad give him direct access to Turner's isolation, and Tavernier elicits a natural but compelling performance that earned Gordon (who died in 1990) an Academy Award nomination. Likewise, the director cast his cinematic band with world-class musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, and Ron Carter, and shot these sequences as live performances. Hancock's score deservedly won both British and American Academy Awards, as well as a French César. --Sam Sutherland

Coup de Torchon - Criterion Collection

Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 03/13/2001 Run time: 128 minutes

Bertrand Tavernier tranforms Jim Thompson's pulp novel Pop. 1280 into an engrossing and unsettling meditation on moral collapse. Arguably his best thriller, the French director transposes the story from the American South of the 1910s to colonial West Africa of the 1930s, where the very first black slaves entered the New World. Philippe Noiret plays a bumbling police chief who's the butt of ridicule in the corrupt town, with an abusive wife (Isabelle Huppert) who cheats on him and laughs in his face. But Noiret reaches a point of quiet madness, slowly getting his revenge by going on a killing spree. The subdued actor is at his best here, adopting a goofy attitude that works to his benefit when no one suspects him of the diabolical murders. A great subversive film enhanced by Philippe Sarde's jazzy score and wild camera movements intended to be out of sync with the action. --Bill Desowitz

Fresh Bait

Renowned director Bertrand Tavernier brings us the true story that shocked France. Getting rich quick is the idea; robbery, torture and murder are the plan. Nathalie, Eric and Bruno need to raise 10 million dollars to open a retail clothing chain in the US. With the lure of sex with the young and alluring Nathalie, two men enter an apartment never to be seen alive again. Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, Fresh Bait is a revealing look at the evil that lies hidden beneath the surface of even the most innocent of people.

Safe Conduct

Let Joy Reign Supreme

It All Starts Today

A Sunday in the Country (Deluxe Letterboxed Edition)

Bertrand Travernier's magnificent portrait of French family life on the brink of World War I. Alive with the subtle brush strokes of an artist at the top of his form, Travernier's acclaimed "A Sunday in the Country" is a lovingly photographed and exquisitely acted portrait of the Ladmiral family at the beginning of the twentieth century. Based on the novel by Pierre Bost, "A Sunday in the Country" becomes an Impressionist painting in itself, mirroring the Ladmiral patriarch's trade. The film is a moving picture of the hopes, disappointments, and small joys of family as a father's life reaches its autumn season.