Bertrand Tavernier – Film director Born April 25, 1941; died March 25, 2021 Bertrand Tavernier, who has died aged 79, was a filmmaker who applied an endless curiosity about human behaviour and the world it exists in to a weighty and expansive vision across almost forty features that took French cinema beyond the New Wave. Tavernier was perhaps best known in the UK for English language features that included ‘Round Midnight (1986), which starred real life jazz musician Dexter Gordon as an addict saxophonist. Over forty years as a director, his range embraced everything from slow burning cop dramas to historical period pieces, all driven by a political sensibility that loomed large. This was clear from his debut as a director on The Watchmaker of St Paul (1974), which drew from a story by Georges Simenon in its study of a father and the detective searching for his teenage son after he apparently killed someone. Corps de Torchon (1981) was adapted from Jim Thompson’s pulp noir nove
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