Jean-Louis Xavier Trintignant born 11 December 1930 is a French actor. He won the Best Actor Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Actor Award at the César Awards 2013. He starred in classic films such as Z, A Man and a Woman, The Great Silence, The Conformist, Three Colours: Red, and Amour.
Biography
Trintignant was born in Piolenc, Vaucluse, the son of Claire (née Tourtin) and Raoul Trintignant, an industrialist. At the age of twenty, Trintignant moved to Paris to study drama and made his theatrical debut in 1951, going on to be seen as one of the most gifted French actors of the post-war era. After touring in the early 1950s in several theater productions, his first motion picture appearance came in 1955 and the following year he gained stardom with his performance opposite Brigitte Bardot in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman.
Trintignant’s acting was interrupted for several years by mandatory military service. After serving in Algiers, he returned to Paris and resumed his work in film. He had the leading male role in A Man and a Woman, which at the time was the most successful French film ever screened in the foreign market.
In Italy, he was always dubbed into Italian, and he worked with Italian directors including Sergio Corbucci in The Great Silence, Valerio Zurlini in Violent Summer and The Desert of the Tartars, Ettore Scola in La terrazza, Bernardo Bertolucci in The Conformist, and Dino Risi in The Easy Life.
Throughout the 1970s, Trintignant starred in numerous films, including the English-language films The Outside Man in 1971 and Under Fire in 1983. Following this, he starred in François Truffaut’s final film, Confidentially Yours, and reprised his best-known role in the sequel A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later.
In 1994, he starred in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s last film, Three Colors: Red. Since then, he has taken an occasional film role but been focusing on stage work. After a 14-year gap, Trintignant came back on screen for Michael Haneke’s film Amour. Haneke sent Trintignant the script, which had been written specifically for him. Trintignant said he chooses the films he does on the basis of the director, and said of Haneke that “he has the most complete mastery of the cinematic discipline, from technical aspects like sound and photography to the way he handles actors”.
On 20 July 2018 Trintignant announced his retirement from cinema, but in March 2019 he accepted a role in Claude Lelouch’s film Les plus belles annees d’une vie, a follow-up to Un homme et une femme and its sequel Un homme et une femme, 20 ans dejà.
Personal life
Trintignant in 2007
Trintignant comes from a wealthy family. He is the nephew of racecar driver Louis Trintignant, who was killed in 1933 while practising on the Péronne racetrack in Picardy. Another uncle, Maurice Trintignant (1917–2005), was a Formula One driver who twice won the Monaco Grand Prix as well as the 24 hours of Le Mans. Jean-Louis himself was an enthusiastic amateur rally driver, and competed in a number of high-level rallies in the 1970s and 1980s, including several rounds of the World Rally Championship; he finished first in his class in the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally. Raised in and around automobile racing, Trintignant was the natural choice of film director Claude Lelouch for the starring role of a racecar driver in the 1966 film A Man and a Woman. He suffered a leg injury from a motorcycle accident in June 2007.
His first wife was actress Stéphane Audran. His second wife, Nadine Marquand, was an actress, screenwriter and director. They had three children: Vincent, Pauline (who died of crib death in 1969) and Marie Trintignant (21 January 1962 – 1 August 2003). At age 17 Marie performed in La terrazza alongside her father and later became a successful actress. She was killed at the age of 41 by her boyfriend, singer Bertrand Cantat, in a hotel room in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Awards
- 1968 – Silver Bear for Best Actor for The Man Who Lies
- 1969 – Cannes Award for Best Actor for Z
- 1972 – David di Donatello – Special Award
- 2012 – European Film Awards – Best Actor for Amour
- 2013 – César Award – Best Actor for Amour
Trintignant was nominated to receive the César five times: in 1987, 1995, 1996, 1999, and in 2013.
Selected filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | If All the Guys in the World | Jean-Louis | Christian-Jaque | |
| 1956 | La Loi des rues | Yves Tréguier | Ralph Habib | |
| And God Created Woman | Michel Tardieu | Roger Vadim | ||
| Women’s Club | Michel | Ralph Habib | ||
| 1959 | Les liaisons dangereuses | Danceny | Roger Vadim | |
| Violent Summer | Carlo Caremoli | Valerio Zurlini | ||
| 1960 | Austerlitz | Ségur junior | Abel Gance | |
| 1961 | Pleins feux sur l’assassin | Jean-Marie de Kerloguen | Georges Franju | |
| Journey Beneath the Desert | Pierre | Edgar G. Ulmer | ||
| 1962 | Horace 62 | Joseph Fabiani | André Versini | |
| Le Combat dans l’île | Clément Lesser | Alain Cavalier | ||
| Il Sorpasso | Roberto Mariani | Dino Risi | ||
| 1963 | Château en Suède | Éric | Roger Vadim | |
| 1964 | Mata Hari, Agent H21 | François Lasalle | Jean-Louis Richard | |
| 1965 | The Sleeping Car Murders | Éric Grandin | Costa-Gavras | |
| 1966 | A Man and a Woman | Jean-Louis Duroc | Claude Lelouch | |
| Diamond Safari | Raphaële Vincente | Michel Drach | ||
| La Longue Marche | Philippe | Alexandre Astruc | ||
| Trans-Europ-Express | Elias | Alain Robbe-Grillet | ||
| 1967 | Un homme à abattre | Raphaël | Philippe Condroyer | |
| Col cuore in gola | Bernard | Tinto Brass | ||
| My Love, My Love | Vincent Falaise | Nadine Trintignant | ||
| 1968 | Death Laid an Egg | Marco | Giulio Questi | |
| Les Biches | Paul Thomas | Claude Chabrol | ||
| The Man Who Lies | Jan Robin / Boris Varissa | Alain Robbe-Grillet | Berlin Film Festival — Silver Bear for Best Actor | |
| The Great Silence | Gordon (“Silence”) | Sergio Corbucci | ||
| The Libertine | Carlo De Marchi | Pasquale Festa Campanile | ||
| 1969 | Z | Christos Sartzetakis | Costa-Gavras | Cannes Film Festival Best Actor |
| Metti, una sera a cena | Michele | Giuseppe Patroni Griffi | ||
| My Night at Maud’s | Jean-Louis | Éric Rohmer | ||
| L’Américain | Bruno | Marcel Bozzuffi | ||
| So Sweet… So Perverse | Jean Reynaud | Umberto Lenzi | ||
| 1970 | The Conformist | Marcello Clerici | Bernardo Bertolucci | |
| Le Voyou | Simon Duroc | Claude Lelouch | ||
| 1971 | Ramparts of Clay | the entrepreneur | Jean-Louis Bertucelli | |
| L’Opium et le Bâton | Chaudier | Ahmed Rachedi | ||
| Without Apparent Motive | Stéphane Carella | Philippe Labro | ||
| 1972 | …and Hope to Die | Antoine Cardot | René Clément | |
| Plot | François Darien | Yves Boisset | ||
| The Outside Man | Lucien Bellon | Jacques Deray | ||
| 1973 | The Train | Julien Maroyeur | Pierre Granier-Deferre | |
| A Full Day’s Work | directed | |||
| 1974 | Violins at the Ball | Michel | Michel Drach | |
| Successive Slidings of Pleasure | the police officer | Alain Robbe-Grillet | ||
| Le Mouton enragé | Nicolas Mallet | Michel Deville | ||
| The Secret | David Daguerre | Robert Enrico | ||
| 1975 | L’Agression | Paul Varlin | Gérard Pirès | |
| Flic Story | Émile Buisson | Jacques Deray | ||
| Il pleut sur Santiago | Senator | Helvio Soto | ||
| Playing with Fire | le bel homme / l’homme de main | Alain Robbe-Grillet | ||
| The Sunday Woman | Massimo Campi | Luigi Comencini | ||
| 1976 | The Desert of the Tartars | Rovin | Valerio Zurlini | |
| 1977 | The Passengers | Alex Moineau | Serge Leroy | |
| Repérages | Victor | Michel Soutter | ||
| 1978 | L’Argent des autres | Henri Rainier | Christian de Chalonge | |
| 1980 | The Lady Banker | Horace Vannister | Francis Girod | |
| La terrazza | Enrico D’Orsi | Ettore Scola | ||
| Je vous aime | Julien | Claude Berri | ||
| 1981 | Un assassin qui passe | Ravic | Michel Vianey | |
| Passion of Love | the doctor | Ettore Scola | ||
| Malevil | Fulbert | Christian de Chalonge | ||
| Eaux profondes | Vic Allen | Michel Deville | ||
| 1982 | Le Grand Pardon | Commissaire Duché | Alexandre Arcady | |
| Boulevard des assassins | Daniel Salmon | Boramy Tioulong | ||
| Blow to the Heart | Dario | Gianni Amelio | ||
| 1983 | Confidentially Yours | Julien Vercel | François Truffaut | |
| La Crime | Christian Lacassagne | Philippe Labro | ||
| Under Fire | Marcel Jazy | Roger Spottiswoode | ||
| 1984 | Viva la vie! | François Gaucher | Claude Lelouch | |
| 1985 | Next Summer | Paul | Nadine Trintignant | |
| Partir, revenir | Roland Rivière | Claude Lelouch | ||
| Rendez-vous | Scrutzler | André Téchiné | ||
| L’Homme aux yeux d’argent | Mayene | Pierre Granier-Deferre | ||
| 1986 | A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later | Jean-Louis Duroc | Claude Lelouch | |
| La Femme de ma vie | Pierre | Régis Wargnier | Nominated — César Award for Best Supporting Actor | |
| 1987 | La vallée fantôme | Paul | Alain Tanner | |
| 1989 | Bunker Palace Hôtel | Holm | Enki Bilal | |
| 1991 | Merci la vie | SS officier | Bertrand Blier | |
| 1994 | Three Colors: Red | Joseph Kern | Krzysztof Kieślowski | Nominated — César Award for Best Actor |
| 1995 | The City of Lost Children | L’oncle Irvin | Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro | Voice Only |
| Fiesta | Colonel Masagual | Pierre Boutron | Nominated — César Award for Best Actor | |
| 1996 | A Self Made Hero | Albert Dehousse (the matured one) | Jacques Audiard | |
| 1998 | Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train | Lucien Emmerich / Jean-Baptiste Emmerich | Patrice Chéreau | Nominated — César Award for Best Supporting Actor |
| 2003 | Janis et John | Monsieur Cannon | Samuel Benchetrit | |
| 2012 | Amour | Georges | Michael Haneke | César Award for Best Actor European Film Award for Best Actor Lumières Award for Best Actor Nominated—Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actor Nominated—International Cinephile Society Award for Best Actor Nominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Actor of the Year |
| 2017 | Happy End | Georges Laurent | Michael Haneke | |
| 2019 | The Best Years of a Life | Jean-Louis Duroc | Claude Lelouch |