Death of Jean-Charles Tacchella, filmmaker of the intimate and author of Cousin Cousine – Actus Ciné
French author and director Jean-Charles Tacchella died on Thursday, August 29, at the age of 98. He was nominated for an Oscar and a César for his most famous film, “Cousin, Cousin,” released in 1975.
Director, screenwriter and former president of the Cinémathèque française, Jean-Charles Tacchella passed away this Thursday, August 29, “in his sleep”at his home in Versailles. Having become a director late in life, he had directed 11 feature films, including his most famous, Cousin, cousine (1975), for which he received an Oscar nomination and the Louis Delluc Prize.
Passionate about cinema from a young age, Jean-Charles Tacchella moved to Paris at the age of 19 to become a journalist at L'Écran français. There, he rubbed shoulders with big names in cinema including directors Jean Renoir, Jacques Becker and Jean Grémillon. In 1948, he founded an avant-garde film club, Objectif 49, with André Bazin, Alexandre Astruc and René Clément, among others, whose president was Jean Cocteau.
A first film… at 45 years old!
The following year allowed him to take his first steps on a film set as a gagman. He then became a screenwriter in 1955 and wrote for Yves Ciampi (Les Héros sont forcés), Gérard Oury (Le Crime ne payé pas) and Alexandre Astruc (La longue marche), among others. Eager to bring his own scripts to the big screen, he had to wait until he was 45 to make his first feature film, Voyage en grande Tartarie, with Jean-Luc Bideau.
Oscar Nominee
His next film, the comedy of manners Cousinwas a surprise success even on the other side of the Atlantic, where the film garnered three Oscar nominations in the categories of best foreign film, best screenplay and best actress for Marie-Christine Barrault. A remake, directed by Joel Schumacher, was even released in 1989 with Isabella Rosselini and Ted Danson.
Intimate cinema and Maupassant
Despite this triumph, he regularly encounters difficulties in setting up his following, more personal projects. In an intimate vein, Jean-Charles Tacchella develops a work full of nuances, as in Croque la vie, a chronicle of the misadventures in the 70s of thirty-somethings who refuse to grow up, or in Escalier C which relates the daily life of a Parisian building where a tragedy breaks out.
His last feature film, the choral film Les Gens qui s'aiment, which brought together Jacqueline Bisset, Richard Berry and Julie Gayet, did not find its audience. In the 2000s, the filmmaker devoted himself only to the small screen, for which he wrote several episodes of the series Chez Maupassant and Au siècle de Maupassant.