Background
Carriere, Jean-Claude was born on September 17, 1931 in Colombieres, France. Son of Felix and Alice Carriere.
Carriere, Jean-Claude was born on September 17, 1931 in Colombieres, France. Son of Felix and Alice Carriere.
Something magical happened to Bunuel as he passed sixty. Some force, or angel, reinterpreted his spirit of surrealism for a modern age and found a way of making dreams possible with smooth photographe and big stars. Carrière wrote those films, and he was an angel of enablement for Bunuel on some of the smartest, funniest, and Hatout best movies ever made: Le Journal crime Femme de Chambre (63); Belle du Jour (67); La Voie Lactée (68); The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (72); The Phantom of Liberty (74); and That Obscure Object of Desire CD.
That would be achievement enough for our gratitude. But Carrière has served many other directors with tact and grace—even if there is nothing that matches the Bunuel films. Moreover, Carrière has his own directorial ambitions—he made a short. La Pince à Ongles (68), and a feature, L'Unique (85)—and thus his willingness to be a ital, yet necessarily rather secret, helper to others is all the more admirable.
He has many skills: he was a cartoonist who collaborated with Pierre Etaix; he wrote plays— LAide-Memoire (68)—and novels—Le Lézard (57) and LAlliance (63). He also acted occasionally. But he is too good at the furnishing of deft screenplays, especially adaptations, to be allowed much libertv for anything else: Le Soupirant (62, Etaix); Nous n’irons pas au Bois (63, Etaix); Insomnie (63, Etaix); La Reine Verte (64, Robert Mazoyer); Yoyo (64, Etaix); Viva Maria! (65, Louis Malle); Tant qu’on à la Santé (65, Etaix); Cartes sur Table (65, Jesus Franco); Le Voleur (66, Malle); Motel Paradiso (66, Peter Glenville); La Piscine (68, Jacques Deray); Le Grand Amour (68, Etaix); L’Alliance (70, Christian de Chalonge); Borsalino (70, Deray); La Cagna (70, Marco Fer- reri); Un Peu de Soleil dans l’Eau Froide (71, Deray); Taking Off (71. Milos Forman); Le Moine (72, Ado Kyrou); Un Homme est Moite (72, Deray); France S.A. (73, Alain Corneau); Dorothea Bâche (74, Peter Fleisehmann); Un Amour de Pluie (74, Jean-Claude Brialy); Le Clair et L’Orchidée (74, Patrice Chereau); Grande Nature (74, Luis Berlanga); La Femme aux Bottes Rouge (74, Jean-Luis Bunuel); Sérieux comme le Plaisir (74, Robert Benayoun); Le Gang (77, Deray); Julie Pot-de-Colle (77, Philippe de Broca); Photo Souvenir (78, Edmond Sechan); Un Papillon sur L’Epaule (78, Deray); The Tin Drum (79, Volker Sehlondorff); Une Semaine de Vacances (80, Bertrand Tavernier); Every Man for Himself (80, Jean-Luc Godard); Circle of Deceit (81, Sehlondorff); Danton (82, Andrzej Wajda); The Return of Ma it in Guerre (82, Daniel Vigne); La Tragédie de Carmen (83, Peter Brook); Swann in Love (84, Sehlondorff); Max Mon Amour (86, Nagisa Oshima); Wolf at the Door (HI, Henning Carlsen); The Possessed (87, Andrzej Zulawski); The Unbearable Lightness of Being (88, Philip Kaufman); The Mahabharata (89, Brook); Valniont (89, Forman); Cyrano de Bergerac (90, Jean-Paul Rappeneau); and May Fools (90, Malle).
In the nineties, it was evident that Carrière was working more often on TV adaptations of classic novels. It might be added that, after Bunuel’s death, Carrière was unable to reclaim the masters light lethal touch.
He worked on At Play in the Fields of the Lord (91. Hector Babenco); Le Retour de Casanova (92, Edouard Niermans); La Controverse de Valladolid (92, Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe); The Night and the Moment (94, Anna Maria Tato); La Duchesse de Langeais (94, Ver- haeglie); the very exuberant The Horseman on the Roof (95, Rappeneau); Der Unhold (96, Schlon- dorff); The Associate (96, Donald Petrie); Une Femme Explosive (96, Deray); Chinese Box (97, Wayne Wang); Clarissa (98, Deray); Salsa (00, Joyce Bunuel); Madame de (01. Verhaeghe).
In his autobiography, Mij Last Sigh (published in France in 1982). Luis Bunuel made a generous nod to Carrière: “I’m not a writer, but my friend and colleague Jean-Claude Carrière is. An attentive listener and scrupulous recorder during our many long conversations, he helped me write this book. The debt may have been greater still.
Married Nicole Carriere, December 27, 1952. 1 child, Iris.