His round face and piercing blue eyes will be missed in French cinema. Actor Jean-François Stévenin, who began his career with Rivette and Truffaut before becoming a popular supporting role and then a cult director in just three films, died Tuesday at the age of 77.
“He died in the hospital in Neuilly, he fought well,” said his son Sagamore Stévenin, also an actor. Director of Mountain pass, Doubles gentlemen and Mischka, Jean-François Stévenin is a prolific actor seen in films as eclectic as Pocket money by François Truffaut, A room in town by Jacques Demy or even The Pact of the Wolves by Christophe Gans.
And Cuba changed everything
Born in the Jura in 1944, this former student at HEC, with a romantic and treacherous background, discovered film sets during an internship in Cuba… on dairy production. “I didn’t know how to do anything, but I learned to speak Spanish very quickly, and I melted into the team. Incognito, ”he said.
In 1968, he became assistant to Alain Cavalier on the set of La Chamade. “For ten years, I was an assistant, I never thought of playing. (…) And in Out One, by Jacques Rivette, where Juliet Berto had said: “It’s funny, the assistant looks like Brando, why wouldn’t he play Marlon?” The scene was kept for editing, ”he recalled in 2000 for Release. In the 1980s, he toured under the direction of Jean-Luc Godard (Passion), Bertrand Blier (Our history) and Catherine Breillat (36 Girl). Then will come the more successful films like The Pact of the Wolves, where he plays with Vincent Cassel and Samuel Le Bihan or even The man on the train directed by Patrice Leconte.
Chieftain
In 2018, his work as a filmmaker earned him a Jean-Vigo Honorary Award, which was awarded to him by Agnès Varda. This award distinguishes independence of mind, quality and originality. His films, where nature is very present, are marked by the cinema of Cassavetes and, like the American filmmaker, he likes to film those close to him. He is the father of four children, all actors: Sagamore, Robinson, Salomé and Pierre. His latest film, Lost illusions by Xavier Giannoli, adapted from Balzac, to be presented at the start of the school year at the Venice Film Festival.