With only a handful of films, Jacques Rozier will have marked French cinema. The filmmaker, figure of the New Wave with Farewell Filipinadied at the age of 96.
He died in hospital overnight from Thursday to Friday, said Michèle Berson, who had worked with him for fifteen years.
“He was freedom itself”
“Jacques Rozier has just left us. He was freedom itself, and we will miss him terribly, ”responded the Cinémathèque française, which paid tribute to him on Twitter. “Of New Wave filmmakers, Rozier is the one who wanders. The one who likes everything to go wrong, to better fuel his very particular sense of dramaturgy (…)”.
1986 Jean Vigo Prize for Maine OceanRené Clair Prize 1997 for all of his work, Carrosse d’or 2002 at Cannes, Jacques Rozier directed Farewell Filipina (1962), chronicle of youth against the backdrop of the war in Algeria, On the side of Orouet (1973) and The Castaways of Turtle Island (1976). Four films in more than half a century… He shot two others, Fifi martingale (2001), never released theatrically, and The Parisian parrot (2007), which remained unfinished.
Godard’s praise
He has also shot about twenty short films, often noticed, and worked for television. “He was an independent, free filmmaker”, underlined Michèle Berson, he worked “without a preconceived scenario in advance” and had an ability to “restore the present”.
In 2019, Jean-Luc Godard (since deceased) also hailed the trace left by Jacques Rozier in French cinema: “When Agnès Varda died, I thought: the real New Wave, there are only two of us. Me and (…) Jacques Rozier who started a little before me”.