At a young age, Trintignant boosted into stardom, just after Et dieu créa la femme (And God Created Woman, 1956) and his romantic idyll with Brigitte Bardot. Jean-Louis Trintignant has appeared in a mere 110 films. At a fiesty 70, he has returned to his acting origins, the theatre, and intends to never leave it again. In fact, he expects to never return to cinema accept "if my children are hungry and I must feed them." As for his family, Nadine (wife) and Marie both have solid film careers in action. Since the 60's, Trintignant has been prolific in both French and Italian productions and has worked with those country's best directors: Scola, Risi, Zurlini in Italy; Rohmer, Cavalier, Truffaut and Lelouch in France.

Even though his career coincided with the New Wave period in cinema, he only made sporadic appearances in those films, such as Les biches by Claude Chabrol, Vivement Dimache by François Truffaut and Le genou de Claire by Eric Rohmer. His reserved expression and ambiguity that he projects on the screen have adapted to all film genres: thrillers, comedies, dramas, political thrillers such as Z by Costa Gavras for which he won Best Actor at Cannes (1969)...

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Frédéric LECONTE