French director and screenwriter Jean-Paul Rappeneau, who was best known internationally for the 1990 Oscar-nominated drama Cyrano de Bergerac, died on September 2 his family has announced. He was 94.
Born on April 8, 1932 in the town of Auxerre in central France, Rappeneau’s career spanned more than 50 years of French cinema history.
His early screenwriting credits include Louis Malle’s Zazie in the Metro ((1960)and A Very Private Affair (1962) as well as Philippe de Broca’s classic thriller That Man From Rio starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.
He broke into feature film directing in 1966 with A Matter of Resistance, a romantic comedy set on the eve of France’s World War Two liberation starring Catherine Deneuve.
The pair would work together again on his 1975 film Le Sauvage, co-starring Yves Montand as a man living a solitary on a Caribbean island who becomes entangled with a runaway bride.
Other directorial credits include All Fired Up (1982) and Horseman on the Roof (1995). He is best known internationally, however, for his big screen adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 stage play Cyrano de Bergerac starring Gerard Depardieu in the titular role.
After world premiering in 1990 in Cannes, where Depardieu won Best Actor, the film enjoyed a buzzy awards season garnering five nominations in the lead up to the 63rd Academy Awards, including for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film. It missed out on both prizes, but won Best Costume Design for Franca Squarciapino.
Rappeneau’s last feature-length directorial credit was the comedy drama Families starring
Mathieu Amalric as a Shanghai-based French financier who returns home to find the family mansion is being sold off.
