Jean-Claude Carrière (17 September 1931 – 8 February 2021) was a French novelist, screenwriter and actor. He received an Academy Award for best short film for co-writing Heureux Anniversaire (1963), and was later conferred an Honorary Oscar in 2014. He was nominated for the Academy Award three other times for his work in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). He also won a César Award for Best Original Screenplay in The Return of Martin Guerre (1983). Carrière was an alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud and was president of La Fémis, the French state film school that he helped establish. He was noted as a frequent collaborator with Luis Buñuel on the screenplays of the latter's late French films.

Early life

Carrière was born in Colombières-sur-Orb in southwestern France on 17 September 1931. His family worked as vintners, and his parents subsequently moved to Montreuil, in the suburbs of Paris, in 1945 to start a coffeehouse. Carrière was a gifted student, and attended Lycée Lakanal before studying literature and history at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, a grande école. He went on to publish his first novel, Lézard, in 1957 at the age of 26. Consequently, he was introduced to Jacques Tati, who employed Carrière to write novels based on his movies.

Career

Carrière met Pierre Étaix, who worked as Tati's first assistant. Carrière and Étaix went on to write and direct several films, including Heureux Anniversaire (1962). That film ultimately won the 1963 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Live Action). That same year, Carrière's nineteen-year collaboration with Luis Buñuel began with the film Diary of a Chambermaid (1964). He co-wrote the screenplay with Buñuel and also played the part of a village priest. They subsequently collaborated on the scripts of nearly all Buñuel's later films, including Belle de Jour (1967), The Milky Way (1969), and The Phantom of Liberty (1974). Their teamwork in writing The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the film ultimately won the Best Foreign Language Film. They earned their second Oscar nomination five years later for Best Adapted Screenplay in That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). Carrière also penned screenplay for The Tin Drum (1979), which won both the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars a year later. His work in The Return of Martin Guerre (1983) won the 1983 César Award for Best Original Screenplay. He received his third Academy Award nomination six years later for writing the script of The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) with Philip Kaufman. Carrière co-founded La Fémis, the French state film school, in 1986. He taught screenwriting there, and served as its president for ten years. He collaborated with Peter Brook on a nine hour long stage version of the ancient Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata, and a five-hour film version. He also provided the libretto for Hans Gefors' fifth opera Clara, which was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1998. He was credited as a script consultant in The White Ribbon, which won the Palme d'Or in 2009.

Later life and death

Carrière and Umberto Eco published This Is Not the End of the Book in 2012, a book of conversations on the future of information carriers. Carrière also wrote comics for Bernard Yslaire and Pierre Étaix. He was given an Academy Honorary Award in 2014, for his lifetime work in writing approximately 80 screenplays, as well as his essays, fiction, translations and interviews. Carrière died in his sleep on 8 February 2021 at his home in Paris of natural causes.

Awards and honors

Filmography

Writer

Actor