50 years ago, Bertrand Tavernier charmed us with his first film, a psychological thriller adapted from Simenon.

On January 16, 1974, Bertrand Tavernier released his first feature film as a director, the thriller L’Horloger de Saint-Paul, the story of a father who learns that his son has committed murder and runs away. A man, a watchmaker, will do anything to understand what could be going on in his head. The film is available to OCS subscribers until June 30.

The role of the father is played by Philippe Noiret, and the commissioner who leads the investigation is played by Jean Rochefort. A big movie buff, Tavernier doesn’t name every filmmaker he admires. Instead, he shoots simply and in total control: a few travel shots, a few well-placed zooms, a bit of hand-held camera work, and fixed shots.

He still gives himself technically challenging efforts, for example, when he decides to follow his characters in front of them, against the light, as they go down the tunnel, trying not to lose the light.

But Tavernier does not want anything spectacular, because it is important for him to realize his characters and especially Michel Descombe, the watchmaker’s father, his doubts, his questions, his filial love and tragic circumstances.

The Watchmaker of Saint-Paul immediately established Tavernier as a director to watch, even though no one wanted to finance his first feature, as he revealed on television when it was cast. Louis Deluc PrizeAwarded the most promising director of 1974:

(…) We faced rejection from several producers who abandoned us one after the other and I’m glad to have Delux when we think about how some people treated us, which makes me happy. Maybe it’s a sense of stupid revenge, but as people humiliate you in this business, you want revenge. (…) Several producers refused, but Noiret always helped me perfectly (…).

An artistic choice made

The screenplay is adapted from the novel Manufacturer of Everton watches by Georges Simenon, which takes place in a small American town. Tavernier and his authors Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost decide to move the action to France and more precisely to Lyon, Tavernier’s hometown.

In the 1930s and 1950s, the writings of the French cinema screenwriters Aurenche and Bost were killed. Cinema notebooks The era of Truffaut and Godard. Symbolically, by choosing to work with the duo, Tavernier is sending a message to the New Wave auteurs with whom he also worked: cinema is as much Jean-Luc Godard as Claude Hautin-Larra and Jean Delanoy, with Aurenche and Bost. was working