Jean-Jacques Annaud is a world-famous director and screenwriter who has reached incredible heights in cinema. It is distinguished by an amazing variety of approaches to creating real, high-quality and spiritual cinema. At the same time, Anno manages to transfer his characteristic optimism, love of life and nature to the screen, again and again revealing to us the world of feelings and sensations that plays in his films like a kaleidoscope.
On the way to art
Cult European director Jean-Jacques Annaud (pictured below) was born in the French city of Essonne. It happened on October 1, 1943. On the way to professional development, he went through such stages as studying literature at the Sorbonne University, as well as studying at the Institute of Higher Education in the field of cinema.
After graduation, an important period in the life of the future director began - military service. Anno paid his debt to the country in Cameroon. And this experience had a significant impact on his futurecreative life. In 1965, Jean-Jacques Annaud, whose biography of professional activity did not begin with full-length masterpieces, gains his first experience in the film industry. He starts making television commercials as well as training videos for army soldiers.
Debut and success are compatible concepts
The first feature film directed by J.-J. Anno became the painting "Black and White in Color", filmed in Africa. She hit the big screens in 1976. At home, his first creation was met very coolly: with a share of offensive indifference. However, a year later, the high artistic value of the debut film was confirmed by the Oscar, which Black and White in Color received as the best foreign language film. This was followed by multiple Cesar awards for other Anno tapes.
Variety of characters and genres - Anno style
Jean-Jacques Annaud is rightfully considered a director who does not have any particular style. Or, more accurately, his signature style is an astounding variety of styles. Either he shoots a touching melodrama, or a historical movie without dialogues, but with expressive landscapes and amazing make-up of heroes, or an erotic drama with beautiful, thoughtful and subtly conveyed love scenes. And he manages all this as if without effort: easily and with dignity.
Accessible and talented about the life of animals through their eyes
The end of the eighties was very fruitful, according to Jean-Jacques Annaud, whose filmography was replenished with the tape "Bear". To shoot a movie dedicated not to people, but to animals, hisinspired by a book called King Grizzly. In the story, a bear cub and an adult bear are trying to survive in conditions close to tragic - they are hunted by two poachers who are thirsty for their blood. Anno managed to look at the process of the attempt on life not from the usual human point of view, but through the eyes of the one who is being persecuted.
"The Bear" was released in 1988. But to this day, the film amazes the audience with drama and documentary, although Jean-Jacques Annaud himself categorically disagrees with the last characteristic of this movie. In his opinion, there was no attempt to remove the fact, only an assumption was made about how the victims might think in such a situation. True or not, there is no way to check, according to the director.
Few people have any idea what incredible effort this picture cost Anno and a huge number of other people involved in the filming, as well as animals. The main character was played by an adult trained bear named Bart. A huge beast weighing about a ton had to find understudies in scenes where speed and mobility were required. So, other adult bears of various sizes also joined the shooting. The hardest part of training Bart was teaching him an unusual skill - lameness. It took about a year and a half.
It was not easy with the baby either. Over a dozen different four-legged actors were used to film the bear scenes. Because the behavior of an animal that has not yet grown up was much more difficult to correct. When the "artists" mastered the necessary skills, theexhausting filming process. During them, I had to face boredom, impatience, and even irritation of the team. But Anno was unstoppable. And in the end, the picture was released in 1988.
Creative multitasking
The diversity of the director's creative nature was also manifested in the fact that during forced pauses in filming with bears, he did not rest and did not indulge in despondency, but plunged into the creation of a completely different film - an adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel called "The Name of the Rose". Stars such as Sean Connery and Christian Slater starred in the tape.
It would seem, how is it possible to maneuver between such different projects? Anno proved that he is capable of everything in terms of cinematography. Both pictures were successful and received high marks from both critics and ordinary viewers.
Underrated Lover
The picture "The Lover" became a breakthrough in European cinema. Despite the fact that, according to many movie connoisseurs, the film was shot with unusual talent and worthy of all kinds of laudable epithets, The Lover did not stand on a par with Anno's most successful creations.
There were many reasons for that. Firstly, the film was full of erotic scenes, not at all vulgar, but in those days still unusual for the general public. Secondly, the director again chose English as the language for filming. At home, he was not forgiven for this. And this time they did not even consider Anno as a candidate foranother "Cesar".
Creativity and new technologies. Experimenting with history
As a director who started out shooting TV commercials, Jean-Jacques Annaud is particularly passionate about new technologies. So, he became the first creator of cinema in 3D format. We are talking about a film called "Wings of Courage", which was released on the screen in the mid-90s. At the same time, one of Anno's biggest projects is the film "Seven Years in Tibet", which is based on a story about a climber who adhered to Nazi views and turned out to be an unwitting captive of Tibet for many years. He managed to get the leading roles of such stars as Brad Pitt and David Thewlis.
Also in the film you can see actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite as the wife of one of the characters. The movie turned out to be large-scale, spectacular and talented in every respect. Anno was again favored by various film awards. And did not make the fans wait long. He directed another movie starring Hollywood star Jude Law, Enemy at the Gates. Here success was not so obvious. The picture about the Second World War, about the confrontation between Soviet and German snipers, was shot spectacularly and, from an artistic point of view, correctly. However, during its creation, Anno failed to please either side or the other. No matter how hard he tried to express the neutrality of the position throughout the plot, nothing came of it.
Many viewers were dissatisfied with the created characters and the non-obviousness of the assessment of right and wrongbehavior in such a terrible time for all mankind.
Actual creativity
Jean-Jacques Annaud has long lived in Los Angeles and is part of the community of Hollywood directors of French origin. Divorced, has two children. Despite his advanced age (the director is 72 years old), he is still creatively active. In 2015, Anno's filmography was replenished with another masterpiece - the film "Wolf Totem" was released. Thanks to the joint production of France and China, the tape conveys the delightful national flavor of Mongolia in the mid-twentieth century.
Through Anno's efforts, love for nature, the natural desire of a person to live in harmony with the world around him and give him his love, is once again sung. A positive perception of life, respect for feelings, respect for all living things - this is what any plot in Anno's films is based on, regardless of where the action takes place, who is in the lead role, and even what the genre is. The skill of this director is in his originality, peaceful competition with himself, the ability to make a movie, like a child who takes his first steps, not understanding how he succeeds. This is Jean-Jacques Annaud. The director's filmography is a treasure trove of European cinema.
