Jean-Louis Trintignant

AMORTE

Dependable cinéma français star and less dependable DDP bedblocker Jean-Louis Trintignant has made his exit aged 91. Born into a well-off family, Trintignant considered racecar driving and law as career paths before being enamoured by the stage. His role as Brigitte Bardot’s squeeze, both on screen and off, in And God Created Woman garnered him widespread attention, though conscription briefly halted his momentum.

From there, Trintignant established himself as one of France’s best-regarded actors in films made all across Europe with a knack for subtly playing flawed everymen. He portrayed a judge inspired by fellow DDP22 graduate Christos Sartzetakis in Cannes-winning Greek political thriller Z. Typically eschewing romantic roles, a rare instance of such was in A Man and a Woman, where his passion for motorsport lent credibility to the racecar driver male lead. One of his personal favourite roles was in The Conformist, where he portrayed a closeted gay bureaucrat in 1930s Italy who bottles up his childhood trauma and is lured to fascism in pursuit of seeming “normal”. Though largely relegated to supporting roles in subsequent decades, a rare exception came in the finale to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy, where he co-starred as a nosy judge in 1994’s Red.

Horrific tragedy struck Trintignant in 2003, when his actress daughter Marie was brutally murdered by musician Bertrand Cantat – who inexplicably only spent three years in prison for the crime. Trintignant fell into a deep depression and took months to resume his career. Years later, he landed his last major role (and his other personal favourite) in Amour, opposite Emmanuelle Riva. His portrayal of an elderly music teacher emotionally anguished by his stroke-incapacitated wife’s declining health was critically acclaimed and notched him a César.

Trintignant announced in 2018 he was refusing treatment for prostate cancer, piquing the interest of dozens of DDPers to the point of a Drop 40 debut and an appearance on the winning team in 2019. Just as Trintignant gradually exposed the flaws of his characters during his films, deadpoolers learned the slow and hard way that even without treatment, prostate cancer can take a looong time. He deflated in enthusiasm over time and became a rare instance last year of a living name falling off the Drop 40. A new wave of JLT-mania swept the DDP by storm and he returned to the big four-oh this year, where he’s now died. Midtable luminaries with Trintignant include Drunkasaskunk and Octopus of Odstock (who picked his uncle, racecar driver Maurice, way back in 2004). High flyers who picked him include Carkers Convention, Banana’s Peel Slippers, and DDP Tofoa, the last of whom shrinks David Quantick’s Showbiz Pals’s margin to 5 points. The DDP is never over in June nowadays…

Jean-Louis Trintignant
11 December 1930 – 17 June 2022, aged 91
44 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 8 POINTS, 🃏 (x1) 16 POINTS)