Jean-Marc Barr

Jean-Marc Barr at the Berlinale 2018

Jean-Marc Barr (born September 27, 1960 in Bitburg , Germany ) is a French- American actor , director , producer and screenwriter . He became known to a worldwide audience in 1989 for his leading role in Luc Besson's underwater epic Im Rausch der Tief .

biography

Childhood and studies

Jean-Marc Barr was born in Bitburg , Rhineland-Palatinate , in 1960 . He spent his childhood in Germany until the age of eight , then his family moved to Montreuil, France, in 1968 . Jean-Marc Barr's family life was shaped by the constant absence of his American father, who served in the US Air Force in two wars and later became Chief Security Officer of Air Force One under US President Richard Nixon .

His mother is of French descent and twenty years younger than her husband. When Barr's father returned from the Vietnam War, the family moved to San Diego, California in 1974 . Barr began his apprenticeship training at the age of 17, but finished it after only four months. At his father's request, Barr would pursue a career with the US Air Force. But he wasn't drawn to the military. Instead, he enrolled at a Northern California university and studied philosophy .

Work as an actor

In 1980 Jean-Marc Barr went to Paris , where he continued his studies at the Sorbonne . Two years later he moved to London to gain first experience as an actor. He joined a theater company and appeared in English-language Shakespeare productions before receiving final acting polish at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1986 Barr left England and moved back to France .

Jean-Marc Barr made his film debut in 1984 in Brian Gilbert's romantic film The Prince Charming . A year later he appeared in Bruce Beresford's failed film King David (1984) . In the British-American adventure film in which Richard Gere played the title role of the Israeli King David , Barr took on the role of David's son, Absalom , who tried to overthrow his father.

Barr then celebrated his first stage engagement at the Parisian Theater Gerard Philippe in Saint-Denis with Friedrich Schiller's drama The Fiesko's Conspiracy in Genoa , and he was also seen in various television films. In 1987 he got a bigger part in John Boorman's tragic comedy Hope and Glory . In the semi-autobiographical work set in London at the time of the Second World War , he was seen in the role of Lieutenant Bruce Carrey .

High point of his career

In 1988 he worked with the director Luc Besson and with it his first leading role. In Besson's fairytale-like drama In Rush of the Deep , he embodied the taciturn loner Jacques Mayol , who is based on the French record diver of the same name. Barr fought a gripping duel for the freediving world record with Jean Reno , who played Jacques' Italian rival Enzo . Half human, half dolphin , Jacques was torn between his earthly love for Johana (played by Rosanna Arquette ) and the reputation of his maritime paradise. The conflict culminated in an unforgettable dark and fairytale ending. “We shot nine months and I almost drowned twice. This film changed my life, ” said Barr, who became a star and idol for many teenagers overnight in France as a result of Luc Besson's drama . A year later, alongside such established mimes as Jean-Paul Belmondo , Gérard Depardieu or Daniel Auteuil , he was nominated for Best Actor for the César , the French equivalent of the Oscar, for his acting performance .

Although critics predicted an international career in the film business for the charismatic actor, Jean-Marc Barr was unable to build on the success of Luc Besson's underwater epic despite numerous efforts. In the following years he was identified in France only with the role of clumsy Jacques and therefore stayed away from film for several years. In the meantime he played theater in London, a. a. Sir Peter Hall staged a Tennessee Williams production with him at Vanessa Redgrave's side .

Cooperation with Lars von Trier

Jean-Marc Barr only took up his film career again in 1991 when he took the lead role in Lars von Trier's thriller Europe . Barr played Leonard Kessler , a young American pacifist of German descent who traveled to Germany in 1945 to help rebuild the country in the dark work, which is partly based on film noir . He gets a job as a sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa railway line. Here Barr's film character soon gets to know the sluggish but subversive world of Katharina Hartmann (played by Barbara Sukowa ), the daughter of the railway magnate, for whom Kessler works. The film, shot alternately in black and white and in color, established a new phase in Jean-Marc Barr's acting career, and an intensive collaboration with Lars von Trier emerged. The Danish director engaged the actor in various supporting roles in his films. In 1996 Barr acted in von Triers Breaking the Waves on the side of Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgård as a technician on an oil rig . In 2000 he played alongside Björk and Catherine Deneuve in Dancer in the Dark , three years later he was one of the gangsters in Dogville in the ranks of James Caan , who forcibly freed Nicole Kidman from captivity in a US mountain village. In between he was seen in the Albert Camus adaptation The Plague (1992), Nicole Garcia's family drama The Favorite Son (1994), and in Harry Hook's historical adventure film St. Ives - Alles aus Liebe (1998). In 2005 Barr shone in the French comedy Seafood in the supporting role of the gay plumber Didier and worked in Manderlay and The Boss of It All for the fifth and sixth time with director Lars von Trier. In 2007 followed the title role in the series pilot film Martin Paris - Magier des Verbrechens , in which he tries as an extroverted illusionist to track down the kidnapped daughter of an arms dealer.

Career as a director

In 1999, on the advice of Lars von Trier, Jean-Marc Barr decided to switch to directing himself. With Lovers he followed the rules of Dogma 95 laid down by the Danish director , with which a new realism should be achieved in film. Lovers , which Barr produced together with his French compatriot Pascal Arnold , for whom he directed, wrote the script and also acted as cameraman, tells the simple love story between the Yugoslav painter Dragan, who is illegally in France, and the Parisian bookseller Jeanne . Barr hired Sergej Trifunovic and Élodie Bouchez , with whom he appeared in front of the camera in the 1998 French tragicomedy J'aimerais pas crever un dimanche , for the leading roles .

Jean-Marc Barr (2002)

Although Barr used video material contrary to dogma rules and underlay the images with music, his directorial debut was the first Dogma film by a non- Scandinavian and he was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cottbus Film Festival for young Eastern European cinema . The planned trilogy about love and freedom, which Barr and Arnold started with Lovers , they close in 2001 with Too Much Flesh and Being light . In the two films, which were shot far from the dogma rules, Barr trusted both times in Lovers leading actress Élodie Bouchez and played the male lead herself. In 2004 Jean-Marc Barr again shot the drama Without Love with Pascal Arnold's participation . a. Geraldine Chaplin and Kathleen Turner star. Barr was also involved in this project as an actor.

Jean-Marc Barr, who was voted number 82 of the 100 most erotic stars in film history by the British film magazine Empire Magazine in 1995 , has been married to the Yugoslav pianist Irina Decermic since 1993 , who has set all of his directorial work to music.

Filmography

Actor (selection)

1984: The Prince Charming (The Frog Prince)
1985: King David (King David)
1987: Hope and Glory
1988: In the intoxication of the deep (Le grand bleu)
1990: Hellfire (Le brasier)
1991: Europe
1992: The plague (La peste)
1994: Les faussaires
1994: The Favorite Son (Le fils préferé)
1994: Iron Horsemen
1995: For honor and fatherland (Marciando nel buio)
1996: L'echappée belle
1996: Breaking the Waves
1996: Mo '
1998: The Scarlet Tunic
1998: Préférence
1998: Crazy About Her (Folle d'elle)
1998: Ça ne se refuse pas
1998: J'aimerais pas crever un dimanche
1998: St. Ives - Alles aus Liebe (St. Ives)
2000: Dancer in the Dark
2000: Too Much Flesh
2001: Being Light
2002: Les fils de Marie
2002: Red Siren (La Sirène rouge)
2003: Saltimbank
2003: Dogville
2003: An affair in Paris (Le divorce)
2003: Les clefs de bagnole
2004: Without Love
2004: CQ2 (Seek You Too)
2005: Seafood (Crustacés et coquillages)
2005: Manderlay
2005: A House in Ireland (Tara Road)
2006: Each one his night - Chacun sa nuit (Chacun sa nuit)
2006: The Boss of It All (Direktøren for det hele)
2007: Martin Paris - Magician of Crime ( Martin Paris , TV film)
2011: Deux flics sur les docks (TV series)
2013: Nymphomaniac
2014: Le Dernier Mirage
2015: WAX: We are the X
2016: Whoever was using this bed
2017: UK 18
2017: Bugday
2018: Bad Banks (TV series, six episodes)
2018: a miracle
2018: The Call (short film)
2018: The Cellar
2018: Travel Well, Kamikaze
2018: Born Again Dead

Director

1999: Lovers
2000: Too Much Flesh
2001: Being Light
2004: Without Love
2006: Each one his night (Chacun sa nuit)
2011: American Translation
2012: France private - The sexual secrets of a family ( Chroniques sexuelles d'une famille d'aujourd'hui )