French director Alain Corneau dies

Reuters

CAUGHT ON FILM: Alain Corneau has died at the age of 67.

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Alain Corneau, the French filmmaker who leapt to international notice with the 1991 hit Tous les Matins du Monde, has died. He was 67.

Artmedia agency confirmed that Corneau, who was suffering from cancer, died overnight.

Throughout a career lasting more than 35 years, Corneau directed many legends of French cinema, including Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu.

Depardieu starred alongside his son Guillaume in Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World).

The film, which depicted the uneasy relationship between a young and elderly musician in 17th-century France, won considerable critical acclaim at home and abroad.

It garnered seven Cesar awards, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film.

The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Corneau as a "courageous man" and a "great director".

Through his films, "Corneau pursued an unceasing investigation into what makes humans human," Sarkozy's office said in a statement.

Born on August 7, 1943, Corneau dabbled in music before making his start in cinema as an assistant for Greek-born filmmaker Costa-Gavras.

Early on in his career, he made a series of thrillers, including Choice of Arms, a 1981 gangster flick starring Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu and Yves Montand.

An avid follower of literature, Corneau adapted seven of his 16 films from novels. In 2003 he adapted Amelie Nothomb's Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling), which starred actress Sylvie Testud as a foreigner struggling with strict workplace codes in Japan. She won the Cesar award for best actress.

Corneau's latest movie, Love Crime, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, opened in France in mid-August.

- AP