Quebec's Jean-Marc Vallée, director of Big Little Lies, Dallas Buyers Club, dead at 58
CBC
Quebec filmmaker and producer Jean-Marc Vallée, who won an Emmy for directing the hit HBO series Big Little Lies and whose 2013 drama Dallas Buyers Club earned multiple Oscar nominations, has died. He was 58.
His representative Bumble Ward said Sunday that Vallée died suddenly in his cabin outside Quebec City over the weekend.
Vallée's longtime producing partner, Nathan Ross, mourned him in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
"Jean-Marc stood for creativity, authenticity and trying things differently. He was a true artist and a generous, loving guy," Ross said.
"Everyone who worked with him couldn't help but see the talent and vision he possessed. He was a friend, creative partner and an older brother to me. The maestro will sorely be missed but it comforts knowing his beautiful style and impactful work he shared with the world will live on."
Vallée was acclaimed for his naturalistic approach to filmmaking, directing stars including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal over the past decade.
He directed Emily Blunt in 2009's The Young Victoria and became a sought-after name in Hollywood after Dallas Buyers Club, featuring Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, earned six Academy Awards nominations, including best picture.
He often shot with natural light and hand-held cameras and gave actors freedom to improvise the script and move around within a scene's location. The crew roamed up and down the Pacific Crest Trail to shoot Witherspoon in 2014's Wild.
"They can move anywhere they want," the filmmaker said of his actors in a 2014 interview with The Associated Press. "It's giving the importance to storytelling, emotion, characters. I try not to interfere too much. I don't need to cut performances. Often, the cinematographer and I were like, 'This location sucks. It's not very nice. But, hey, that's life."'
He re-teamed with Witherspoon to direct the first season of Big Little Lies in 2017, and directed Adams in 2018's Sharp Objects, also for HBO. Vallée won DGA awards for both.
Montreal-born Vallée graduated from the University of Quebec in Montreal, where he studied filmmaking. His first short films were released in the 1990s, with one of them, Les fleurs magiques, winning the 1996 Genie award for best short film.
The director's French Canadian films helped him catch Hollywood's attention. They include C.R.A.Z.Y., which was released in 2005, and the romantic drama Café de Flore, which garnered 13 Genie nominations in 2012 and won three.
In an interview in 2018, the filmmaker said his roots gave him a unique perspective on the industry.
"Being a foreigner in the States, I have to do more homework to try to really get into the culture, understand the culture, and understand the world of the characters that I am trying to depict. And so I become a student," he said.
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