Jean-Claude Missiaen

Jean-Claude Missiaen has had a varied career. In the mid-1960s, he wrote biographies of Hollywood directors Anthony Mann and Howard Hawks and has since published studies of French actor Jean Gabin and dancer Cyd Charisse, as well as an historical novel. During the 1970s, Missiaen worked as a publicist, promoting pictures like Jean Yanne's economics satire, "Me, I Want to Have Dough," and Joseph Losey's study of political disillusion, "Roads to the South." He also served as press secretary to Burt Lancaster. But, in 1982, Missiaen turned writer/director and made the cult crime flick "Tir groupé," which stars Gérard Lanvin as a vigilante hunting down the trio who raped and murdered his fiancée. Missiaen was lauded for the realistic use of his Parisian locations and was nominated for a Best Newcomer César. However, his knowledge of cinema came to the fore in "Ronde de nuit," a buddy movie that trades in classic Hollywood noir and police procedural tropes while following cops Gérard Lanvin and Eddy Mitchell on the trail of some real estate scammers and a femme fatale. Unfortunately, Missiaen allowed hommage to lapse into cliché in "Le Baston," which saw crook Robin Renucci attempt one last job to pay his son's medical bills, and he didn't direct again until 1991, when he made the cult mini-series "Les Hordes," about a cop infiltrating a futuristic paramilitary group. Subsequently, his sole credit is the Mark Hamill tele-thriller "Picture Perfect."