Bertrand Tavernier is known for such films as Death Watch (1980), a French science fiction film in which Romy Schneider plays a dying woman whose death is recorded on national television in an ongoing soap opera of morbid reality television.
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RIP Jessica Walter (1941 – 2021)
Jessica Walter was an American actress best known for Play Misty for Me (1971) in which she was Evelyn Draper, an obsessed female fan of a radio disc jockey played by Clint Eastwood.
RIP George Segal (1934 – 2021)
George Segal was an American actor best-known for his portrayal of Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), the man who admits he aims to charm and sleep his way to the top in this film that celebrates love gone awry.
RIP Nawal El Saadawi (1931 – 2021)
Nawal El Saadawi was an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician, and psychiatrist.
She wrote many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital mutilation in her society.
She described her mutilation in The Hidden Face of Eve (1977) in these words:
“Then suddenly the sharp metallic edge seemed to drop between my thighs and there cut off a piece of flesh from my body.”
[…]
“I did not know what they had cut off from my body, and I did not try to find out. I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them, as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few moments ago.”
RIP Paul Jackson (1947 – 2021)
Paul Jackson was an American bassist famous for his contributions to The Headhunters, Azteca and Santana.
RIP Antón García Abril (1933 – 2021)
Antón García Abril was a Spanish composer. In my universe he is known for the music he wrote for Spanish horror movies starring Paul Naschy.
On YouTube there is a scene from El hombre y la Tierra with music by Abril.
Antón García Abril’s death made me discover Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic (1985) by Randall D. Larson.
RIP Norman J. Warren (1942 – 2021)
Norman J. Warren was an English film director known for such films as Satan’s Slave (1976), Prey (1977) and Terror (1978).
He is also credited with one of the first narrative sex films, Her Private Hell.
He is interviewed in the Doing Rude Things 1995 documentary from 28:45 onwards.
RIP Barbara Ess (1948 – 2021)
Barbara Ess was an American photographer and musician.
She is probably best known for her work with Y Pants.
RIP Bunny Wailer (1947 – 2021)
Bunny Wailer was a Jamaican singer-songwriter best-known for being part of Bob Marley and the Wailers.
I shall remember him for being backed by the Roots Radics.
RIP Chris Barber (1930 – 2021)
Chris Barber was an English jazz bandleader and trombonist best-known for his cover of “Petite Fleur”, a 1952 instrumental by Sidney Bechet.
That song, especially the version of Barber, reminds me of the music of Jacques Tati in his Oncle films. I mean songs such as “Quel temps fait-il à Paris” by Alain Romans and Henri Contet.