The Watchmaker of St Paul

Cinémoi’s esteemed ambassador Bertrand Tavernier stockpiles an all-star line up for his debut feature and takes his first, of many, collaborative steps with leading-man Philip Noiret: the Bob De Niro to his Marty Scorsese.

Michel (Noiret) lives a tranquil existence, supporting himself and his teenage son, Bernard, through his making and repairing of the town’s clocks and watches. When Inspector Guilbond (Jean Rochefort), knocks on his door and informs him that his car has been found abandoned by Bernard, who, after murdering a security guard has gone on the lamb with a young woman, it changes everything.

Tavernier, cultivates a simple Hitchcockian incident, nurturing and feeding it with the conflict and inner-turmoil of his perturbed characters, until fully metastasised into every aspect of Michel’s life.
Beyond the narrative drive, the director flexes his seamless capacity to interweave and develop character and political comment, providing a searing study into father-son relationships as well as a damning attack on media hysteria and the economic woes dogging the nation.

His promotion of Noiret from his previous, supporting roles, confirmed Tavernier not only had the foresight to rely upon untested shoulders for his Watchmaker, but that he also had deft instincts to pair him with Jean Rochefort, who, rumour has it, was only given an hour with the script by Tavernier to decide if he wanted the role François Perrier initially turned down.
However, it came about, the unison of these two great screen actors with a similarly masterful director, is an event to behold and thankfully for us, resulted in a long and fructuous working relationship between the three.

Cinematic history in the making, The Watchmaker of St Paul exhibits the quality, care and precision that so many films fail to deliver.