A French Master Director, Getting His Due at the Quad Cinema

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Though now into his fifth decade of filmmaking, Bertrand Tavernier has not attained the recognition in America that other great French directors enjoy. Even so, he has always examined French society, culture and morality with an elegant, inquisitive eye.

In tandem with the release of “My Journey Through French Cinema,” Mr. Tavernier’s tour of films and the makers who have influenced him, the Quad Cinema is hosting a 10-day survey of 17 Tavernier films that ends Thursday, June 29. The lineup’s second half includes his first film, “The Watchmaker,” and the antiwar drama “Life and Nothing But.” On Thursday is “’Round Midnight,” his atmospheric depiction of an American jazzman in Paris — said to have been inspired by the experiences of the bebop pianist Bud Powell — that earned the saxophonist Dexter Gordon an Oscar nomination. The cinema also programmed four of Mr. Tavernier’s French favorites; he will introduce the last of these, Marcel Carné’s “Hôtel du Nord,” on Sunday. (quadcinema.com)

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