JEAN-MARC VALLÉE

(9 March 1963 - 25 December 2021)

The Canadian director and producer Jean-Marc Vallée, who has died from a suspected heart attack at the age of 58, studied film at the University of Quebec in Montreal. In his time, he was an actor and editor as well as a producer and director, working in both films and television. From 1985 he made music videos for Wild Touch, Park Avenue, New News and Glockenspiel, as well as other short films. In 1996 he directed an episode of the TV series Strangers. Los Locos was his first feature in 1996, a Western with Mario Van Peebles and René Auberjonois. Loser Love was a thriller about a woman's revenge on her abusive partner and, after episodes of a TV series about Jules Verne, he made C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005), an award-winning film about a gay son fighting against his homophobic father.

Vallée often filmed subjects with dysfunctional protagonists, so it was a complete change of subject matter for The Young Victoria with Emily Blunt as the Queen. It won both an Academy Award and a Bafta for Sandy Powell's costume designs. Cafe de Flore was about the relationships between a young mother and her disabled son, who are abandoned by the boy's father. It starred Vanessa Paradis and Kevin Parent. Then came the really big attraction with Dallas Buyers Club (2013), an uncompromising real-life Aids story in which Matthew McConaughey played a man with the disease who helps others by illegally acquiring the necessary drugs. Vallée was nominated for an Academy Award and the film won three Oscars including one for McConaughey's performance and for Jared Leto as his transgender friend Rayon.

Wild (2014) featured Reese Witherspoon as a woman on a 1100-mile walk as she tries to recover from a personal tragedy. Witherspoon and Laura Dern were both nominated for Oscars. After Demolition (2015) with Jake Gyllenhaal as a man trying to rebuild his life after his wife is killed in a car crash, Vallée turned to television for Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, two series that were heavily nominated for Emmy Awards.

After producing the documentary Big Giant Wave in 2020, Vallée, at the time of his death, was working on a TV mini-series of Zack McDermott's book Gorilla and the Bird. Jean-Marc Vallée was married to the writer Chantal Cadieux. They have two sons, Emile and Alex, but were divorced in 2006.

MICHAEL DARVELL