Jean Rabier

Cinematographer
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Jean Rabier

Cinematographer

March 16, 1927

Paris, France

February 15, 2016

Jean Rabier was a French cinematographer best known for his work on more than three dozen films with famed French New Wave director Claude Chabrol.

Their films together spanned three decades of work and included The Unfaithful Wife, Le Boucher, Ophelia, Les Biches, This Man Must Die, The Breach, Ten Days’ Wonder, Just Before Nightfall, Dirty Hands, Story of Women, Dr. M and Rabier’s final film, Madame Bovary.

Rabier also notably worked as a cinematographer on Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7.

Additionally, Rabier contributed to French television, and two of the telefilms he worked on also aired in the U.S.: the 1971 TV movie The Last of the Powerseekers and 1990's Night of the Fox, starring George Peppard, Michael York and Deborah Raffin. The latter movie followed the story of an American officer on a landing craft prior to the invasion of Normandy.

Born in Paris, Rabier got his start on documentary shorts in 1949. He later worked as a cameraman on Chabrol’s 1959 film Les Cousins, and in the same year, worked as a cameraman on Francois Truffaut’s seminal The 400 Blows.

Rabier died February 15, 2016, in Port-de-Bouc, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was 89.

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