Jean-Jacques Beineix (born 8 October 1946) is a French
film director and generally seen as the best example of what came to be called the
cinéma du look. Critic
Ginette Vincendeau defined the films made by Beineix and others as "youth-oriented films with high production values...The
look of the
cinéma du look refers to the films' high investment in non-naturalistic, self-conscious aesthetics, notably intense colours and lighting effects. Their spectacular (studio based) and technically brilliant
mise-en-scène is usually put to the service of romantic plots." The
cinéma du look included the films of
Luc Besson and
Léos Carax. Luc Besson, like Beineix, was much maligned by the critical establishment during the 1980s, while Carax was much admired. In late 2006, Beineix published a first volume of his autobiography,
Les Chantiers de la gloire (in French only). The title alluded to the French title of
Stanley Kubrick's film, Les Sentiers de la gloire (
Paths of Glory).