Tavernier quit law school to write film criticism for Cahiers du Cinéma and other major journals, worked as an assistant director and publicist (e.g., for Jean-Pierre Melville) and authored a couple of books on American cinema before making his first feature, The Clockmaker / L'Horloger de St. Paul (1973). Adapted from a Georges Simenon novel (and transposed from the US to Tavernier's hometown), it is an intelligent, studied debut with finely tuned performances, which won a Special Jury Prize at the 1974 Berlin Film Festival, the Prix Louis Delluc in France, and established Tavernier's reputation. His subsequent works have been equally well-crafted, displaying an affecting confluence of French and American cinematic styles. Tavernier's other noted films include Coup de Torchon (1981), a bold adaptation of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280, set not in the US South, but in French North Africa, and Round Midnight (1986), a smooth, pseudo-biopic of an American jazz musician in 1950s Paris.