Before its release, “Terminator” had won the Grand Prix at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, to the dismay of Michel Blanc, who was present at the event to discover James Cameron’s feature film.
At the beginning of 1985, Robert De Niro was the president of the Avoriaz International Fantastic Film Festival, with Nicole Garcia, Guy Béart, Claude Pinoteau, Masaki Kobayashi, Christopher Walken and Claude Zidi among others on his jury. Together, they decide to reward the film of a beginner director… a certain James Cameron.
He has just signed his second feature film after Piranha 2 – The Flying Killers: Terminator, with Arnold Schwarzenegger traveling back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor, who will give birth to the leader of the future rebellion against the order of robots led by Skynet.
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Michel Blanc
When the verdict is announced (visible in this video and from the documentary “Blood on the Snow” dedicated to the Avoriaz Festival)we hear both applause and boos, and present at the screening of the film, a French actor is very severe about it, a certain Michel Blanc, who had just gone behind the camera a year before for the comedy Marche à l’ombre:
Last night here I saw a movie called The Terminator which is crushingly stupid, filmed like Starsky and Hutch. So if that’s it, it’s a little disappointing. Since he also has a chance of winning the prize, I want to say that I consider it crap.
A clear opinion, accompanied by that of Claude Brasseur, hero of several violent French thrillers from the 70s and 80s, who attacks Arnold Schwarzenegger:
MGM
Arnold Schwarzenegger est le Terminator
“I see that today, the strong man is represented by some filmmakers by a man who has been 4 or 5 Mr. Universe with big muscles… Well. That’s not exactly how I imagine the strong man, so I tend to laugh rather than believe it.”
In the end, Terminator won the Grand Prix at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, and it was released on April 24, 1985 on French screens, totaling three million admissions. In the United States, nearly 40 million were raised for the film, which cost less than 7. A success which will obviously lead to the sequels – more or less recommendable – that we now know. As for James Cameron, his “Starsky and Hutch” will open the doors of cinema wide for him, just like for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
MGM
“Sarah Connor ?”
But let’s not throw stones at Michel Blanc: everyone has at one time or another hated a film when it came out, considered or become over time a true classic. It is also this kind of shocking remarks that fuel the heated debates of film buffs around the world, and are also part of the beauty and life of the 7th Art.
