Michel Pothin remembers the filming of “Merci la vie” by the late Bertrand Blier in Lapanouse-de-Cernon, the director died Tuesday at the age of 85.
“We saw him doing it, directing, he was a very square guy, very professional, it was obvious.” Alésien Michel Pothin remembers the filmmaker Bertrand Blier who died Tuesday, at the age of 85, for having taken part in the filming of “Merci la vie”, in the old Lapanouse-de-Cernon station. Michel Pothin worked for ten years on the Cévennes “Steam Train”. In the early 1990s, the train, which still runs between Anduze and Saint-Jean-du-Gard, was often used in film shoots or for advertising films.
In 1990, Bertrand Blier called on the small Gard company and Michel Pothin, with two colleagues, took the railway towards South Aveyron. “This track which passed through Le Vigan had already been disused for a long time but the branches were still there. We had requested lots of authorizations to travel with our train.”
The film follows the incredible adventures of two young girls, played by two then-beginning actresses, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Anouk Grinberg. The cast is impressive, from Jean-Louis Trintignant to Jean Carmet, including Michel Blanc, Annie Girardot and Gérard Depardieu. Michel Pothin remembers a good atmosphere and large friendly tables on the filming location in Lapanouse-de-Cernon, with Depardieu having his own chef.
-The train was attacked by planes, great cinema
A replica of the station interior had been built next door. “I remember that the security guard who monitored the filming had a 2CV and that we borrowed it with Jean Carmet to go buy a drink…” Michel Pothin was then a young man of 25 and enjoyed witnessing all the great machinery of a film shoot. “The train was supposed to be attacked by a plane, they had planted explosives on the ballast.” As part of the Larzac camp extension project, the station and the track had regained interest in the eyes of the Army which, ultimately, had to abandon it.
The site came back to life with the development of the rail bike in the 2000s. But for Michel Pothin, there remains the memory of arriving from Anduze at the controls of “his” train for the pleasure and ambition of a great director of movie theater.
