“Les Bronzés”, a social phenomenon – rts.ch

After the New Wave, we took ourselves less seriously, and we happily mocked the France of Pompidou and Giscard. Filming becomes amazing experiences. We make cinema with small means and we dare everything with a rebellious and transgressive spirit.

It is in this context that the Splendid troupe arrived by chance in the world of cinema. Its four founding members, Gérard Jugnot, Christian Clavier, Michel Blanc and Thierry Lhermitte, met at the Pasteur high school in Neuilly. They are all the same age and like the same things, mainly theater. Apart from Gérard Jugnot who loves cinema, and dreams of becoming a director.

All four decide to embark on a theatrical career. Jugnot then calls on his friends to put on a piece by Michel Blanc: “The concierge fell down the stairs”. Subsequently, they founded their own establishment on rue des Lombards. The core team is then strengthened with the arrival of Marie-Anne Chazel, Valérie Mairesse, Josiane Balasko, Dominique Lavannant and Bruno Moynot.

The Splendid now produces its own plays. The first, “Le pot de terre contre le pot de vin”, met with relative success, but was followed by two triumphs: “Amour, coquillages et crustaceans”, in 1977, the future “Bronzés”, and “Le Père Noël est a piece of trash”, in 1979. This new humor, more biting, more intelligent and in excess, strips and initiates the comedies of the 1980s.

Their schoolboy humor, their sociological analysis of contemporary society and the behavior of average French people and their taste for caricature are immediately pleasing. Coming from the café-theater, they team up with a young director named Patrice Leconte and a hollow-nosed producer, Yves Rousset-Rouard.

Together, they created a cult film which would become a real social phenomenon: “Les Bronzés”.