The biggest success in France: “Les fous du stadium”
1972. Pompidou is still president. That year, Claude Zidi came out The madmen of the stadiumthought, designed, performed by the Charlots (Gérard Rinaldi, Gérard Filippelli, Jean Sarrus, Jean-Guy Fechner). A “gagesque” comedy that is a bit dated today, including long sequences of the Charlots version of the Olympic Games taking place at the Avignon Sports Park. The film will attract 5.7 million French spectators in theaters. In India, 50 million curious people flock to discover these funny “Frenchies”.
The most successful in the world: “Mister Bean’s Vacation”
A 2007 black Mr. Bean’s Vacation directed by Steve Bendelack. In this burlesque comedy, Rowan Atkinson dons his costume as the most romantic clumsy man from across the Channel for a second feature film. Several scenes were filmed in Avignon, in the hall of the TGV station, in Courtine, which was built six years previously. We also see Mr. Atkinson walking alone on the screen, on the long straight line that leads to the station. If the film only records one million admissions in France, a rather disappointing score for such a production, on the other hand, the worldwide turnover will amount to 232 million dollars.
The most cult: “Pierrot le fou”
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, walking in the water, in 1965, on the banks of the Durance. This shot filmed by Jean-Luc Godard almost 60 years ago at the Bonpas bridge, therefore appears in Pierrot the Foolundoubtedly the most emblematic film of the director of “The New Wave”, after Out of breath. A fiction populated with formidable “punchlines”, including this one: “there was the Athenian civilization, there was the Renaissance, and now we are entering the civilization of the ass.”
The funniest: “The student”
In 1988, Claude Pinoteau released the very perishable The studentwhich no one considers to be The Boom 3. In a shot of a few seconds, the director directs Vincent Lindon, alias Edouard, enamored with everything, who calls Sophie Marceau (Valentine) from a telephone booth, installed for filming in front of the Popes’ Palace, postcard obliges .
The most progressive (if you’re on the left) or the most woke (if you’re on the right)
Before winning the César for best screenplay in 1996, Josiane Balasko directed two great actors, Alain Chabat and Victoria Abril in Cursed Lawn (4 million entries). A film which talks about homosexuality, since Loli (Abril), married to Laurent (Chabat), falls in love with Marie-Jo (Balasko). Several scenes will be filmed in Avignon, rue Prevot and rue du Clos Saint-Didier.
The most kitsch: “The Sword of the Valiant”
In 1983, Sean Connery starred in an improbable film, “The Sword of the Valiant“, whose producers decide to set their cameras for a week at the Palais des Papes. A medieval film full of very special special effects, and very Sunday DIY. Produced by the mogul Mehanem Golan and directed by Stephen Weeks, it tells the challenge launched, in Camelot, by the Green Knight (dressed as a spring shrub!) to other brave comrades Sean Connery, star of the film, appears in few scenes in the final cut because he was filming James Bond at the same time. Never ever again… On the web, the site www.nanarland.com defines this film as “having brought joy to lovers of Nanarde heroic-fantasy (…), accompanied by a relentless Bontempi organ.”
Most intensely “Festival d’Avignon”: “The noise with people around”
In 2008, Diastème directed this choral film whose action takes place exclusively during the Avignon Festival, with a golden cast, including Emma De Caumes, Léa Drucker and Olivier Marchal. The feature film will go completely unnoticed and for the record, at the preview screening intended for the regional press, only one media outlet will be present at Utopia! (we don’t dare say which one, otherwise it would seem like a self-highlighting…) In Noise with people aroundOlivier Py, who is not yet director of the Avignon Festival, plays a choreographer at the Célestins cloister. Filming will take place on the Saint-Benezet bridge but also on Place des Corps-saints, on the terrace of the “Ginette et Marcel” restaurant.
The most star-addicted films
Several striking examples: in total discretion, Emmanuelle Béart was conducted by Catherine Corsini at the Grand Avignon opera in The repetition (2001), while Juliette Binoche played in front of Amos Gitaï’s camera in Disengagement (2007), inside a bourgeois apartment, rue Petite Fusterie. And therefore out of sight.
In the main courtyard of the Popes’ Palace, Louis Garrel filmed for one night under the aegis of Michel Hazanavicius in The Redoubtable (2017). Garrel camped Godard there presenting his film “La Chinoise”, in world premiere, in these same places, in the summer of 1967.
The most surprising obviously being Kad Merad, who, in July 2023, played in Eventually a stage in the heart of a crowded Rue de la République, in the middle of the Avignon Festival. And this while distributing flowers to passers-by, stunned to say the least, who had not realized that Claude Lelouch was filming these natural sequences, stationed a few dozen meters away.
The film most followed by fans on set: “A balcony on the sea”
May 2009. Jean Dujardin has not yet won his Oscar for best actor for The Artist but he is already a very popular star, would only be because of the success of Brice de Nice and the two opuses ofOSSwho established him at the top of French cinema. It is with this premise that he comes to Avignon to shoot “A balcony on the sea”, the new film by Nicole Garcia, who offers him a totally dramatic role. Several sensitive scenes are staged at the Hôtel de la Mirande, with Marie-Josée Croze and Michel Aumont, in particular. In front of the palace, many teenage girls and young women wait a long time for Dujardin for an autograph. During his cigarette break, the actor will play the game, relaxed and available.
The most cliché film: “A Great Year”
Yes, you can be one of the greatest in your profession (Blade runner, Alien, Thelma and Louise) but totally miss out on a sluggish romantic comedy petrified by two stupid clichés a minute. A great yearreleased in 2006, is a film by the immense Ridley Scott, with a glamorous cast: Russell Crowe-Marion Cotillard. On paper, it’s certainly very high. Filmed in particular at the Jean Vilar house and at the central station (without the stars of its cast), this film defends, with heavy clogs, “the nobility of local money against the vulgarity of that of the financial markets”. Is the failure due to the fact that the screenplay is by Peter Mayle (A year in Provence)? Still, the newspaper “Libération”, fond of stylishly customized descents into hell, wrote: “dismaying from start to finish, A “Great Year” is crumbling under clichés (…) we must also mention the pitiful interpretation of Russell Crowe”.
The most flamboyant: “The hussar on the roof”
Released in 1995, The hussar on the roof is the brilliant adaptation of the eponymous novel by Jean Giono by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, who had already, five years earlier, brought Edmond Rostand to the firmament with his Cyrano. Rue des Teinturiers, the cobblestones, the facades of the houses and the general atmosphere were transformed to transform it into the artery of Aix-en-Provence in the 19th century. For several nights, the carts and the visible hay play the leading roles, alongside the water wheels. Rappeneau directs Juliette Binoche and Olivier Martinez in this film, from a script by Jean-Claude Carrière. The feature film won two Césars, including best cinematography (Thierry Arbogast). With 2.5 million spectators in French cinemas, it is, to date, Mademoiselle Binoche’s biggest French success.
The most explosive: “The Immortal”
In 2009, Richard Berry directed the thriller The immortalbased on a book by Franz-Olivier Giesbert about the Marseille underworld. It features Joey Starr in the former Sainte-Anne prison in Avignon but also Marina Foïs on rue de la République. Filming also takes place near the Mistral high school. Richard Berry would have liked the gates of the ramparts of the city of the Popes to be closed, in broad daylight, to facilitate filming, which will not be granted to him by the municipality, rightly so. Several shooting scenes are filmed intramural, again in broad daylight. At the time, some residents were convinced that it was a matter of score-settling between thugs…
Most disappointing: “18 years later”
“Three Men and a Bassinet”released in 1985, remains, four decades later, one of the most resounding successes of French cinema, with 50 million admissions worldwide, 33 in the former Soviet Union. So, when Coline Serreau launched the production of “18 Years Later”with Roland Giraud, Michel Boujenah, André Dussollier, and Line Renaud, the wait is enormous. The result will be “Pschiit” and nothing works in this story, unlike the first opus. At the time, Coline Serreau filmed several shots of “18 years later” in the courtyard of the Calvet museum and at the central station. For our colleagues from “Télérama”, this is a question of “lazy adventures (…) The director jokes without flame or intelligence.“Ouch.
The most theatrical: “The Imaginary Molière”
For his first feature film, released in theaters in winter 2024, Olivier Py tackled the last moments of Molière. His idea: to make his film in sequence shots, inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Rope (1948). At FabricA, the Avignon Festival rehearsal room that he knows by heart, Olivier Py follows a very convincing Laurent Laffitte behind the camera. Which star actor will also be spotted several times having lunch, alone, facing the wall (so as not to be recognized?) at the Grand café Barretta, in downtown Avignon. Intimate, the feature film does not attract crowds, far from it. It is even one of the biggest flops of all the films shot in Avignon: less than 80,000 admissions at the end of national exhibition.
The most romantic: “The things we say, the things we do”
In a subtle marivaudage of which he has the secret, Emmanuel Mouret is released in 2020 The things we say, the things we do filmed partly in Vaucluse. For one day, the Marseille director took the Avignon central station as his setting, where he filmed Niels Schneider and especially Camélia Jordana. The singer-actress (“Caesarized” for The brilliance), who has rarely been so majestic in the image, plays in this film the character of Daphné, who is pregnant. Thus, on platform number 1, she displays the false belly of a woman who is expecting a child. During filming, the Avignon station was not closed and passengers paraded past, wondering what was causing this unusual commotion on the platform. Even several years after the scene, we are not ready to forget this line from a young man getting off a train and commenting on his impromptu meeting with Camélia Jordana: “Have you seen the girl from ‘New Star’? She’s seriously pregnant!”. It is not so common to witness, live, the birth of a fake news.
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