From the film “Marche à l’ombre”, we retained its original soundtrack by Renaud and cult lines (“Your friend is more waterproof!” or “We have 5 bucks to pay for food and the hotel, we’re bad“…). But we may have forgotten that its first scene takes place on the quays of the Marseille city.
Pier 70 of the Autonomous Port, a small car ferry is moored. In the middle of the trucks, two pedestrians disembark, Gérard Lanvin and Michel Blanc, alias François and Denis. The first, tattooed right bicep, carries a guitar. The second is wearing a spongebob and a backpack. The duo has just left the sun of Greece where they were begging, for that of the Phocaean city. Direction Paris where François thinks he has a future as a musician…
Michel Blanc returns to his role as a hotshot loser that he created for himself in Les Bronzés, anxious and hypochondriac (“I’ve known you for seven years, you died for seven years, so you forget me!” says Gérard Lanvin), a role that will stick with him for many years. Other scenes were also filmed in L’Estaque, but also in Paris, where most of the plot takes place, and in New York.
“Serious fatigue” in the Luberon
For his second film as director, Grosse fatigue (1994), shot ten years later with Philippe Noiret, Carole Bouquet and himself, Michel Blanc finished with his loser character. He chose to shoot, in addition to Paris, in the Luberon massif. The comedy tells the story of a star replaced by his evil double.
The idea for the scenario was born from a mishap by Gérard Jugnot, his good friend, who was the victim of identity theft by a lookalike who was doing animations in supermarkets in the Paris region. This inconvenience, quickly resolved in court, inspired Bertrand Blier and Michel Blanc to form the basis of a new scenario.
Commissioner Sébeille convinced of Dominici’s guilt
Another emblematic filming: that of “The Dominici Affair” in 2003 directed by Pierre Boutron for TF1. The latter filmed in front of the Digne remand center and on the banks of the Bléone between Le Chaffaut and Malijai in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, where the criminal affair took place. But also Place Saint Pierre in Avignon, chosen for its cobblestones and its unchanging appearance, the perfect setting to transport the viewer to the 1950s.
Michel Serrault takes on the costume of the patriarch Gaston Dominici, and Michel Blanc that of Commissioner Sébeille, convinced of his guilt and who tracks down old Dominici until his trial. For this TV film, however, Pierre Boutron based himself on the book by William Reymond which calls into question the guilt of Gaston Dominici. “A particularly intense role“, confided the actor to the infinite palette of games.
