It's been a long time since we realized how much Bertrand Blier, who passed away on January 20, will be missed in French cinema. Just look at the contempt shown towards it by most “decision-makers” and critics in recent years. Systematically exhausted by the intelligentsia, the director will not even find any terrestrial channel to contribute to the financing, however modest (3.5 million euros) of his final feature film, “Convoi exceptional”, with Christian Clavier and Gérard Depardieu.
“Bankers and investors, obsessed with youthism, even told me face to face that Blier was a has-been! » remembers Olivier Delbosc, the only producer daring enough to allow the filmmaker to make one last lap. Once is not customary: it was not a question here of getting a good deal (which, moreover, was not a good one at all) but of paying tribute to a unique director of his kind who wrote down what he had to say to the sulphator. His words came straight from the armory and his dialogues joyfully pierced chaste ears. And this has been happening for half a century!
The pipe always screwed to the corner of the lips
About fifteen years ago, your devotee had often and at length exchanged with him about the biography of “Patrick Dewaere, the skinned one”. Especially since we were neighbors, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, where he lived alongside his partner, the actress Farida Rahouadj. With a pipe screwed to the corner of his lips, he spoke not only about his favorite actor who suddenly died in 1982, but also about the profession, about society, about himself. The tone was disillusioned but the verb biting. He knew well, already at the time, that two thirds of his films would henceforth be “unfeasible”. “Les Valseuses” for example, which he signed in 1974 with the sole aim, he said, of getting his hands “on Pompidou’s France”: two nihilistic hooligans (Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere) take on board a supposedly frigid hairdresser (Miou-Miou) in a run across France during which, among other occupations, they deflower a young girl (Isabelle Huppert) and offer a return to justice (Jeanne Moreau) one last night of love before she shoots herself between the thighs… Although prohibited for those under 18, the success is colossal (5, 7 million admissions) but perhaps even more today, the film shocks. And what about the following film, “Calmos”, which opens with Jean-Pierre Marielle, gynecologist, sitting behind his desk on which sits a mountain of rillettes facing a patient who is waiting to be consulted with her feet in stirrups?
Exacerbated sentimentalism
Said like this, one would think Blier was bawdy, misogynistic and so on. Watch or rewatch his films: it was quite the opposite. Behind his assumed provocative airs and motivated by a rage against the establishment, there always emerges an exacerbated sentimentalism and a finesse of spirit which is matched only by the ferocity of the words. He even achieved the impossible with “Stepfather”: telling a love story between a 30-year-old man (Patrick Dewaere) and his 14-year-old stepdaughter (Ariel Besse) without ever falling into the scabrous or sordid. . Hard to believe, isn't it? And difficult to verify, the film obviously never being broadcast again. But it exists on DVD and even on Vod… “There’s nothing real in what I’m telling,” he said. I invent. I talk about what I don't know. That way, I'm sure I'm not making a mistake. No memory playing tricks on me. »
He was modest, Bertrand Blier. Like when he admitted to having written “Buffet cold”, an absolute masterpiece, in two weeks! When he presented the script, the producers, disconcerted by this story of assassins on the prowl, called him mentally ill and advised him to go to treatment. Despite everything, the film will see the light of day thanks to the three-star cast: Bernard Blier, his father, Jean Carmet and Gérard Depardieu. Of this, which he will direct eight times, he said he expected every morning of his life to hear his death on the radio. “Gérard has always been in bad shape and even more so since the death of his son,” he confided to me one day. He commits suicide slowly but surely. Patrick him [Dewaere]decided to get it over with more quickly. » Dewaere's death will affect him deeply. Especially since the day before this tragic day in July 1982, the actor had just spent a long evening at the filmmaker's house telling him, like several previous evenings, his horrors and traumas. “I can’t tear myself away from your doormat,” he said to her on the doorstep. “You’re stupid, go to sleep,” Blier replies in a good-natured tone.
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A unique dialogue writer
As a result, “Evening dress” which he reserved for the “Valseuses” trio will be done with Michel Blanc in place of Dewaere. “Damn movie!” » as the catchphrase on the poster said, written larger than the title. Excerpt from dialogue: Bob [Depardieu] : “I’m going to fuck you. I will fuck you in the ass and you will cum. Your ass will be more ecstatic. It won't be worth calling for help: in the wild, there is no guard. Nobody comes. You are all alone with your shame. And I transform your shame into happiness. I'm making a bouquet of flowers. » Antoine (White): “You speak well when you want. » Bob: “It’s your mouth that inspires me. Your mouth and then your heart. I'm going to rob your heart. Your heart and then everything else. I'm going to break in and steal everything. »Who would dare and above all be able to write something like this today? And there are plenty of them like that in the following films: “Too Beautiful for You” (“A love story is like a work of art: a spark, a lot of patience and the patina of time “), “My man” (“I'm talking to you about love, not mechanics. What they buy is a dream, not a Black and Decker”), “Exceptional convoy” (Keyboard: “Qu 'Is this music?' Depardieu: “When a woman disappears in the night, there is always music” Clavier: “Sad, the music”.)…
He was so happy and at ease on the set of this “Exceptional Convoy”. He was even three days ahead of schedule. “Why do you think I take the best actors? he told me. We don't do more than three takes and it's in the can. » He was even convinced that he would follow up with one or two other feature films. He had what it took: dozens of unfilmed scripts were lying dormant in his drawers. And then the wear and tear of time took precedence over the neurons which went to other worlds, before the director left to join Patrick, Jean, Bernard of course, and the others. We don't dare imagine what scenario he must have in store for them, undoubtedly as divine as it is diabolical.
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