Patrick Brion, the soul of “Midnight Cinema”, bows out

For half a century, Patrick Brion hosted “Midnight Cinema” on FR3 then France 3. This great gentleman of exemplary discretion is now retiring.

Owe owe him our amazed discovery of Freaks by Tod Browning, by Pandora by Albert Lewin or Rebel by King Vidor, among many other masterpieces, religiously recorded on VHS, every Sunday evening of our adolescence, like countless fans, before and after us. Patrick Brion, the nagging leading voice, of Midnight Cinema of France 3, king of commas and suspended sentences, has just turned 83, and will retire at the end of the year. Decision that the management of France Télévisions imposes on him and which he pretends to accept, with the courtesy and sense of public service that he has had in his heart for decades.

Son of a mother who is an art historian at the CNRS and a father who is a novelist and academician, young Patrick turned to cinema, “the only artistic field where the skill of [s] he parents was not overwhelming. » Paris, at the end of the 1950s, was experiencing the golden age of cinema. We camp at the Henri Langlois Cinematheque, we devour the magazines, the emulation is enormous. The frustration, too, of not having access to the beloved, cursed, fantasized films. “It took me two weeks to establish Raoul Walsh’s filmography by going through the catalogs at the American Institute when a click on IMDB is enough for me today”, he remembers. With his gang, including Bertrand Tavernier, Pierre Rissient, Bernard Eisenschitz, he organizes weekly expeditions to Brussels or Antwerp, where American films are still screened in double programs, series A and series B. “We preferred Budd Boetticher’s western or Corman’s horror film, invisible at the time in Paris. »

Claude-Jean Philippe on A2, Patrick Brion on FR3

After his military service, Brion became assistant to André Labarthe and Janine Bazin at the ORTF for Filmmakers of our timelegendary collection of portraits of the greatest. At the same time, at the end of the 1960s, under the pseudonym André Moreau, the character of Stewart Granger in Scaramouche, his favorite film, he sold his first texts for Cahiers du cinéma, La Revue des deux mondes, or Teleramawhere he defends The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (December 29, 1968) and wonders “what gives punch to American soap operas” as Mannix or Mission Impossible (February 23, 1969). In the fall of 1971, Pierre Sabbagh, director of the ORTF, finally agreed to entrust him with a film club, presented by Claude-Jean Philippe and programmed by him. After the breakup of the “other thing”, in 1975, Philippe took charge of cinema on Antenne 2 and Brion on FR3 and took the opportunity to launch his Midnight cinema, dedicated to heritage films. A position he held for almost fifty years, a record.

Preferring the shadows to the light, “Mister Cinema” was convinced to present the films of his film club in voice-over, but nowhere will we see Brion shine. No name in the credits. And yet, cinema owes him a lot. His show saved film rolls that would “become Nescafé” [tomber en poussière, ndlr] because Brion demanded new copies from the studios. In September 2019, France Télévisions tried to push its old foal towards retirement but gave up at the last minute in the face of the bronca and the petition of the outraged profession. This time it’s the right one. Exit “the archaeologist of cinema”, as her replacement, Élodie Drouard, in her early fifties, calls her, who also has memories of staying up late and using a VCR. No more voiceovers, for the sake of economy. Its mission: “reprogram the classics to build your cinephile, and not necessarily the Hungarian silent film of 1912, which can be intimidating…” In the meantime, Brion ends his reign on December 20 with César, by Pagnol. A story of love, sacrifice and transmission.