Red lips, high heels, a pale pink dress and a wig: Michel Blanc, who died on October 3 at the age of 72, is a woman like any other in Evening wearthe film by Bertrand Blier released in 1986. Eight years after the appearance of Jean-Claude Dusse, the hardened bachelor of Tannedthe actor is determined to break with his image of the comic with a mustache – which he shaves on this occasion.
He then takes on the role of Antoine, a poor guy whose relationship (with Miou-Miou) is in crisis and who falls into the arms of Bob, played by Gérard Depardieu. The latter flirts with him with finesse: “I'm going to fuck you in the ass and you'll come. Your ass will be more ecstatic. And it won't be worth calling for help, when you're free, there are no guards.” For this character of a man “desperate quest for tenderness and who lets himself be seduced by someone who loves him, who desires him”as summarized by Bertrand Blier, Michel Blanc receives the Best Actor Prize at Cannes.
“The White Woman”
“I played what happens to Antoine with my sincerity, without resorting to particular attitudesthen explained the actor to World. I didn't want to make him crazy, and when he's dressed as a woman, he's not a tranny.” When it was released, the magazine Gai Pied devotes a laudatory article to the film entitled “Touche pas à la femme Blanc”.
Already, in 1976, Michel Blanc appeared in The Best Way to WalkClaude Miller's first film. Although he only plays a secondary character, he nevertheless has the merit of including his name in the credits of one of the first French feature films to address gender identity and stereotypes by confronting two types of masculinity . The story pits two camp instructors against each other: Marc, the toxic mascu sportsman played by Patrick Dewaere, and Philippe, the theater-loving intellectual played by Patrick Bouchitey. When the first discovers that the second disguises himself as a woman in the evening in his room, tensions disrupt the good-natured spirit of the summer camp. Marc, turned upside down in his conception of virility, will never stop belittling his colleague.
After Evening wearwe had to wait until 2007 to see Michel Blanc again in a gay role, when André Téchiné offered him one of the key roles in Witnesses. This personal film on the onset of AIDS tells the intersecting destinies of four characters and is intended as a tribute to the filmmaker's deceased friends. Far from sinking into pathos, the drama highlights the spirit of life of the protagonists.
During the promotion of the film, the actor declared to the magazine Telerama : “Now is the time to remember this period, as prevention relaxes and disease is dangerously downplayed.” In the skin of a gay doctor who falls madly in love with a younger man, Michel Blanc is not only fair, he demonstrates real sensitivity in what remains one of the most committed roles of his career.
Photo credit: George Pierre/Collection Christophel
