Filmmaker Bertrand Blier, director of “Tenue de soir” and “Les Valseuses”, died Monday evening at the age of 85, his entourage announced to AFP on Tuesday.
The director died “peacefully at home in Paris, surrounded by his wife and children,” his son Léonard Blier told AFP. The films of this outstanding dialogue writer, adept at dark and crude humor, left their mark on the cinema of the 1970s and 1980s.
His name will remain associated with that of Gérard Depardieu, whose career he launched in 1974 in “Les Valseuses”, alongside Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou.
A subversive film that has become cult, “Les Valseuses” is also marked by a gritty humor that was shocking at the time. Blier’s work today comes under criticism for its misogyny or the way in which he depicts male domination.
“I learned with great sadness of the disappearance of Bertrand Blier. He was a genius dialogue writer, in the tradition of Prévert and Audiard,” responded the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati.
-“In films that were part of their era, he offered iconic roles to the greatest: Jean-Pierre Marielle, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, Michel Blanc, Isabelle Huppert, Patrick Dewaere, Josiane Balasko, without forgetting his own father Bernard Blier. Bertrand Blier was an immense and non-conformist filmmaker, a mad lover of the freedom to create,” she added.
In 1979, he won the Oscar for best foreign film for “Prepare your handkerchiefs” and, the following year, the César for best screenwriter for “Cold buffet”. He then won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and three Césars with “Trop belle pour toi” (1989), not to mention the César for best actress for Carole Bouquet.
The 1990s and 2000s were less prosperous, with the exception of “The Sound of Ice Cubes”, where an alcoholic writer (Jean Dujardin) “dialogues” with his illness who takes the form of a man, played by Albert Dupontel.
