The French seventh art has lost one of its directors. This Tuesday, January 21, Bertrand Blier died at the age of 85. An emblematic figure of cinema, he is at the origin of films as cult as they are controversial, such as “Valseuses”, “Calmos” or “Buffetfroid”. A great fan of dark and crude humor, the director – son of actor Bernard Blier – has a filmography punctuated with provocative works. If the filmmaker claims to explore social taboos, his cinema arouses controversy and divides spectators who accuse him of a misogynistic director, given his representations considered degrading of women and his gritty responses.
Controversial films
Bertrand Blier’s films marked the cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974, “Les Valseuses” featured a trio of actors who would become legendary: Patrick Dewaere, Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou. Prohibited to those under 18 at the time, the feature film was shocking. Under the guise of a road movie between friends on the run, the drama mainly glorifies rape by bringing to the screen a succession of sexual assaults and describing the character of Marie-Ange as a frigid woman who is impossible to please sexually…
Other provocative films will follow. Two years later, Bertrand Blier caricatured the war of the sexes in “Calmos”. Here again, the woman’s vision arouses controversy. If some see it as a macho and vulgar vision, the filmmaker defends himself, claiming that the film, carried by Jean Rochefort and Jean-Pierre Marielle, is a mirror of male anxieties faced with the birth of feminist movements. According to the words of Vincent Roussel, author of an essay entitled “Bertrand Blier, cruel beauty” (2020).
Also read >>> Anouk Grinberg: “All those who have worked with Depardieu in the cinema know that he attacks women”
“With my screenwriter, we had fun making a provocative film just to be provocative. We attacked women and feminists head on. It was more of a schoolboy provocation than a deep feeling on our part,” explained the filmmaker to “Transfuge”, in 2021, about his film about a gynecologist and his friend pursued in the countryside, pursued by a horde of women , and picking up the male gender in its path.
Then there is “Stand-father” which, in the early 1980s, tackles a subject as delicate as it is controversial. On screen, Patrick Dewaere and Ariel Besse embody a transgressive relationship between a man and his underage stepdaughter. This time again, Bertrand Blier’s film shocks public opinion. Accused of praising pedophilia in cinema, the director denies this by justifying that his film explores the complexity of human feelings.
-Faced with these waves of criticism during his career, Bertrand Blier has always defended himself. “Sometimes clumsily,” he said in the columns of “Transfuge”. “I was looking to wake up the general atmosphere a little. At the time, France was not what it became and the cultural environment was not the same. Before “Les Valseuses” (…) There were a few important, talented and provocative films like that and I dove into that to give it an extra twist and shock even more. » Mission accomplished.
The statements of Anouk Grinberg, ex-partner of Bertrand Blier
His friendship with Gérard Depardieu does not speak in his favor. In 2018, accusations of rape and sexual assault began to multiply against the comedian, Bertrand Blier’s favorite actor, when Charlotte Arnould, one of his victims, decided to file a complaint. At that time, support was scarce in the big cinema family. But Anouk Grinberg, former companion of the director and friend of the actress, does not hesitate. The one who filmed alongside the “sacred monster” in “Merci la vie” in particular, affirms in “ELLE” in 2023: “Depardieu was a bit part of my daily life. When he says in this letter [ouverte publiée en 2023] that he never attacked a woman, I saw him do it all this time! Verbally, physically. I saw him put his hands on women’s buttocks, touch their breasts, their genitals while joking. I heard him talk all day about their pussy, about how he would like to suck them. »
Then she adds, “I was not at all spared by his verbal attacks. And then, it amused him a lot when Blier asked him to mime or say dirty things to me while we were acting out scenes. He and Blier incited each other to humiliate women and laugh about it, and the team pledged allegiance, also laughing to please the kings. »
So, is the filmography fundamentally anti-feminist or a satire of male stereotypes?
