This Monday evening, Bertrand Blier joined his father alongside Audiard, Ventura, Serrault and other Michel Blanc (of which he had co-written Grosse fatigue with… Jacques Audiard in 1994) to finally enjoy a Buffet froid… Ill for many years, the French filmmaker died at the age of 85 at his Parisian home.
Bertrand Blier cuts a bib on “Les Côtelettes”
A “Son of”
Like Jacques Audiard, 13 years his junior and whom he liked to present as his favorite living director, Bertrand Blier was first and foremost his father’s son. Born on March 14, 1939 in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris, he took his first steps in cinema at the age of 24 by signing Hitler, don’t know. Prohibited for those under 18 and removed from the Cannes Film Festival selection, this first feature-length documentary presents itself as an investigation into the youth of its time, a youth totally disconnected from History, even the most recent, that of Nazism and collaboration. The film left its mark, its title even becoming a common expression…
Four years later, Blier moved to fiction by casting his father alongside Bruno Cremer in If I were a spy. Despite this great cast, this Hitchcockian thriller is a big hit, with not even 80,000 admissions. The filmmaker is not discouraged, however, signing the screenplay for Let it go, it’s a waltz by Georges Lautner, of whom he was the assistant director and who encouraged him to persevere. And it’s another waltz that will soon definitively launch his career.
“Les Valseuses”, cult and controversial film
Released in 1974, The Valseuses is the adaptation of Bertrand Blier’s first novel, published two years earlier and which was a great bookstore success. Anchored, like Hitler, don’t knowin its time, this satirical road movie describes the life of Jean-Claude and Pierrot, two idle young people, who commit a series of crimes and other totally gratuitous thefts against the good bourgeoisie.
Huge success in theaters – there are some 5.7 million spectators, including successive releases -, The Valseuses also puts its three young actors into orbit: Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou. “Aren’t we comfortable, peaceful, cool, relaxed?”they ask themselves at the end of this non-conformist film, in a formula which sums up the style and effectiveness of its author’s dialogues.
Exhausted by some of the criticism — notably by Le Figaro et The Crosswhich treats the film of “public dump” —, The Valseuses is on the contrary welcomed by The World or Gilles Jacob, who made Blier one of his favorites when he became general delegate of the Cannes Festival in 1977… If the film has retained incredible momentum, half a century after its release, the way we look at it has nevertheless changed. Featuring a rape on a train during which the victim (Brigitte Fossey) ends up taking pleasure or two men abusing an amorphous young woman (Miou-Mou) who feels no desire, the film is today objectively problematic…
In 1976, Bertrand Blier found his father Bernard to Calmwhich once again questions the relationships between women and men with once again assumed misogyny, by featuring Jean-Pierre Marielle and Jean Rochefort, who decide to take refuge in the countryside to try to escape their wives (and their marital duty). Written in haste for the International Women’s Year, the comedy intends to denounce the “excesses” of feminism. The film was a failure in theaters and, in 2010 in TeleramaBlier will present it as “the big mistake of my life”. “The script was good, but I had neither the money nor the actors to shoot it…”
An Oscar in Hollywood
Two years later, the filmmaker successfully reformed the Depardieu-Dewaere tandem, this time alongside Quebecer Carole Laure, in Prepare your tissueswhich will win… the Oscar for best foreign film. Partly filmed in La Louvière (for a chase scene), this time the comedy has a rather depressive tone. Or the story of a melancholic woman whose husband decides to “gift” to a stranger in an attempt to make him smile. Whom she ultimately only finds with a 13-year-old teenager, with whom she becomes pregnant…
-Blier continued in 1979 with the picaresque comedy Buffet froidwith Depardieu, Bernard Blier and Jean Carmet. Where the dark humor, the filmmaker’s trademark, hits the mark. Just like the influence of the surrealism of Luis Buñuel, one of his bedside filmmakers.
In the 1980s, Blier surfed on this tone and had a string of successes: My friend’s wife (with Coluche, Thierry Lhermitte and Isabelle Huppert in 1983), Our story (with Alain Delon and Nathalie Baye in 1984) and, of course, Evening wear (1986) et Too beautiful for you (1989), two great successes for which he found Depardieu. In the first, his favorite actor once again plays Miou-Miou, but also Michel Blanc, with whom he ends up falling in love. In the second, he leaves Carole Bouquet for another pillar of Splendid: Josiane Balasko. Grand Prix in Cannes, Too beautiful for you will also pocket five Césars, including those for best film, director, screenplay and actress (for Bouquet) and will mark the pinnacle of Blier’s cinema.
Complicated end of the journey
Although well established, the machine will nevertheless break down. If it continues to run, Blier will experience a big slump in the 1990s, with Thank you life (1991), One, two, three, sun (1993) et My man (1996). Three films with more social subjects carried by the person who shared his life at the time, the actress Anouk Grinberg.
His following pranks hardly convince any more, whether The Actors (2000) or Chops who, in 2003, “remain on the stomach” from our colleague Fernand Denis. It would be necessary to wait until 2010 for Bertrand Blier to once again manage to hit the mark in The sound of ice cubeswith Jean Dujardin and Albert Dupontel. The taste for provocation is still present but the filmmaker becomes more personal, tackling the theme of alcoholism and illness.
Tired, having lost his energy and vigor, Blier signed, in 2019, his last lap with Exceptional convoy. This self-referential comedy will only record 200,000 admissions in France and, although entirely filmed in Brussels, will not even be released on the big screen in Belgium. Blier attempted to reconnect with his cinema by once again bringing together a figure from Splendid, Christian Clavier, and Gérard Depardieu, for their eighth and final collaboration.
Another look
The filmmaker will also remain faithful to his favorite actor until the end. In 2023, one of his last public acts will be to sign the support platform Don’t erase Gérard Depardieuwhile the latter was accused by many women of rape and sexual assault. Enough to further tarnish the image of a once adored filmmaker, author of a cult film, The Valseusesbut seen by some today as an emblem of rape culture.
In March 2024, guest on Léa Salamé’s set in the show What era on France 2, Brigitte Fossey also refused to watch the famous scene of the attack on her character on the train, which she considered “horrible”. The 77-year-old actress even confided that her father never forgave her for making this film “which damages the image of women”…
Related News :