Tag Archives: gerard depardieu

THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE 4K RESTORATION

Gérard Depardieu stars as a man claiming to be a long-missing peasant in Daniel Vigne’s The Return of Martin Guerre

THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE (LE RETOUR DE MARTIN GUERRE) (Daniel Vigne, 1982)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, July 5
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com

Identity theft was much different in the sixteenth century than it is today. Daniel Vigne’s award-winning 1982 drama, The Return of Martin Guerre, relates the based-on-fact story of a man who has come back to the small, poor village of Artigat in the French countryside after being away for nearly a decade, fighting a war and journeying across Europe. “You will not regret having followed this story, for it is neither a tale of adventure nor an imaginary fable,” a narrator says at the beginning of the film. “It is a true story.” It also looks and sounds better than ever, in a lovely 4K director’s cut restoration opening at the Quad on July 5. The rather quiet and dull Martin Guerre (Stéphane Pean) disappears one night in 1542, to the consternation of his wife, Bertrande de Rols (first Sylvie Méda, then Nathalie Baye). She raises their son, Sanxi Guerre (Adrien Duquesne), by herself, with the help of her family, and remains faithful to Martin, believing he will return. Years later, Martin (Gérard Depardieu) suddenly shows up, more educated and worldly, filled with tales of his time away. The villagers are quick to welcome him back into the fold, including Bertrande and Sanxi; Martin’s sister Guillemette (Valérie Chassigneux); their uncle Pierre (Maurice Barrier), who has run the farm and married Bertrande’s mother, Raimonde de Rols (Rose Thiéry); and Martin’s friend Jacques (Philippe Babin). But slowly some of the peasants start questioning whether this Martin is actually an imposter taking advantage of Bertrande and Artigat, which leads to the arrival of Jean de Coras (Roger Planchon) of the Toulouse Parlement to interview Bertrande.

A family is reunited in The Return of Martin Guerre — or is it?

Written by honorary Oscar winner Jean-Claude Carrière (Danton, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) and Vigne (One Woman or Two, Jean de La Fontaine — le défi ) with Natalie Zemon Davis, a Princeton University professor and historian who consulted on the film and later wrote a book on the subject, The Return of Martin Guerre is gorgeously photographed by Andre Neau, inspired by the paintings of Dutch masters Johannes Vermeer and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. The film won three Césars, for Best Original Screenplay, Best Music (Michel Portal), and Best Production Design (Alain Negre), and received a nomination for Most Promising Actor (Dominique Pinon, who would become a mainstay in the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet), in addition to an Oscar nod for Best Costume Design (Anne-Marie Marchand); it was also remade by Jon Amiel in 1993 as the Civil War drama Sommersby with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. Depardieu is big and boisterous as the man claiming to be Martin, while Baye is soft and gentle as Bertrand in the second of seven films they have made together. The Return of Martin Guerre might be set nearly half a millennium ago, but its exploration of faith, honor, virtue, poverty, the law, education, and truth, as well as how people can change over time — or not — is not as old-fashioned as it might at first seem in this age of fake news, income inequality, religious extremism, and social media.

AMOUR OR LESS — A BLIER BUFFET: GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is part of Bertrand Blier festival at the Quad

Solange (Carole Laure), Raoul (Gérard Depardieu), and Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere) form a unique kind of family in Bertrand Blier’s Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

GET OUR YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS (PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS) (Bertrand Blier, 1978)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
March 15-21
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com

French writer-director Bertrand Blier’s Oscar-winning Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is no weepy melodrama. If you need hankies while watching, they’ll be for the tears rolling down your face from laughter. A fortieth-anniversary 2K restoration is screening March 15-21 in the Quad series “Amour or Less: A Blier Buffet,” a nine-film celebration of the five-decade career of the controversial auteur, who has been regularly labeled a misogynist. Get Out Your Handkerchiefs has stirred up its share of naysayers through the years, so it’s fascinating to watch it now, in the midst of the #MeToo movement. The film opens in a restaurant where the brutish, doting Raoul (Gérard Depardieu) is eating with his bored, disinterested wife, Solange (Carole Laure). Suspecting that she is stealing glances at a man seated at a table behind him, Raoul approaches him, a schoolteacher named Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere), and practically begs him to sleep with his wife. Raoul, a driving instructor, loves Solange so much that he is willing to go to great lengths to make her happy, even if it means sharing her bed with another man.

Adolescence hits Christian Belœil (Riton Liebman) hard in Oscar-winning romantic comedy

Of course, she has something to say about it and ultimately decides, without much excitement, that the plan is fine with her; she desperately wants to have a baby but has been unable to conceive with her husband. The men begin having quite the bromance themselves as they talk about Mozart while Solange knits, and knits, and knits. (The first scene Blier wrote was when the two men have a less-than-intelligent discussion on Mozart; Blier then built the film around that.) Their green-grocer neighbor (Michel Serrault) starts hanging around as well, concerned about Solange’s search for contentment. Solange, Raoul, and Stéphane spend a summer working together at a camp, where they meet Christian Belœil (Riton Liebman), a thirteen-year-old rich kid who gets bullied by the other boys but takes a liking to Solange as his hormones rage out of control. The film gets more absurdist, and funnier and funnier, as it heads into territory destined to offend politically correct watchdogs everywhere.

A fortieth-anniversary 2K restoration opens at the Quad on March 15

A fortieth-anniversary 2K restoration of Get Out Your Handkerchiefs opens at the Quad on March 15

Named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics in addition to nabbing the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is a delightful farce that turns traditional family and societal relationships inside out and upside down, whether it be parents and children, mothers and sons, husbands and wives, teachers and students, or just a couple of dudes. Depardieu and Dewaere, who previously teamed up in Blier’s Going Places, are a comic force as a couple of ordinary guys caught up in a crazy riff on Jules et Jim, Raoul a driving instructor who doesn’t know where he’s going, Stéphane a man obsessed with Pocket Books. Laure (Sweet Movie, La Tête de Normande St-Onge) charmingly underplays the enigmatic Solange: Raoul and Stéphane think she might be a simpleton, but is she? The scenes of her knitting are hilariously deadpan, and the matching sweaters she produces eventually show up on nearly everyone, their prosaic patterns sometimes echoed in the walls, floors furniture, and other elements. Meanwhile, the comedy turns poignant as Christian, who can’t stand his parents (Eléonore Hirt and Jean Rougerie) or the other kids, spends more time with his new adult friends, especially Solange. At one point Christian is in bed reading Ralph Dennis’s super-noir On bricole, the cover showing a man torn in half, as if Raoul and Stéphane are two parts of the same human being (or referencing Christian’s growth from boy to man). And Stéphane is reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada, a novel about a rather unusual family. Through it all is a wonderfully evocative score by Georges Delerue. “Amour or Less: A Blier Buffet” continues through March 21 with such other Blier works as Beau-père, Merci la vie, Ménage (Tenue de soirée), and Going Places.

FILMS ON THE GREEN: POTICHE (TROPHY WIFE)

Catherine Deneuve wants to be more than just a trophy housewife in François Ozon’s Potiche

POTICHE (TROPHY WIFE) (François Ozon, 2010)
Central Park, Cedar Hill
East side from 76th to 79th Sts.
Friday, June 2, free, 8:30
www.musicboxfilms.com/potiche
frenchculture.org

For the tenth anniversary season of Films on the Green, presented annually in parks around the city by the French Embassy — Cultural Services, the selections were made by a collection of guest curators; the 2017 summer series kicks off June 2 with François Ozon’s Potiche (Trophy Wife), which was chosen by actress and comedian Wanda Sykes. Legendary French star Catherine Deneuve radiates a colorful glow throughout the film, her smile lighting up the screen as it has throughout her long career, which now comprises more than one hundred movies over more than fifty years. Reunited with writer-director Ozon (8 Women) and Gérard Depardieu (they first appeared together in Claude Berri’s Je Vous Aime in 1980 and more recently in André Téchiné’s Les Temps Qui Changent in 2004), Deneuve was nominated for a César for her role as Suzanne Pujol, a trophy housewife who primarily serves as arm candy for her husband, Robert (Fabrice Luchini), who runs Suzanne’s family’s umbrella factory like a tyrant and is a little too close to his secretary, Nadège (César nominee Karin Viard). When Robert is taken hostage during a nasty strike at the plant, Suzanne is forced into action, deciding to run the business with the help of her counterculture son, Laurent (Jérémie Rénier), and her conservative daughter, Joëlle (Judith Godrèche). At first clashing with the mayor, Maurice Babin (Depardieu), Suzanne is soon considering rekindling her long-ago affair with the rather rotund Maurice as she realizes there’s so much more to life than being a wealthy appendage.

Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve) has her hands full in Potiche, which kicks off Films on the Green’s tenth anniversary season on June 2 in Central Park

Loosely adapted from a Theatre de Boulevard comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, Potiche is a charming throwback to 1970s female-empowerment movies, depicting long-held-back women suddenly grabbing the reins and embracing their personal and professional freedom, getting out from under the thumb of repressive societal conventions. Ozon infuses the film with numerous references to Deneuve’s history, evoking such seminal works as The Young Girls of Rochefort, Belle de Jour, and, of course, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and the costumes — particularly Deneuve’s fabulous fashion sense, which often dominates the scene — are a hoot, earning costume designer Pascaline Chavanne a much-deserved César nomination, but things get haywire in the final section, getting too silly and going too far over the top when politics come into play. Still, Potiche ably represents its genre, having fun with itself, which rubs off on the audience, who will have plenty of fun as well. Films on the Green continues weekly through July 28 (before a September 7 finale) with such other French films as Alain Gomis’s Tey (Today) chosen by Saul Williams, Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang selected by Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt picked by Jim Jarmusch, and Marcel Carné’s Port of Shadows from Laurie Anderson.

THEATER & CINEMA: THE LAST METRO

Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu star in François Truffaut’s gripping WWII melodrama THE LAST METRO

CINÉSALON: THE LAST METRO (LE DERNIER METRO) (François Truffaut, 1980)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, October 27, $14, 4:00 & 7:30 (later screening introduced by Olivia Bransbourg)
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

FIAF’s CinéSalon series “Theater & Cinema” concludes October 27 with François Truffaut’s powerful Oscar-nominated WWII melodrama, The Last Metro. Set in Vichy France during the German occupation, the film takes place in and around the Théâtre Montmartre, which has been taken over by movie-star actress (and non-Jew) Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve) after her husband, Jewish theater director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent), has apparently escaped the Nazi regime. But in fact Lucas is hiding out in the theater’s basement, where he has translated a Norwegian play, aptly titled Disappearance, and is directing it from below. The cast and crew of Disappearance include ladies’ man Bernard Granger (Gérard Depardieu) as Marion’s love interest; costume designer Arlette Guillaume (Andréa Ferréol), who refuses Bernard’s advances because of a secret reason; young actress Nadine Marsac (Sabine Haudepin), who will do just about anything to get parts; stage manager Raymond Boursier (Maurice Risch), who is deeply dedicated to the theater; and Jean-Loup Cottins (Jean Poiret), the stand-in director for Lucas. Only Marion knows where Lucas is, but danger grows when critic, publisher, and Nazi collaborator Daxiat (Jean-Louis Richard) starts sniffing around a little too much.

Catherine Deneuve on-set with director François Truffaut during the making of THE LAST METRO

Genre lover Truffaut reaches deep into his cinematic bag of tricks in The Last Metro, paying tribute to film noir, romantic melodrama, war movies, and even musicals as he references Casablanca, The Phantom of the Opera, The Diary of Anne Frank, Gaslight, To Be or Not to Be, The Golden Coach, Notorious, and Cabaret. He takes on anti-Semitism, anti-homosexuality, and anti-humanism in general while setting up a compelling love triangle that is echoed in the play-within-a movie, which is staged on a dramatic, surreal pink Expressionistic set. Depardieu and Deneuve, who went on to make such other films together as Claude Berri’s Fort Saganne, André Téchiné’s Changing Times, and François Ozon’s Potiche, might not be Bogart and Bergman, but they are a magnetic duo, Depardieu’s hulking, brutishly handsome presence dominating confined spaces, Deneuve’s refined, radiant beauty glowing amid a predominantly drab palette. The film uses the metaphor of theater as a way to escape reality, whether on an individual basis or during an international crisis, but of course Truffaut is also citing film as its own escape, a place where people flock to when times are both good and bad. The Last Metro — the title refers to the final train of the night, which passengers must catch in order to not break the strict curfew — is a beautifully made picture, the second in Truffaut’s planned trilogy of films about entertainment, following 1973’s Day for Night and preceding the never-finished L’Agence Magique. Winner of a 1990 César for Best Film of the 1980s in addition to ten previous Césars, including Best Film, Best Director (Truffaut), Best Actor (Depardieu), Best Actress (Deneuve), Best Cinematography (Nestor Almendros), Best Music (Georges Delerue), Best Production Design (Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko), and Best Writing (Truffaut and Suzanne Schiffman), The Last Metro is screening at 4:00 and 7:30 on October 27 in Florence Gould Hall; the later show will be introduced by French publisher and fragrance designer Olivia Bransbourg.

POTICHE (TROPHY WIFE)

Catherine Deneuve wants to be more than just a trophy housewife in POTICHE

POTICHE (TROPHY WIFE) (François Ozon, 2010)
Opens Friday, March 25
www.musicboxfilms.com/potiche
www.francois-ozon.com

Legendary French star Catherine Deneuve radiates a colorful glow throughout her latest film, Potiche (Trophy Wife), her smile lighting up the screen as it has throughout her long career, which now comprises more than one hundred movies over more than fifty years. Reunited with writer-director François Ozon (2002’s 8 Women) and Gérard Depardieu (they first appeared together in Claude Berri’s Je Vous Aime in 1980 and most recently in André Téchiné’s Les Temps Qui Changent in 2004), Deneuve was nominated for a César for her role as Suzanne Pujol, a trophy housewife who primarily serves as arm candy for her husband, Robert (Fabrice Luchini), who runs Suzanne’s family’s umbrella factory like a tyrant and is a little too close to his secretary, Nadège (César nominee Karin Viard). When Robert is taken hostage during a nasty strike at the plant, Suzanne is forced into action, deciding to run the business with the help of her counterculture son, Laurent (Jérémie Rénier), and her conservative daughter, Joëlle (Judith Godrèche). At first clashing with the mayor, Maurice Babin (Depardieu), Suzanne is soon considering rekindling her long-ago affair with the rather rotund Maurice as she realizes there’s so much more to life than being a wealthy appendage. Loosely adapted from a Theatre de Boulevard comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, Potiche is a charming throwback to 1970s female-empowerment movies, depicting long-held-back women suddenly grabbing the reins and embracing their personal and professional freedom, getting out from under the thumb of repressive societal conventions. Ozon infuses the film with numerous references to Deneuve’s history, evoking such seminal works as The Young Girls of Rochefort, Belle de Jour, and, of course, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and the costumes — particularly Deneuve’s fabulous fashion sense, which often dominates the scene — are a hoot, earning costume designer Pascaline Chavanne a much-deserved César nomination, but things get haywire in the final section, getting too silly and going too far over the top when politics come into play. Still, Potiche ably represents its genre, having fun with itself, which rubs off on the audience, who will have plenty of fun as well.

DENEUVE: CHANGING TIMES

Catherine Deneuve will be at BAM Friday night to kick off twenty-five-film retrospective with REPULSION (above) and POTICHE

BAMcinématek
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
March 4-31
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

They don’t make ’em like Catherine Deneuve anymore. The elegant French superstar, still ravishing at sixty-seven, has had a remarkable career that is still going strong. The longtime Chanel No. 5 spokesmodel has appeared in more than one hundred films, including too many classics to list here, but here are just a few: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964), Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965), The Creatures (Agnès Varda, 1966), Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967), The Last Metro (François Truffaut, 1980), Time Regained (Raoul Ruiz, 1999), and A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008), all of which are part of an exciting twenty-five-film retrospective at BAM running March 4-31, presented in collaboration with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and Institut Francais. No mere sex kitten, Deneuve has taken chances from the very beginning, choosing challenging roles and working with such directors as André Téchiné, Louis Malle, François Ozon, Manoel de Oliveira, Marco Ferreri, and others, in addition to those mentioned above. Following last month’s appearance at BAM by her Hunger costar Susan Sarandon, Deneuve will be at the Brooklyn institution Friday to participate in a sold-out Q&A with Ozon and Judith Godrèche after a sneak peek of her latest, Ozon’s Potiche; she will also introduce the 9:40 showing of Repulsion that same night. Deneuve is a marvel to watch on the big screen, mixing intelligence with beauty, vulnerability with a powerful emotional depth and strength that will surprise those who have not seen many of her films. Now is a great time to catch up, and in Brooklyn, of all places.

Catherine Deneuve stars as a bored housewife stalked by an old acquaintance in CHANGING TIMES

CHANGING TIMES (LES TEMPS QUI CHANGENT) (André Téchiné, 2004)
Saturday, March 5, 4:30
www.1000films.com

In 1980, Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu teamed up for the first time in Claude Berri’s Je Vous Aime, followed by François Truffaut’s The Last Metro. They appeared in several more films together but not in dual leading roles since François Dupeyron’s A Strange Place to Meet (1988). Fortunately, in the ensuing years, they have been more successful than the characters they play in André Téchiné’s absorbing drama Changing Times. Deneuve, as beautiful as ever in her early sixties, stars as Cécile, a lonely woman feeling way too settled in her role as wife, mother, and radio host. Depardieu is Antoine, a lonely engineer who has been burning a candle for Cécile, his first love, for more than thirty years. When her grown son, Sami (Malik Zidi), comes to visit, he surprises everyone by bringing his girlfriend, Nadia (Lubna Azabal), and her young son, Said (Jabi Elomri). Both Sami and Nadia have other reasons for coming to Tangier: He wants to see his very good friend Bilal (Nadem Rachati), a groundskeeper for a rich family, and she wants to see her twin sister, Aicha (Azabal), a devout Muslim who works in McDonald’s. Meanwhile, Cécile’s husband, the younger Nathan (Gilbert Melki), hangs around the house, goes for long swims, and takes care of Antoine’s smashed nose. Depardieu is unnerving as a creepy stalker, and Deneuve is enchanting as the bored wife; Téchiné (Scene of the Crime, Alice et Martin) treats their awkward relationship with intelligence and subtlety, allowing it to play out in unexpected ways.