Gérard Blain

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Blain in I Delfini (1960)

Gérard Blain (born October 23, 1930 in Paris , † December 17, 2000 there ) was a French actor , film director and screenwriter .

Life

The son of an architect employed by the building authority of the city of Paris and his sister grew up with his mother after the father left the family. Conflicts with his mother and sister caused him to leave school at the age of 13 without a degree and to get by as a street child during the difficult times of the occupation. He took up the portrayal of his unhappy childhood in several films, including the strongly autobiographical A Child in the Crowd .

Blain, a handsome boy, started out as an extra in films rather by accident. Julien Duvivier gave his first notable role to the now 26-year-old in Der Engel, who was a devil . Although he was discovered by the young cineastes of the Nouvelle Vague and launched by Claude Chabrol in Le Beau Serge (1958) as the French James Dean and made an icon, he could not achieve lasting popularity.

After the promising debut in France, he accepted several offers in Italy from 1960 , where he starred in films by Carlo Lizzani , and in the United States . There he stood under the direction of Howard Hawks together with John Wayne and Hardy Krüger for the adventure film Hatari! (1962) in front of the camera. Since he disliked the American star system, he refused to sign an affiliation contract and returned to France.

Blain was a rebellious actor who opposed conformism. In order to realize himself, he finally started working as a film director from 1970, but even with that - although two of his films were nominated for the Festival de Cannes - did not find the desired audience success. He had a purist idea of ​​film. So he preferred to use amateurs and not professional actors, attached importance to clear plan sequences and perfectly mastered sound technology and rejected any special effects . The influence of the director Robert Bresson, whom he admires, is palpable in his films .

In the 1980s Blain brought himself into conversation through polemical articles in the French daily Le Monde , in which he criticized the American film industry and denounced the “plot” of the bourgeoisie who, according to him, tried to suppress Robert Bresson's film The Money . The film director's ethical anti-conformism and his friendship with the film critic Michel Marmin , co-founder of the right-wing extremist group GRECE , with whom he jointly directed the filming of Pierre et Djemila (1986) and Ainsi soit-il (2000), contributed to that he is seen in certain circles as a "right anarchist".

Gérard Blain died in Paris in 2000 at the age of 70. He rests in the Saint-Cloud cemetery .

He entered into four marriages:

  • 1953 with actress Micheline Estellat (divorced in 1956)
  • 1957 with the actress Bernadette Lafont (divorced 1959)
  • 1960 with Monique Sobieski (divorced)
  • 1985 with Marie-Hélène Bauret

and left behind three sons: Paul (* 1960), Régis and Pierre, all three of whom played in at least one of their father's films.

honors and awards

  • 1971: Golden Leopard of the Locarno Film Festival , Switzerland, for the friends
  • 1976: Nominated for the Cannes Festival with A Child in the Crowd
  • 1986: Nominated for the Cannes Festival with Pierre et Djemila

Filmography

actor

Direction and script

  • 1971: The Friends ( Les amis ), awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival
  • 1973: The pelican ( Le pélican ) - also a performer
  • 1976: A child in the crowd ( L'enfant dans la foule ), nominated for the Cannes Festival
  • 1978: A man is getting on in years ( Un second souffle )
  • 1980: The Wrath of the Rebel ( Le rebelle )
  • 1983: Michel Tournier (television documentary)
  • 1987: Pierre et Djemila , nominated for the Cannes Festival
  • 1992: La Fortune de Gaspard , TV film
  • 1995: Jusqu'au bout de la nuit
  • 2000: Ainsi soit-il

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Blain, Gerard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French actor, film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 2000
Place of death Paris