Pierre Étaix

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Pierre Étaix (2011)

Pierre Étaix (born November 23, 1928 in Roanne ; † October 14, 2016 in Paris ) was a French clown , film director , actor , illustrator , gag writer and author .

biography

Pierre Étaix initially trained as a graphic artist and was introduced to the art of glass painting by Théodore-Gérard Hanssen . However, he saw his calling as a clown - he associated it not just with a role, but with an attitude towards life: “To be a clown is a condition, not a function. The great clowns think as clowns, act as clowns, live as clowns. ”In the years after the Second World War he appeared in theaters and cabarets such as the Cheval d'Or, the Trois Baudets, the Alhambra, the Bobino and the Olympia . He drew, made music with the piano, the accordion and the violin. He worked out a first number and toured the province with it as an amateur.

After seeing The Holidays of Monsieur Hulot by Jacques Tati in 1953 , he contacted him. After Tati saw Étaix 'drawings for Le Rire magazine , he hired him as a draftsman and gag writer for his next film, Mon Oncle . Tati was impressed by Étaix's powers of observation and his sense of well-placed punchlines, but warned him about his career aspirations: "The circus is a closed world, you will not get there." Pierre Étaix, however, got there. During the four years that he worked intensively for Mon Oncle , he met Nino Fabri , the famous clown of the Medrano Circus . He first appeared as his partner and then developed his own number. Little by little he developed the role of yoyo , which he varied in his films and presented on stage.

His great role model was the clown Charlie Rivel , whom he adored: “That was an incomparable artist (...) He embodied an incredibly intense emotion. It was a revelation for me when I saw him in the Medrano. "

Working with Jacques Tati, he gained enough experience to direct his first short film Rupture in 1961 . Heureux Anniversaire followed in the same year and the first feature film, Le Soupirant, the following year . These films became the beginning of a slew of films through 1989, some of which won multiple awards. Heureux Anniversaire received the Oscar for best short film in 1963 .

In addition, he toured as a yoyo through European circuses in the 1960s . In 1968, while filming the film Le grand amour , he met the clown and actress Annie Fratellini . The two married in 1969. In the years up to 1980 they performed worldwide in circuses and cabarets as a clown couple. However, around 1980 the two broke up. For a long time, Pierre Étaix stopped performing as a clown. He lived mainly from working as a draftsman, directed a few films and appeared in a number of film productions and theater productions as an actor, so that the public almost forgot that he was above all a clown.

It was only with his new partner and wife, the jazz singer Odile Étaix, that he regained confidence in performing as a clown on stage. His new program, Miousik Papillon , premiered in Lausanne in early November 2010 . From December 2010 it went on tour through France.

Dispute over copyrights

There was a lengthy legal dispute about the five films that Pierre Étaix directed together with Jean-Claude Carrière , Le Soupirant , Yoyo , Tant qu'on a la santé , Le Grand Amour and Pays de cocagne . In 2004 Étaix had assigned rights to the company Gavroche Productions , combined with an agreement that the latter would restore these films. Gavroche Productions remained inactive, but prohibited their further exploitation by the authors due to the agreement. Due to the conflict, these films were withdrawn from the audience.

In June 2010 the third civil division at the tribunal de grand instance in Paris declared the agreement null and void; the rights for the exploitation of the films went back in full to the authors. Furthermore, Gavroche Productions was sentenced to pay compensation of 10,000 euros to the Groupama GAN film foundation . Gavroche Productions had promised to provide the Foundation with a restored version of the film Yoyo for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and did not keep this promise.

Works

Movie

theatre

Awards

Book publications

  • Jean-Claude Carrière (text); Pierre Étaix (drawings): Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot . Editions Robert Laffont, 1958.
  • Jean-Claude Carrière (text); Pierre Étaix (drawings): Mon oncle , Éditions Robert Laffont, 1959.
  • Jean-Claude Carrière (text); Pierre Étaix (drawings): Le Petit Napoléon illustré . Editions Robert Laffont, 1963.
  • Pierre Étaix: Le Carton à chapeaux . Editions G. Salachas, 1981.
  • Pierre Étaix: Dactylographisme . Editions G. Salachas, 1982.
  • Pierre Étaix: Croquis de Jerry Lewis . Editions G. Salachas, 1983.
  • Pierre Étaix: Vive la pub . Editions G. Salachas, 1984.
  • Pierre Étaix: Stars Système . Editions G. Salachas, 1986.
  • Jean-Claude Carrière (text); Pierre Étaix (drawings): Les Mots et la chose . Editions G. Salachas, 1991
  • Pierre Étaix, André François: Je hais les pigeons . Éditions Némo et Seuil Jeunesse, 1996.
  • Guy Franquet (text); Pierre Étaix (drawings): Le Cochon rose . Editions Mille et une nuits, 1997.
  • Pierre Étaix: Les Hommes de… Les Belles Lettres, 2001.
  • Pierre Étaix: Critiquons la caméra . Editions Séguier, 2001.
  • Pierre Étaix: Il faut appeler un clown, UN CLOWN . Editions Séguier, 2001.
  • Claude de Calan (text); Pierre Étaix (drawings): Le Clown et le savant . Editions Odile Jacob, 2004.
  • Jean-Claude Carrière and Neil Sinyard (text); Pierre Étaix (photographs): Clowns au cinéma . Editions In Libris, 2004.
  • Pierre Étaix: Étaix dessine Tati . Editions ARC, 2008.
  • Pierre Étaix: Textes et texte Étaix . Éditions Le cherche midi, 2009.

Literature on Pierre Étaix

  • René Marx: Le Métier de Pierre Étaix . Editions Henri Berger, 1994.

Web links

Individual references and notes

  1. ↑ Mort de l'acteur, clown et cinéaste Pierre Etaix . Le Monde , October 14, 2016 (French).
  2. ^ Obituary for Liberation
  3. ^ "Etre clown est un état, pas une fonction. Les grands clown, pensent clown, agissent clown, vivent clown. »Quoted from: Pierre Étaix: Il faut appeler un clown un clown . Ed. Séguir-Archimbaud, 2001.
  4. ^ «Le cirque, vous n'y arriverez pas. C'est un univers fermé. »
  5. ↑ a b c Fabienne Darge: Avec Pierre Etaix, il faut appeler un clown un clown . Le Monde , November 2, 2010, p. 17.
  6. ↑ “C'était un artiste incomparable (…) Il apportait une émotion inouïe. J'ai eu la révélation le jour où je l'ai découvert au Medrano. »
  7. ^ A b Guillaume Gaven: Victoire judiciaire pour Pierre Etaix, qui recouvre les droits de ses films. France Info , June 29, 2009, archived from the original on August 3, 2009 ; Retrieved October 14, 2016 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Étaix, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French clown, film director, actor, illustrator, gag writer and author
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Roanne
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 2016
Place of death Paris