itinerary of an “angsty clown” of French cinema

Eternal Jean-Claude Dusse in The Bronzeda major actor in comedic cinema in the 1980s before moving towards dramatic roles and a career as a director, Michel Blanc died at the age of 72 on the night of Thursday October 3 to Friday October 4. The actor, who began his career within the Splendid troupe, suffered a heart attack in the evening and was transported to a Parisian hospital where he died, his entourage announced to AFP, confirming information of Paris Match.

In the cinema, Michel Blanc has long embodied the archetype of the loser: bald, skinny and mustachioed as exasperating as he is endearing, notably in Walk in the shade (1984), which he had directed, or Come to my house, I’m staying with a friend (1981). “At the time, we wrote characters who were quite close to us. Jean-Claude Dusse, it was clearly for me. (…) I was very quickly afraid that people would associate me with it entirely. my life”, he told Paris Match in spring.

Breaking his image, he then took other paths with dramatic roles like that of the transvestite Antoine in Evening wear (1986) by Bertrand Blier or the disturbing Mr Hire (1989) by Patrice Leconte, gaining in thickness and gravity. Later, he would play a cold and methodical ministerial chief of staff in The State Exercisewhich earned him a César in 2012.

“I am not at all a sad clown but an anguished clown. But who is not anguished? What is the human condition? Not knowing why we are here, not knowing how we are going to die.”

Michel Blanc, actor

in “Télérama”

A hard worker, a perfectionist, Michel Blanc knew how to use his complexes and his writing talent to explore disenchantment and shape the characters in his films, particularly those he had directed as Severe Fatigue (1994) and Kiss whoever you want (2002).