When the news falls on January 18, 2021, the French are in shock: Jean-Pierre Bacri is dead.
Rare are the unanimous feelings about the disappearance of a personality. That day, we felt a wave of sadness seize the country. It was to try to understand why it touched us so much that Stéphane Benhamou signed the documentary Bacri, like a family resemblance, broadcast Friday January 14 at 9:10 p.m. on France 3.
“Jean-Pierre Bacri was, I believe, a Frenchman par excellence. He, the Jew from Algeria, was a universalist because he spoke to everyone. He could have fits of anger against injustice, against bad behavior. I saw him get angry at people who were behaving badly and that I think affected all of us.” says Stéphane Benhamou.
“He was authentic. He said it himself: he couldn’t play someone too far from who he was.”
Stephane Benhamouon franceinfo
We hear radio interviews with the actor and author, we see him again in his endearing grumpy roles, we listen to his closest friends tell who he really was. From Sam Karmann to Alain Chabat, via Jean-Michel Ribes and Anne Alvaro, all testify to his humor, his generosity, his extreme modesty.
Only one person is missing: Agnès Jaoui, the love of his life and his work partner with whom he won four César, two Molière and a prize at Cannes. “She did not feel able to speak. Their meeting was an accomplishment for Jean-Pierre Bacri, Agnès was his whole life.” indicated Stephane Benhamou.
Together they wrote cult films like Kitchen and outbuildings, A family resemblance, The taste of Others Where We know the song. It is moreover to be able to live from his profession as an actor that Jean-Pierre Bacri had started writing: “When he started, he was in a roommate with Sam Karmann, he worked at Pizza Pino, he did cleaning at La Défense. When we talk about social conscience, he knew as the son of a postman in Algeria, then in Cannes His father told him: President of the Republic or sweeper, it’s humanity that counts. He wrote to have roles and to get out of this role of Pied-noir Jew that was assigned to him after Big Pardon’.” also says Stéphane Banhamou.