I love you… me neither

The actor who died today, Sunday August 18, a sacred monster of French cinema, maintained throughout his 60-year career a complicated relationship with the Film Festival… I love you, I love you not, until the reconciliation, with the honorary Palme d’Or in 2019.

“Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, have the immense sadness to announce the departure of their father. He passed away peacefully in his house in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family. (…) His family asks you to please respect his privacy, in this extremely painful time of mourning”, indicates the press release sent by his three children to AFP this Sunday, August 18.

Alain Delon died last night. The icon of French cinema passed away at the age of 88.

“I have never cried for so many people”

On May 19, 2019, on the stage of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, Alain Delon could not hold back his tears.

With a slightly grumpy face, but above all very moved, the legend of the French 7th art receives, at the age of 83, his first personal distinction from the biggest film festival in the world: the Honorary Palme d’Or, presented by his own daughter Anouchka, rewards his entire career. He welcomes it, with the touch of irony that characterizes him:

“Tonight is a bit of a posthumous tribute… but while I’m still alive.”

Between the festival and the living legend of cinema, the reconciliation was not easy. The general delegate of the Cannes Festival, Thierry Frémaux, did not hide it at that time: “We are pleased that Alain Delon has agreed to be honored by the festival. However, he hesitated for a long time.”

Because in six decades of career, the relations between the man and the festival have not been easy: marked by as many quarrels and controversies as good times. The world-renowned actor had never received a personal distinction at Cannes until 2019. There remained a hint of bitterness that Alain Delon expressed, upon his arrival on May 19, to the microphone of our journalist Hélène Maman:

“After 17 months of career, it touches me!”

Alain Delon’s career, which was not predestined for cinema, nevertheless began in Cannes. It was in 1957. The young man was invited to the festival by Jean-Claude Brialy who spotted him in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district of Paris. His “angel face” immediately seduced the world of the 7th art. He would climb the steps for the first time in his actor’s costume three years later, in 1961, for the film “Quelle joie de vivre” by René Clément.

He returned for Michelangelo Antonioni’s “The Eclipse” which won the Jury Prize in 1962, then for Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard”, Palme d’Or in 1963.

The same year, Delon returned to Cannes as a film set. With Jean Gabin, he filmed, at the Palm Beach, and on the Croisette, “Mélodie en sous-sol” by Henri Verneuil:

At the height of his fame, Alain Delon returned to the Côte d’Azur to film Jacques Deray’s “La piscine” in 1968. In Ramatuelle, in the Var, he found Romy Schneider as his partner. The glamorous couple had split four years earlier, but Upon their arrival at Nice airport, they attract all the targets:

Back on the Croisette. In 1976, the film “Monsieur Klein” by Joseph Losey was coldly received. Alain Delon was offended. First disagreement with Cannes. It escalated in 1984 when “Notre histoire” by Bertrand Blier (a film that would earn Delon the César for best actor) was not selected. The actor then proclaims: “It is a detriment to France!” and incidentally describes the Cannes selection committee as “four nerds, three of whom are critics”.

It would be necessary to wait for the presence in competition of “Nouvelle vague” by Jean-Luc Godard, in 1990, for him to make a return to Cannes. And what an arrival! By helicopter, then by boat to land under the Croisette. A tackle to the journalists. A crowd bath. Alain Delon allowed himself the luxury of making Jean-Luc Godard wait at the bottom of the steps of the Palais. The journalist Jean-François Gringoire, who was then covering the festival for FR3, made fun of it in his report of May 18, 1990:

Same story two years later. For the presentation of the film “The Return of Casanova” by Edouard Miermans, Delon drives the point home. Hasn’t the festival always given him all the honors it deserves? And yet it is he, with his presence alone, who creates the event on the Croisette:

Then another sulk in 1997. Was Delon too touchy? Was the festival indelicate? In any case, he was not invited to the 50th anniversary. In 2006, the actor even declared that he would never climb the steps again. Before changing his mind the following year, when the crime was repaired, Alain Delon was invited to the 60th anniversary. He then said:

“Only fools never change their minds!”

Alain Delon, Cannes Film Festival 2007

After 15 years of absence, Alain Delon made another major arrival on the Croisette on May 20, 2007. France 3 journalists Sabine Gorny and Frédéric Tisseaux were there:

In 2010, we see Alain Delon again on the red carpet with Claudia Cardinale, for the presentation of the restored version of “The Leopard”, 47 years after its Palme d’Or. Then in 2013 for a remastered version of “Plein Soleil”.

He will not return to the Croisette until May 19, 2019, and will receive the honorary Palme d’Or for his entire career.

We then wanted to believe that relations between the man and the institution had been definitively appeased with this homage to the man whom another legend of French cinema, his friend Brigitte Bardot, described a few years earlier as “a living symbol of the masterpiece that France has produced during this century”.