Having a little time to fill in his day’s schedule, Jean Dujardin went to a bookstore one day to get a little book he could read in two or three hours.
Having already appreciated the novels of Sylvain Tesson, particularly Berezina And In the forests of Siberiahe chose On the dark paths. In this autobiographical story, the writer recounts how, after falling several stories high one drunken evening that plunged him into a coma, he promised himself to cross France on foot, like a rebirth of himself.
“I read this book, I liked it and I shared my reading on Instagram, which I do quite rarely, says the actor during an interview granted to The Press. Two weeks later, the director [Denis Imbert] called me telling me that he had bought the rights to the story and that he had just adapted it with Diasteme [le coscénariste]. He asked me if I wanted to read his script. Yes of course. I really wanted to go like that, on the roads…”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY TVA FILMS
Josephine Japy and Jean Dujardin in On the dark pathsa film directed by Denis Imbert
A particular approach
Jean Dujardin had been hoping to come across this kind of story for a while. That said, the cinematographic vision of such a story did not appear obvious to him when reading it, especially since it is here an essentially interior adventure, even if it takes place in spectacular natural settings. .
“What interested me above all was to see how one can repair oneself by one’s loneliness by taking one’s own dark paths, specifies the one who has also personified the famous agent OSS 117 three times in the cinema. Going through hidden paths, to rebuild a destroyed soul, with this need to take stock without being seen. How do you make a film like that? We don’t know, actually. »
To turn On the dark paths, a small team, made up of about ten people, crisscrossed France from south to north, dealing with the sets, the reliefs, the different natural lights, the feeling of vagueness. Everyone was there in the service of the feature film, but several took advantage of this moment to also take stock of their lives.
“I didn’t really feel like I was filming or being a character,” confides Jean Dujardin. I embodied both the author of the book and a little me, like a man who decides to take stock at 50 years old. It could have been on the seas, there, it’s on the roads. »
PHOTO PROVIDED BY TVA FILMS
Jean Dujardin is the headliner of On the dark pathsa film directed by Denis Imbert.
A great popular success
The team thus crossed the whole of France, from the Mercantour to the Cotentin, stopping and turning in all the places mentioned in the story, never more than a day. The actor points out that each of the members of the team advanced in the adventure a little in their own solitude, without this approach being really planned. The experience thus took on an intimate character for everyone.
“Denis Imbert stepped aside and that’s what I had to do too, notes the actor. I went through this book alone and I went through this film the same way. I thought to myself that the man I had to play crashed on the ground after falling 10 meters and that he had to repair himself thanks to this same ground. »
I wanted to rediscover all the sensations I had felt while reading the book.
Jean Dujardin
This particular proposal obviously had a great resonance with the public. On the dark paths has indeed attracted more than 1 million spectators in French cinemas. How does Jean Dujardin explain this enthusiasm?
« Je crois qu’une espèce d’alignement s’est effectuée. Il y a eu de grosses manifestations en France, beaucoup d’actualités anxiogènes, ça ne sentait pas très bon, et je crois que les gens ont eu envie de prendre l’air, d’oublier un peu tout ça et de se faire du bien. Sur les chemins noirs est tombé au bon moment, a donné de l’air dans une période où il n’y en avait pas beaucoup. Cela dit, on ne saura jamais pourquoi un film marche. Ça tient toujours du miracle. »
PHOTO JOEL RYAN, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
En 2011, sa performance dans The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius) a valu à Jean Dujardin tous les honneurs, parmi lesquels un prix d’interprétation au Festival de Cannes ainsi que l’Oscar du meilleur acteur à Hollywood.
Non, un Oscar ne change pas le monde
Impossible de parler à Jean Dujardin sans lui rappeler l’année exceptionnelle que lui a fait vivre The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius) au début de la dernière décennie. Entre le prix d’interprétation du Festival de Cannes et l’Oscar du meilleur acteur l’année suivante, le comédien a obtenu à peu près toutes les récompenses possibles et imaginables un peu partout dans le monde. Or, Jean Dujardin n’a jamais vraiment mis à profit les honneurs reçus.
Le meilleur moyen de ne pas se casser la gueule en tombant d’un piédestal est de ne jamais y monter.
Jean Dujardin
« J’ai toujours refusé de croire à ce qu’on pouvait dire de moi à partir des prix que j’ai pu recevoir. Je n’ai fait qu’un film qui, à un moment, a suscité un très grand engouement. J’en étais l’acteur principal, j’en ai bénéficié, j’ai eu des retours formidables, mais j’ai toujours dit que pour moi, ce n’était absolument pas un Graal, pas une fin en soi. »
Conscient d’être un peu « suspect » aux yeux de ceux qui se demandent pourquoi il n’a pas profité de l’occasion pour s’installer aux États-Unis ou, à tout le moins, capitaliser sur sa notoriété internationale, l’acteur ne prend pas de détours.
« Je ne suis pas américain, je n’aime pas parler anglais, ce n’est pas ma langue, et mes plus beaux rôles sont ici [en France]. Why would I take myself for another, waste time, when in fact, I have everything to gain at home? I never got wet, never lost my footing, I always mastered exactly what I was, who I was, and how I wanted to do this job. If you want to freak out and become a jerk because of an award you’ve been given, it’s very possible. But I refused. I have a family, relatives, and far be it from me to become infrequent and unbearable in their eyes. »
Jean Dujardin even goes there with a last confidence in this regard.
“During my first 20 years of life, I was not a good student. During all this time, I was told that I was a dunce, a moron. But when you are told that in your youth and when, at 35 or 40, you are told that, on the contrary, you are wonderful, I don’t see why I should believe it so much. I never thought I was stupid, but I never thought I was wonderful either. I always told myself that the only person who could be fair in his appreciation and his desire to do beautiful things is me. That I am rewarded, so much the better, if not, so much the worse, but that does not enter into my value judgment. »
On the dark paths hits theaters June 30.
Who is Jean Dujardin?
The actor first became a popular star thanks to the French adaptation ofA boy a girlthe Quebec series created by Guy A. Lepage and Sylvie Léonard.
Jean Dujardin established himself in the cinema thanks first to comedies. His surfer persona in Brice of Nice (2005) as well as that of Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, alias OSS 117, which we discovered in 2006, left their mark.
The Artista black and white film without words (Michel Hazanavicius), brought him consecration in 2011. In addition to the Cannes Film Festival interpretation prize and the Oscar for best actor, his performance in the role of a fallen star silent film earned him the Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe trophy in Hollywood, as well as a BAFTA trophy in London.