The La Rochelle Cinema Festival, the Fema, paid a moving tribute to the actor who occupied a special place in the history of French comedy, Pierre Richard. The 88-year-old artist, who will have imposed her slender silhouette on the greatest directors, shared her memories with a conquered audience.
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It is a beautiful tribute that the cinema has paid to the actor Pierre Richard. The one who, with his slender silhouette and his big blue eyes, landed on the screens of France in 1970. His atypical, burlesque and dreamy character, between Buster Keaton and Groucho Marx, brought a breath of fresh air to French comic cinema. His roles as clumsy, blundering and lunar characters made the whole of France laugh.
After the screening of his greatest success, the Big Blond with a black shoe, released in 1972 and which was exported all over the world, now 88 years old, the actor retraced his career with humor. ” It’s still a joy to know that after so long, there are still people who want to see me, to smile at me, to see me in the movies” he says, emotion in his voice. And yet, if the artist is becoming rarer on screen, the public recently discovered him in the counter-intuitive role of the Duke of Richelieu, in Jeanne Du Barry, Maïewen’s film.
A dozen of his projected greatest hits
This meeting with Pierre Richard, so discreet, delighted the public. “He kept his wit and humor. And at the same time, he doesn’t have a big head” wonders a lady. “It’s the Pierre Richard rhythm, we feel that there is a musical side to his way of being an actor“explains a young spectator.
With his unique acting, Pierre Richard is a must for the La Rochelle Cinema Festival.”It’s only natural to invite one of the greatest artists, one of the most popular actors of the 70s, who had a phenomenal career with landmark films” explains Arnaud Dumatin, the general co-delegate of Fema. A dozen of his films are projected until Sunday on the big screen like Le Distrait, one of the three films he himself made in 1970. Pierre Richard has above all put his figure at the service of others, thus filming with the greatest comedy directors: Claude Zidi in Mustard up my nose And The shallot race alongside Jane Birkin, Francis Veber in The toy – which he co-produced – then the trilogy The Goat, The Comperes And The fugitives in duet with Gérard Depardieu, and Gérard Oury in The Carapate And The Umbrella Kick.
The La Rochelle Cinema Festival until July 9