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The opening, non-ironic line of Huff Post's recent article about Gerard Deparieu:

We all remember Gerard Depardieu from 1994's awkward but classic "My Father The Hero" -- the same father-daughter romance flick that thrust a young Katherine Heigl into the spotlight.

I personally only know Depardieu from Green Card - the film that highlighted the highly pressing issue of the unstoppable waves of Frenchmen illegally migrating to the US by marrying Andie MacDowell under false pretences.

Still better than me. i only know him as an igloo with legs.

He was in Mesrine. As I recall, he played Quebec.

domino harvey wrote:The opening, non-ironic line of Huff Post's recent article about Gerard Deparieu:

We all remember Gerard Depardieu from 1994's awkward but classic "My Father The Hero" -- the same father-daughter romance flick that thrust a young Katherine Heigl into the spotlight.

Well, I remember him from that. Quite a lot of other things as well, mind, but I do definitely remember that. Largely because I was cringing in my seat for the duration.

Joke aside, it is quite sad since he does have quite a number of good movies where he is pretty good himself. Les valseuses, Vincent, François, Paul... et les autres, Maîtresse, Préparez vos mouchoirs, Le sucre, Buffet froid, Mon oncle d'Amérique, Loulou, Le dernier métro, Danton, La chèvre, Les compères, ...

Of course, you can also remember him from Bogus...

No love for Man in the Iron Mask? Yeesh!

I thought most people knew Depardieu from Jean de Florette and The Return of Martin Guerre. But maybe that's what comes from working in a video store in the 80s. What the fuck is My Father, The Hero?

Ishmael wrote:I thought most people knew Depardieu from Jean de Florette and The Return of Martin Guerre. But maybe that's what comes from working in a video store in the 80s. What the fuck is My Father, The Hero?

A truly dire Hollywood remake of one of his French films (Mon père ce héros) - I never saw the original, but Depardieu was apparently very fond of it, which is presumably why he agreed to do it all over again in English. But it's far and away the worst film I've ever seen him in.

Cyrano de Bergerac is also one of his most famous roles. I've always liked him and don't quite understand the hate he seems to get from some film buffs.

People don't like him? He's ballooned to comic proportions more recently, and his nose was always formidable, but he's adept in both comedic and dramatic roles. I suppose he does occupy a particular kind of French stereotype for Americans.

I think any hate has to do with his willingness to appear in total garbage like the American remake of My father, ce héros and The Man in the Iron Mask and generally for appearing in altogether too many movies (nearly 200 in the past 40 years). Some arthouse types can't abide actors who sully themselves with commerce.

I get the impression that in France he's like everybody's favorite uncle. Maybe he gets a little drunk and embarrasses himself on holidays, but so what?

What I really don't understand is the Katherine Heigl industry. How does someone so bland and of such limited talents get to keep starring in so many movies?

Matt wrote: What I really don't understand is the Katherine Heigl industry. How does someone so bland and of such limited talents get to keep starring in so many movies?

One lucky role and not too many bombs is my assumption. As to Depardieu I always just assumed things were just playful teasing for being rather weird and unconventional looking. It has never seemed to go to anything genuinely malicious in what I've seen (Barmy aside).

Matt wrote:I think any hate has to do with his willingness to appear in total garbage like the American remake of My father, ce héros and The Man in the Iron Mask and generally for appearing in altogether too many movies (nearly 200 in the past 40 years). Some arthouse types can't abide actors who sully themselves with commerce.

You certainly can't use Depardieu as a mark of quality, but the French would point out that he's always mixed shamelessly commercial stuff with his more adventurous work for Blier, Pialat, etc. It's just that the likes of La Chèvre, to name one of his biggest early blockbusters, generally didn't get picked up for English-speaking markets.

So while we might be horrified by the likes of My Father the Hero and The Man in the Iron Mask, the French will just shrug and go "bof". And assume, usually correctly, that there'll be a better Depardieu film along in a few months.

I think the big issue with Depardieu is that, for a guy who has a reputation as a great screen actor, he cruises through a lot of absolutely diabolical films and / or crowd-pleasing heritage films / lame comedies that require little of him. But if you've ever seen something like Police, you'll know that the hype is deserved. It's just that once he became an icon, roles and directors that actually challenge him became few and far between. Let's face it, if you had the choice of being goaded into a performance by a nasty son of a bitch like Maurice Pialat, or simply cruising on your charm while everybody fawned over you as you ate and drank yourself up to the size of a small town, what would you choose?

zedz wrote:...simply cruising on your charm while everybody fawned over you as you ate and drank yourself up to the size of a small town, what would you choose?

This is priceless, zedz. Simply priceless.

I think what zedz is describing is commonly known as the "Orson Welles syndrome"!

The French original of My Father, The Hero isn't quite so bad because it at least doesn't have the excrutiating French-American culture clash thing going on that is added to the remake. But the underlying material is appalling in either version due the queasy premise of the father being mistaken throughout as being his barely legal daughter's lover (because the daughter for various contrived reasons known best to herself tells everyone that he is), with the climax of the remake being the father's oblivious performance of "Thank Heavens For Little Girls" to an appalled audience!

Depardieu is pretty good in both versions of the film however (although I've always found him an enjoyable presence in almost everything) and if I am trying to be really charitable while the material is a terrible fit for a Hollywood film, the premise kind of fits in with the transgressive roles from his Blier films. But the material is not that good (or smart).

The film he made soon afterwards, Elisa, where he has the small but important role of the father who abandoned the main character that she searches for throughout the film, is perhaps the better film to watch about problematic father-daughter relations!

MichaelB wrote:So while we might be horrified by the likes of My Father the Hero and The Man in the Iron Mask, the French will just shrug and go "bof". And assume, usually correctly, that there'll be a better Depardieu film along in a few months.

Agreed. Even in the couple of years between the original and remake of My Father, The Hero Depardieu starred in two of his best films - Tous les matins du monde and Germinal (plus a little film about Christopher Columbus)

Anybody see him in the remake of Boudu?



I'm pretty sure I made it to the end of the trailer once.

In my case, I have always been totally impervious to the so-called Gallic charm of the inflated Mr Depardieu. Speaking as a French woman and film-lover, I always found him to be a fairly limited actor who could play well a narrow range of characters such as the hoodlums he played early in his career. To my French ears, his Cyrano was a failure. He went through the Rostand text like a teenager trying to decipher roughly a Shakespeare sonnet. What makes him sometimes unpopular nowadays -besides a few turkeys - are some pretty ridiculous interviews where he displays a terrible arrogance and lack of judgement. He received some much applause from the French press at the time of his Cyrano and his subsequent Green Card (I wonder why!) that he thought he could play anything and anyone. It's sad that he believed it.

Agree with most of Ann's sentiments here but I can't help being won over by him in 'Quand j'étais chanteur' where he lugs that great wheezing bulk of his around in an almost transcendent manner. Something that helps me go along with the attraction that Cecile de France feels for him. It's also an entertaining wry look at the Gallic version of the scampi in a basket cabaret circuit. This is in complete contrast to his appearance in Chabrol's Bellamy where the same attributes become quite repugnant.

Depardieu at his bulkiest can also be found in Mammuth, which is a pretty good scuzzy comedy. His performance is completely unselfconscious, and his belly should probably have received co-star billing, since his obesity is employed like some kind of elaborate special effect. Caution for the faint of heart: the film includes extensive string vest and topless shots, appalling lank hair and

Spoiler

a scene in which Depardieu desultorily jerks off another really fat guy - unless that was just a nightmare I had after the screening!

Ann Harding wrote:In my case, I have always been totally impervious to the so-called Gallic charm of the inflated Mr Depardieu.

frigide!

zedz wrote:Caution for the faint of heart: the film includes extensive string vest and topless shots, appalling lank hair and

Spoiler

a scene in which Depardieu desultorily jerks off another really fat guy - unless that was just a nightmare I had after the screening!

Now we're talking!

In all seriousness, Les Comperes was a childhood favorite of mine that I continue to enjoy, even after the Billy Crystal / Robin Williams remake that I was lucky to avoid thus far. I agree with zedz that his best feature as an actor across all eras was probably not his range, but his capacity for being being unselfconcious, which serves him well.

He is a favourite actor, and though I can see why some/many would be put off by his (sometimes) brutish persona, I can't comprehend the accusations that he's charasmatic, but not much of an actor.

Jean de Florette - Perhaps his finest screen moment. Sheer perfection.
loulou
Police
Going Places
The Return of Martin Guerre
the Last Metro
Add your own favourites (his work with bertrand Blier will continue to divide audiences, but they work for me)

The Singer is, for mine, his last great screen performance. A wonderful film to boot. It is an honest film and a pitch-perfect performance.

Hell, he has continued to deliver memorable performances for over four decades, which places him in a very exclusive club.

He is a one-of-a-kind, and I hope he has the opportunity to show his talent a few more times.

Depardieu has surrendered his passport and denounced his French citizenship-- Am I reading this right and he really was expected to pay 85% of his income back to the government in taxes for 2012? Jesus, no wonder conservatives hate France!

domino harvey wrote:Depardieu has surrendered his passport and denounced his French citizenship-- Am I reading this right and he really was expected to pay 85% of his income back to the government in taxes for 2012? Jesus, no wonder conservatives hate France!

He was not expected to, he has.
But really : nobody cares.

I read he also paid something like 145M€ of taxes over the past 40 years.