Tag Archives: French cinema

RIP Michel Bouquet (1925 – 2022)

The Toy, house buying scene

Michel Bouquet was a French actor known for appearances in such films as The Toy (1976) in which he plays a caricature of a ruthless business tycoon.

In the film, the spoiled son of the business magnate asks for a human as a plaything.

In the scene above, the father enters a house and makes an exuberant offer to buy the house if its owners pack their bags ans leave immediately.

RIP Jean-Jacques Beineix (1946 – 2022)

Betty Blue (1986), landlord and clearing and lighting the beach house scene.

Jean-Jacques Beineix was a French film director best known for Betty Blue (1986).

There was something about this film, which I saw when I was 21, which I found very off-putting.

I can never forget when she smears that plate of spaghetti bolognese all over her face.

But the scene above, where she snubs the landlord and throws everything out of the caban by the sea, their beach house, is quite hilarious. Then she lights up the place, foreshadowing here coming madness.

Must see film when you are 21, totally optional afterwards.

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RIP Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933 – 2021)


Jean-Paul Belmondo was a French actor known for his boxer’s nose and rubbery lips.

Breathless (1960)

He is famous for breaking the fourth wall in the nouvelle vague film Breathless (1960); for his stunts and bravado in That Man from Rio (1964); and for painting his face blue in Pierrot le Fou (1965).

Pierrot le Fou (1965)

In the beginning of his career, he played in both art films and commercial films, later on he only followed the money and the popularity, flat out saying:

“I really prefer making adventure movies like Rio to the intellectual movies of Alain Resnais or Alain Robbe-Grillet.”–Jean-Paul Belmondo, The New York Times, 1964

RIP Françoise Arnoul (1931 – 2021)

 Post Coitum, Animal Triste (1997)

Françoise Arnoul was a French actress known for her parts in French CancanThe Devil and the Ten Commandments and Forbidden Fruit; and not so much for her part in Post Coitum, Animal Triste (1997). However, I show you the trailer of that film, because of its title, which I have been able to trace into the 16th century, in the work of Jean Benedict in La somme des péchés et le remède d’iceux (1595).

RIP Pierre Jansen (1930 – 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkfeuIFyDWQ&t=214s&ab_channel=NYCBLOCKSNYCBLOCKS
 Acera, or the Witches’ Dance (1972) by Jean Painlevé

This happened in 2015, but I only found out today.

Pierre Jansen was a French composer working in film. He was in particular the permanent collaborator of Claude Chabrol for whom he composed the music for many films.

He also scored the above documentary Acera, or the Witches’ Dance (1972) by Jean Painlevé.

RIP Jean-Claude Romer (1933 – 2021)

Jean-Claude Romer was a French actor, film critic and film historian.

Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962 – 1971)

He was editor-in-chief of French film magazine Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962 – 1971), the first magazine dedicated to genre cinema and cinema fantastique.

It has come to my attention that the first issue of Midi Minuit Fantastique is online in full at Archive.org[1].

That issue is dedicated to Terence Fisher, who still seems to be a bit underrated and of whose film The Stranglers of Bombay it is said:

“More clearly than any other Hammer effort, The Stranglers of Bombay lays bare the foundation of voyeurism, scopophilia, misogyny, castration anxiety, repression, sadomasochism, and “the male gaze” which informs the construction of Hammer’s output.”

The Charm of Evil: The Life and Films of Terence Fisher (1991) by Wheeler W. Dixon

One thing leading to another as they say, I stop here, because it is leading me too far.

RIP Jean-Claude Carrière (1931 – 2021)

The Phantom of Liberty, the toilet scene

Jean-Claude Carrière was a French novelist and screenwriter famous for scripting The Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieThe Phantom of Liberty and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I give you the toilet scene from The Phantom of Liberty, it makes you wonder if Buñuel scripted it alone or he asked Carrièret to assist him.