Tag Archives: French cinema

RIP Henri Garcin (1929 – 2022)

Abel (1986), Christmas breakfast scene, Henri Garcin is the father. See below for transcript and translation of this scene.

Henri Garcin was a Belgian actor, born as Anton Albers in Antwerp to Dutch parents. In his twenties, he left for Paris to try his luck as an actor.

He found a place on the stage in several high-brow theatrical plays and went on to become a character actor in cinema, appearing in more than hundred French films.

In my universe he is of importance for playing in several Alex Van Warmerdam films: Abel, (1986), The Northerners, (1992) and The Dress, (1996), Grimm (2003) and Schneider vs. Bax (2015).

He also had parts in two films by fellow cult director Jos Stelling.

The first time that I saw Garcin was in 1986 in Cinema Cartoons in Antwerpen, when we went to see Warmerdam’s debut feature Abel.

In the clip above you can see the famous Christmas breakfast scene of that film, one of the best scenes of Dutch cinema by one of its most interesting filmmakers.

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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 Cancan, The 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.