Michel Piccoli (1925-2020)

[yoloswegmaster]

Michel Piccoli

[hearthesilence]

Michel Piccoli

I was just thinking about him a few weeks ago while watching La Belle noiseuse. I think Holy Motors was the last film I had seen him in, and given how prolific he was, I was wondering if he had more or less retired. Like many of his peers, his filmography is a marvel - I forgot Jean Renoir's French Cancan had one of his first film appearances - but his performance in La Belle noiseuse may be my favorite. Given what his role entailed, I could see most actors doing little with it or struggling mightily with it, but it's a very smart and intuitive performance.

[colinr0380]

Just the list of directors he worked with is astounding: that magnificent run with Buñuel, then the best film of the 1960s with Godard. Resnais, Rivette, Hitchcock, Varda, Jacques Demy, Bava, Chabrol, René Clément, Marco Ferreri (with both Dillinger is Dead and La grande bouffe), Michel Delville, Louis Malle, Bellocchio, Raoul Ruiz, Manoel de Oliveira, Angelopoulos. People could get worse groundings in French cinema (as well as Italian and art cinema generally) from the 1950s to 2010s than by following his roles.

And that's not even counting the out-there films like Passion In The Desert and Themroc.

[domino harvey]

Absolute fucking legend, period. He could show up to any movie and make it better, and he was really the last of his peers to go. So unlike what anyone would identify as a movie star in terms of looks, but certainly not in talent and especially screen presence. Huge, huge loss for cinema.

[knives]

His work for Demy is my favorite. Just such a friendly presence who could do so much even when completely still.

[swo17]

So unlike what anyone would identify as a movie star in terms of looks

I'm never good at recognizing these things, but was he not a handsome man?

[hearthesilence]

So unlike what anyone would identify as a movie star in terms of looks

I'm never good at recognizing these things, but was he not a handsome man?

I don't think he was a bad-looking guy, but he wasn't Alain Delon or Jean-Pierre Léaud. Regardless, being a matinee idol certainly wasn't a concern any of them had. (One doesn't have such ambitions when they put on that beard and hair color in Une chambre en ville.)

[domino harvey]

So unlike what anyone would identify as a movie star in terms of looks

I'm never good at recognizing these things, but was he not a handsome man?

Why do you think his wives and girlfriends always cheat on him in his movies? (I don’t think he’s unattractive at all, he just doesn’t possess conventional “movie star” good looks— which is true of many French greats, really)

[swo17]

Ha!

[Michael Kerpan]

He was always a delight -- whether playing good guys or bad guys.

[therewillbeblus]

It's a rare moment when I can't even single out any role, five, or even ten that were his 'best.' An absorbing screen presence who used subtlety to give the same power as a louder actor. A role like the devious husband's friend in Belle de Jour would normally be a cookie-cutter personified thorn, but his mysterious presence made that character the best and most interesting in a film already bursting with complexities.

[bottled spider]

No one but Piccoli could have pulled off Glauco in Dillinger is Dead. It is only by some kind of miraculous witchcraft that that film fails to be boring. His turn as Father Lizardi in Death in the Garden, was another great performance, albeit in a somewhat minor film.

[zedz]

Just the list of directors he worked with is astounding: that magnificent run with Buñuel, then the best film of the 1960s with Godard. Resnais, Rivette, Hitchcock, Varda, Jacques Demy, Bava, Chabrol, René Clément, Marco Ferreri (with both Dillinger is Dead and La grande bouffe), Michel Delville, Louis Malle, Bellocchio, Raoul Ruiz, Manoel de Oliveira, Angelopoulos. People could get worse groundings in French cinema (as well as Italian and art cinema generally) from the 1950s to 2010s than by following his roles.

And that's not even counting the out-there films like Passion In The Desert and Themroc.

And then there's Carax, Costa-Gavras, Skolimowski, Chahine, Suleiman, Iosseliani (in drag!) and some guy called Renoir. He really got around, and I've never seen him give a bad performance, whatever the quality of the film.

This leads me to wonder what actors might have checked off more Nouvelle Vague directors.

For Piccoli, there's: Godard, Resnais, Demy, Varda, Chabrol, Rivette, Malle, Cavalier, Rozier and Deville. Truffaut and Rohmer seem to be the big omissions.

I did a quick check on some obvious names (Leaud, Moreau, Brialy, Lafont), but can only get to six or seven at best.

[zedz]

It's a rare moment when I can't even single out any role, five, or even ten that were his 'best.' An absorbing screen presence who used subtlety to give the same power as a louder actor. A role like the devious husband's friend in Belle de Jour would normally be a cookie-cutter personified thorn, but his mysterious presence made that character the best and most interesting in a film already bursting with complexities.

I'm Going Home is a contender, but that might just be because he dominates that film in a way he doesn't in most others, where he's usually a generous team player.

[knives]

Vis a vis new wave appearances I have to imagine it's some bit player and not one of the big names or someone who got popular in the '80s like Depardieu.

[artfilmfan]

And there were the Claude Sautet films that he was in. The Things of Life is one of my favorite films.

What a huge loss. What a sad day.

[therewillbeblus]

It's a rare moment when I can't even single out any role, five, or even ten that were his 'best.' An absorbing screen presence who used subtlety to give the same power as a louder actor. A role like the devious husband's friend in Belle de Jour would normally be a cookie-cutter personified thorn, but his mysterious presence made that character the best and most interesting in a film already bursting with complexities.

I'm Going Home is a contender, but that might just be because he dominates that film in a way he doesn't in most others, where he's usually a generous team player.

I actually meant to mention MO's Party as one of his best roles. It's essentially a foursome ensemble piece in a two-act chamber drama, but he really stands out for me there as the sun the other players operate around (which does not indicate that he's the 'strongest' character!)

[colinr0380]

He could show up to any movie and make it better, and he was really the last of his peers to go. So unlike what anyone would identify as a movie star in terms of looks, but certainly not in talent and especially screen presence. Huge, huge loss for cinema.

I wonder if that is what made him such a major presence in the New Wave films, in that he could be a kind of identification figure for directors (Godard in Contempt in particular) to channel themselves through. A figure like Belmondo, Leaud or Delon is exuding the attractive 'youthful cool' vibes (often looked at ambivalently by Godard at the best of times!), but Piccoli could provide that entering middle age sense of a callow, unprepossessing look that then would make the moments of deviating from that (the slap in the argument scene in Contempt,say. Or anything upending conventions in the Buñuel, for example that moment climaxing The Phantom of Liberty where his senior police officer orders the riot squad to advance on a bunch of escaping zoo animals!) hit all the harder. That's what makes him such a good fit for La grande bouffe and Themroc too, which are about insane behaviours or insane worlds but with people still conforming to some social norms too, albeit horribly twisted and taken to their ultimate conclusions by people who do not know when best to stop. (Imagine if he had been used in Pasolini's Salo! Or if Antonioni had gotten to him!)

I think that screen presence aspect that domino notes is also what made him so good at playing baddies or making brief but impactful cameos - his appearance late in the final quarter of Hitchcock's Topaz as the 'big bad guy behind it all' could only work with an actor of his presence being able to make such an strong impression so late on. Similarly his character slowly having layers of propriety stripped from him until the horrible truth is revealed is central to the twisty recontextualising of both characters and their actions going on in Ruiz's Genealogies of a Crime.