It pays tribute to the giant of Hollywood, who died this Wednesday at 103 years old, but alert and worried. Patrick Brion, who created the “Cinéma de Minuit” on France 3 - then FR3 - in 1976, a program that was barely saved and will return to the air next March, fears that the young generations will no longer discover films classics with Kirk Douglas or other giants.
Is Kirk Douglas one of the actors that you showed the most on France 3 in the “Cinéma de Minuit”?
PATRICK BRION . It has been widely disseminated, yes, because of its eclecticism. More than others, Kirk Douglas knew how to do everything: playing a "motherfucker" as he said, a tough guy, a comedy, a western, a film noir, an adventure film. It's over, by the way, these stars who knew how to ride horses, to fight in duels, to laugh, to be threatening, who simply knew how to do everything. Kirk Douglas in "The Vikings" is something other than an actor of today who plays with sensors in front of a virtual background.
Is this really the last legend of the great Hollywood?
There is no more man. There remains only one woman, Olivia de Havilland, but she has toured less than him, and in less varied genres.
Do you have an anecdote that the general public does not know about Kirk Douglas?
Yes. You know he never won the Oscar, unlike his son Michael. In "Les Ensorcelés", Vincente Minnelli's most beautiful film on cinematographic creation, Kirk Douglas plays a film producer who lacks modesty. In a filmed scene, her character won an Oscar, but she was cut during the editing. Definitely… The Oscars and him, that was not it.
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He played in very modern films, like "Spartacus", "The Paths of Glory", which denounce a form of dictatorship or enslavement ...
Her heart was on the left. Very clearly. Even if, contrary to what I heard on the radio, he did not sign up at the time of McCarthyism. I wrote a book on blacklists. Kirk Douglas has never been threatened. He did not fight, but he did not crash, he did what he had to do.
Committed films, anyway ...
Yes, because he was one of the first actors who produced their films. He sometimes chose projects that were close to his heart.
Televisions pay tribute to Kirk Douglas. But once the emotion is over, where to see his films, westerns or old-fashioned noir films, today?
It is a huge problem. Generations have been trained by film clubs on television, or small neighborhood halls. But now, when I present a special screening of an old film at the Champollion in the Latin quarter, the audience is the same age as me, who was born in 1941… The audience is younger when I show a Scorsese, the room is crowded with a Tarantino. But Kirk Douglas ... TV no longer does its job, we see less and less old films.
Are you worried?
But a whole section of cinema will disappear from our collective memory! There is a very sad snobbery against ancient cinema. DVDs are sold less and less. Books on westerns or films noir too. Have you seen Kirk Douglas on Netflix? We can really be worried.
But will your show resume this month?
It will be in March, it has been postponed by two months ... The "Cinema of Midnight" has almost been deleted several times. The first, she was saved by Bertrand Tavernier and a few others. And lately, by a petition of 5000 people bringing together all the French cinema and moviegoers. But it is very fragile. At the time of the Two or Three film clubs at reasonable broadcast times, when an old film was shown, that meant making a new copy, renewing the rights. We brought this repertoire to life. Today, old Hollywood cinema has a sword of Damocles on its head all the time. Kirk Douglas, we will always show some, but for the rest ... And I'm not talking about French detective cinema of the 1970s, for example, almost completely erased from the map.
