In an amused tone Bernard Blier said one day to Michel Audiard: "I noticed that you had no technical knowledge, that you confused a zoom and a traveling shot ... and despite that you made a career of director . " The interested party, the mischievous eye, was not offended by the falsely treacherous remark of his friend and accomplice, thereby admitting that his conception of cinema was not based on mastery of the handling of the camera.
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Indeed, Michel Audiard, born a century ago on May 15, 1920 and whose centenary is celebrated today, will have more marked the seventh French art of his qualities as a scriptwriter, adapter of novels and word handler.
Words distilled in a cheeky verve, drolatic at will at the beginning but darker at the end of his career when life will have kidnapped his son François, who died in a road accident at 26 years old.
Read also: Les Tontons flingueurs , subject of study at the Sorbonne, from bourre-pif to Descartes
Thief of words, he admitted it without shame, of Jean Gabin, Bernard Blier and many taxi drivers parigots, Michel Audiard also drew heavily on classic and less classic literature (Rimbaud, Balzac, Proust, Céline, the Series black ...) a good part of his inspiration. Among his first great successes we can cite Les Grandes Familles , adapted from the eponymous work of Maurice Druon, but also Maigret and the Saint-Fiacre case and Le Baron de écluse, inspired respectively by two novels by Georges Simenon. An investigation by the famous commissioner and a new The Potam cruise, a more melancholy and bitter story than the film by Jean Delannoy.
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If the earthiness of the Tontons flingueurs , the aristocratic slang of the Volfoni Brothers and others, of these replicas launched like snuffers are taken up at will by young moviegoers from 7 to 77 years old and analyzed today by the greatest intellectuals at Sorbonne, the fact remains that Michel Audiard also excelled in writing dialogues that were both darker and more cynical tinged with an irrepressible nostalgia. From this point of view A Monkey in Winter , inspired by the novel by Antoine Blondin and A taxi for Tobruk are considered by critics as two jewels in his filmography.
Film writer and cynical director
The first film, therefore adapted from the work of the hussar in love with the Tour de France, brought together for the first time Jean Gabin and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Directed by Henri Verneuil, the film punctuated by Audiard's pen never betrays the mind of an author who, before the hour, cultivated the dialogistically politically incorrect.
Because in this story animated by a frenzy of despair and nostalgia, we see the mirrored fate of two men parading who still dream of blue rivers and bullfights. A vision of life shared by both Audiard and Blondin.
The second film, A taxi for Tobrouk , by the admission of director Denys de la Patellière, must be viewed as an antimilitarist charge. But here, the banter of the protagonists hides, if one takes care of it, the real denouncing intention of the scenario writer. Because more than ever in its dialogues Audiard will be able to make up here behind its projections, wonderfully told by the trio Lino Ventura, Maurice Biraud and Charles Aznavour, his horror of war.
Finally, the “little cyclist” as Jean Gabin liked to nickname him, tried his hand at making it towards the end of the 60s with, it must be admitted, with barely concealed cynicism. Unlike Claude Lelouch and today his son Jacques, who gleaned a multitude of trophies, Michel Audiard valued the art of the verb more than the art of framing. After directing Don't take the children of the Good Lord for wild ducks , made immortal by General de Gaulle in person at a press conference, sneeringly, he did not hesitate to affirm: "I went to the auction house because I I noticed that the publishers were displayed larger than the authors. ” A provocation in the shape of a gifted film writer who did not like ... cinema.
Of Large Families in Police custody , a camera scary who offered him his only Caesar, through Taxi for Tobruk , Le Figaro for the hundredth anniversary of Michel Audiard, presented below in pictures, an anthology of his career ten films.
Les Grandes Familles de Denys de la Patellière in 1958, based on the work of Maurice Druon, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Jean Gabin, Pierre Brasseur, Bernard Blier, Jean Desailly ....
Maigret and the Saint-Fiacre affair by Jean Delannoy in 1959, based on the work of Georges Simenon, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Jean Gabin, Michel Auclair, Robert Hirsch ...
The Baron of the lock by Jean Delannoy in 1960, according to the short story by Georges Simenon, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Jean Gabin, Micheline Presle, Jean Desailly ...
A taxi for Tobrouk de Denys de la Patellière in 1961, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Lino Ventura, Charles Aznavour, Maurice Biraud, Hardy Krüger ...
A monkey in winter by Henri Verneuil in 1962, based on the work of Antoine Blondin, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Suzanne Flon, Noël Roquevert ...
Les Tontons flingueurs by Georges Lautner in 1963, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Jean Lefebvre, Francis Blanche, Venantino Venantini, Robert Dalban, Sabine Sinjen ...
One hundred thousand dollars in the sun by Henri Verneuil in 1964, dialogue by Michel Audiard, with Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Gert Fröbe, Andréa Parisy ...
Don't take God's children for Michel Audiard's wild ducks in 1968, with Françoise Rosay, Bernard Blier, Marlène Jobert, André Pousse ...
She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke, she doesn't flirt, but ... she's talking! by Michel Audiard in 1970, with Annie Girardot, Bernard Blier, Mireille Darc, Jean Le Poulain, Sim ...
Custody of Claude Miller in 1981, dialogue of Michel Audiard, with Lino Ventura, Michel Serrault, Romy Schneider, Guy Marchand ...