The actor and screenwriter Jean-Pierre Bacri died at 69, this Monday, of cancer.
Reactions from the world of cinema are multiplying.
Pierre Arditi: "Someone who looks under the skirts of the world"
“I saw him for the first time in the theater, long before he was known.
He played
Le Grain de sable
at Les Mathurins 40 years ago.
I then saw
Kitchen and Outbuildings
, where he was already playing with Agnès Jaoui.
I really liked what they wrote.
It was sour and clairvoyant.
I had spoken to Alain Resnais, who was looking for someone to adapt
Smoking / No smoking
, which won many Césars, including one in particular for the screenplay by Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri.
We toured together in
We know the song
.
I am obviously thinking of Agnes, who must be devastated.
He was someone absolutely atypical in the profession.
It's not just a grump, a grumbler.
He's someone who looks at the world, under the skirts of the world, and who moans when it doesn't suit him.
But with a tenderness that turns from below.
He is someone totally uncompromising, with a human struggle to which he has always held.
A kind of model of course, talented beyond what one can imagine.
He never contradicted what he believed in, the exact opposite of a people.
He had a rage in him, not hate.
Lots of people found themselves in this unrepentant grumbler, who was not just a grumbler, but a dreamer, an idealist.
"
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Death of Jean-Pierre Bacri: never happy, always brilliant
Pascal Bonitzer: "An inestimable loss for French cinema"
The director Pascal Bonitzer directed Jean-Pierre Bacri in “Search for Hortense” in 2012 and in “All right now” in 2016. “I am extremely sad.
He was someone I loved a lot, with whom I had a relationship that lasted beyond the two films we shot together.
He had a very personal spirit, a lot of humor and also a great sensitivity and a great kindness.
He had a lot of talent as an actor, but he was also an author, with Agnès Jaoui, absolutely remarkable.
His disappearance is an inestimable loss for French cinema: there are very few people of such great moral value in this profession.
Beyond his talent, I appreciated his company: he liked to laugh, he liked life, he liked wine, he liked to eat… His gruff side was a mask, which hid a deep humanity.
He was very attentive to others: on a set, he couldn't stand being treated badly with people considered by some to be of little importance.
He was a good person.
"
Jean-Michel Ribes: "He couldn't stand inequality"
The director and director of the Théâtre du Rond-Point admits a real “astonishment of sadness” at the news of the death of Jean-Pierre Bacri.
“I didn't know he was sick.
It's crazy: last night
(Editor's note: Sunday night)
I was thinking of him and I wanted to call him this morning… He's someone I started with, we had known each other for so long.
In 1983, I had mounted
the Battle
with him and then
the Anniversary,
4 years later.
For this piece, we were looking for a young actress and I hired Agnès Jaoui.
They met like that and I'm very happy about it for all the great things they've done together.
We had a great bond with Jean-Pierre.
Our first meeting ended in a huge laugh… We shared the same values on the left.
He hated the people side of this job, the superficiality.
I admired his integrity.
This embittered character from whom he had made his business a little, it was a little him because he felt badly in this society of profit, he was annoyed by this
liberal
speech
of the right
.
He couldn't stand inequality.
But at the same time, he didn't take himself seriously, he took a step back from it, he loved to laugh.
He was an incredible actor who constantly made proposals on his characters, we were in the exchange.
If Bacri played Don Juan, it was Don Juan who became Bacri… ”
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Death of Jean-Pierre Bacri: the 5 films that marked his career
Zabou Breitman: "He rarely wanted to smile for the photo, but he was extremely funny"
The actress shared the poster, first in the theater and then in the cinema, with Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui in “Kitchen and dependencies” in 1991. “I am very sad.
Just after Brasseur, it's not possible!
He was a prodigious actor, apart.
It is not him who came into the skin of the character, but the characters that came into his ... For me, even if he was not of the same generation, he evokes Victor Lanoux, the Brasseurs, the Ventura, these actors who are in the ultra proximity, the French cinema that we love so much.
He rarely wanted to smile for the photo, but he was extremely funny.
I remember giggling giggles with him.
We were always happy to cross paths, but we had lost sight of each other a bit in recent years.
I didn't know he was sick.
He was so reserved.
Besides, I'm not sure he would like us to talk about him so much today… ”
Philippe Muyl: "There was a fragile side to him"
“For me, directing
Kitchen and Outbuildings
meant that I had to work with the Bacri-Jaoui couple and the whole band that had been playing the piece for a long time, Zabou, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Sam Karmann… I arrived a bit like a hair on the soup.
It was their play, they had a good command of their characters.
I did not know Jean-Pierre Bacri before, I did not enter into his intimacy, but he was someone much more complex than he appeared.
There was in him a tenderness, a benevolence, a wounded childish side that hides its most fragile aspect, even if he looked at life with a sort of cruel lucidity.
The actor, with his banter, his phrasing, his body language, was precise, surprising, touching.
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Grumpy, Bacri?
No more than any other.
Moreover, he did not really need to be directed in
Kitchen and dependence
and yet he listened to me, he had not taken a posture, did not pretend to be confident… I recently saw
L'été in a gentle slope
by Gérard Krawczyk, and I called Gérard telling him that Bacri was really good in this film: it was not yet the Bacri that we met afterwards, he then had a fragility, a tenderness, that he hid over time ... "