Eyes reddened with grief, they embrace, support and console each other before the coffin of the one who revealed them.
This Thursday morning, at the Saint-Roch church (Paris, I), Jean-Hugues Anglade and Béatrice Dalle, alias Zorg and Betty in the film "37.2° in the morning" did not hide their emotion when greeting the memory of Jean-Jacques Beineix, the director who died Thursday January 13 at the age of 75 following leukemia.
Around 10:30 am, the two actors arrived together in this symbolic parish, seat of the chaplaincy of performing artists.
They took their place in the front rows, alongside other cinema figures: producer and actor Dominique Besnehard, actor Patrick Chesnais, producer Claudie Ossard, composer Vladimir Cosma...
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In front of them, for a simple and sober ceremony, a portrait of Jean-Jacques Beineix, sweet smile on his lips, surrounded by a crown of white flowers, as his daughter Frida and his wife Agnès wished.
The latter, between pieces of piano, cello and biblical texts, was inspired by Baudelaire, a poet "whom he was particularly fond of", to talk about his pain and his love.
“It is thanks to him that I am here today”
In order to evoke "his friend, his brother", "a magnificent artist and a rare person", Jean-Hugues Anglade chose to quote passages from "Toboggan", the deceased's first novel, published in 2020 and widely tinged with autobiography.
“His glory was combined with the imperfect (…).
He had ended up walling himself in media and social silence (…).
He has become this solitary but dignified walker, sitting in a park or at the café, to write…”, read, very moved, the actor.
Paris, January 20.
Simple ceremony for the farewell to Jean-Jacques Beineix.
AFP/JULIEN DE ROSA
“It's good: there are a lot of people, especially cinema from the 1990s. Inevitably, it takes us back to that era. I started with him, I did the casting for
Diva
,
37.2°
, I was 20… I never imagined that one day, like today, I would say goodbye to him” , slips Dominique Besnehard, at the end of the ceremony. " I am very sad. He was an essential man in my life and in my career. It is thanks to him that I am here today, with some great films behind me. I will miss him a lot, ”whispers Jean-Hugues Anglade on the forecourt.
Wink of fate: at the end of the ceremony, the Parisian sun decides to pierce the greyness, enlightening Betty and Zorg for another day and triggering the memory machine.
Those of a time when, for the time of a film, Jean-Jacques Beineix had filled the hearts of a generation with light, colors and sweet madness.
