He admired with the same sincerity François Truffaut, Michel Audiard, Georges Lautner, - to whom he recently paid tribute in a documentary -, Louis de Funès and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
Unclassifiable filmmaker, Serge Korber died on January 23.
He was 85 years old.
Read alsoLouis de Funès, a one-man band
Proof of his cinematographic eclecticism, he will leave to posterity significant films such as
Le Dix-septième Ciel
(1966), dialogued by Pascal Jardin with Jean-Louis Trintignant, but also
Un idiot à Paris
(1967), put into words this time by Michel Audiard with Jean Lefebvre, Dany Carrel and Bernard Blier.
And finally an almost surrealist musical fresco
The Man Orchestra
, a film cut to excess by Louis de Funès.
Read alsoJulia de Funès: “
The museum dedicated to my grandfather will be entertaining and elegant, like him
”
Serge Korber was born on February 1, 1936 in Paris into a modest Jewish family. During the war, he had to take refuge in the south of France to escape the Nazi anti-Semitic hunts. Integrating the young communists at the Liberation, he discovers with them, he who has not done higher education, the genius of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller and then very quickly the great poets of French literature.
In the 1950s, he founded a cabaret, Le Cheval d'or, at the foot of the Contrescarpe, where he liked to introduce beginner artists as talented and different as Anne Sylvestre, Pierre Perret, Raymond Devos, Pierre Richard and the prince of nonsense Boby Lapointe.
The legend says that it is there that François Truffaut will listen for the first time to the author of
Avanies et Framboises
, whom he will soon choose as one of the composers and performers of his cult hit
Shoot the Pianist
.
From new wave to pop culture
The new wave is initially interested in the amazing Serge Korber. Truffaut offered him a small role in
Tire-au-flanc
. Agnès Varda chooses him to play Maurice, the clerk in
Cléo from 5 to 7
. In 1965, he produced his first major cinematographic work,
Le Dix-septième Ciel
. Here he brings together an exceptional cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie Dubois, Marcel Dalio and Jean Lefebvre. The film's title says it all about its iconoclasm.
A year later, he adapted
Un Idiot à Paris
by René Fallet. Michel Audiard is in charge. The replies are decisive. A man named Patouilloux asserts: “
I am a veteran, a socialist activist and a bistro!
Serge Korber immortalizes the Halles de Paris, the banter of Dany Carrel and the brilliant stupidity of Jean Lefebvre.
In 1970, he gave Louis de Funès the opportunity to become
L'Homme chester
. The film is an ode to what is not yet called pop culture. Serge Korber said of this timeless and fashionable musical comedy in 2001:
"In the spirit of Louis de Funès,
L'Homme orchester
was a very inflated project: a musical comedy with thirty-year-old guys on music pop of a little virtuoso with revolutionary methods. Compared to the gendarmes of Saint-Tropez, it was almost avant-garde!”
Anarchist of the film, avant-garde, therefore, Serge Korber will have basically with
The Man Orchestra
signed the film that most resembles him. Unclassifiable and inspired.
An idiot in Paris
by Serge Korber, in 1967, with Jean Lefebvre, Dany Carrel, Bernard Blier....
The Man Orchestra
of Serge Korber, in 1970, with Louis de Funès...
