A "diabolical angel" named
Gérard Depardieu
PostED ON 28.09.2015 AT 11:28AM
DOCUMENTARY - Richard Melloul, photographer and confidant of Gérard Depardieu (Lumière Award 2011), met up with the actor and faithful friends (Jacques Weber, Pierre Richard, Olivier de Kersauson...) to make Depardieu Grandeur Nature (litt. Lifesized Depardieu), a portrait that lives up to Depardieu's "standard of excess," to be screened at the Lumière festival. Below, Melloul shares some secrets of the filming.
What led you to make this documentary?
I wanted to bring the legendary Dewaere/Depardieu duo together in a book for the 40th anniversary of Going Places (Les valseuses) by Bertrand Blier (1974). I proposed the idea to Gérard Depardieu, who gave me the idea of making a film. After talking with him for two and a half hours, I realized that I had enough material to go beyond Going Places and to focus the film on Depardieu. So I extended my project by a year to obtain this documentary.
Was it difficult to get him to open up?
Things happened very naturally. We set the stage, and Gerard spoke. He even revealed himself, let himself be vulnerable- and it's this side of the man that interested me. We started the interviews in late 2013 and spread them over nearly a year and a half. In the end, the Going Places part occupies only one section of the film.
Were you apprehensive to go from the still image to the moving image?
No, because the contents meant more than the form to me. I knew what I wanted to do and especially what I didn't want to show. I wanted to get to the bottom of his character and reveal the sides of Gerard that are very rarely seen… Qualities that don't have to do with the spectacular. For someone who shoots five films a year, he has great modesty and great discretion. It's this image of him that I wanted to take a deeper look at.
How did he confide in you?
Gérard discussed his childhood, his first theater classes, his relationship with his parents, his arrival in Paris or how he experienced May '68. He went so far as to talk of the "dearly departed": Truffaut, Pialat, Blier, or Duras, who surrounded and intellectually nurtured him. I wanted the public to be able to benefit from our relationship of trust.
You have accompanied him on many shoots. What still surprises you about the way he practices his craft after all these years?
His ability to always be excessive, including when he acts. This is what places him above the others. Excessiveness is his only register, and moreover, he doesn't fall within any of them. In the film, Jacques Weber said he is a diabolical angel. I think the term suits him well, especially in the era of Going Places. He may seem like a thug or a rebel, but remember his early films: there's an almost angelic quality to his acting, so subtle… despite gestures of rare violence.
Interview by B.P.
