Michel Deville, contemporary of the New Wave and rewarded with a Caesar for “Peril in the home” in 1985, died at 91 years old.
By Jeanne Le Borgne, for LePoint.fr
© MAXPPP / THE VOICE OF THE NORTH / PHOTOPQR
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Shis unique style will have marked French cinema. The director Michel Deville, who had received a Caesar for Peril in the house in 1985, died at the age of 91 on February 16. “We are only announcing it today because we wanted to collect ourselves in the intimacy of the family and Michel hated the ceremonies …”, declared his wife and collaborator Rosalinde Deville to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Michel Deville started filming during the New Wave, without ever really belonging to this movement. His last movie, A strings attached, dated back to 2005. A lover of classical music, he was known for the whimsical and erotic side of his works, but above all for showing unfailing abnegation in producing his films. The screenwriter liked to say that he was “not going up very high, but all alone”, quoting Cyrano de Bergerac.
Deneuve, Garcia, Bardot and the others
After fifty years of career, the director leaves behind him some thirty masterpieces such as A bullet in the barrel, Tonight or never, Benjamin or the Memoirs of a Virgin – with Catherine Deneuve and Michèle Morgan –, The Bear and the Doll – one of Brigitte Bardot’s last roles – or even Peril in the house with the duo Nicole Garcia-Christophe Malavoy et The Reader with Miou-Miou.
Michel Deville had learned the craft of filmmaker for ten years, with his mentor Henri Decoin. “All my films, comedies like other more serious, even serious, have been games for me, with rules”, said this man with the bony face and the steel blue eyes who loved above all to treat human beings against their instincts.
For him, writing, in all its forms, was essential. Almost all of his films were based on literary works that he adapted, such as File 51according to Gilles Perrault’s book, or Sachs Diseasewith Albert Dupontel, adapted from the novel by Martin Winckler.
Born in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Hauts-de-Seine, in 1931, the director has never left his town. He died there, at home, “of old age”, on February 16th. He was “buried in the cemetery of Boulogne-Billancourt, his city”, according to his wife.