With Olivia Poli in The Soft Skin, François Truffaut, 1964
In Kings and Queen, Arnaud Desplechin, 2004
The French actor, father of Philippe, grandfather of Louis, had the kind of face that always seemed to carry an accusation in it, which made his brief turn in the Truffaut film a particularly effective one. As for his swan song of hate in the Desplechin film, a cousin of one of the searing letter-rants in Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater, it is one of the more disturbing high points of contemporary cinema. Garrel was 88; English-language obits of the actor seem slow in appearing, but for those with a little French, here’s the story in Libération.
Oh, I thought he would go on forever.
GK, of course KINGS AND QUEEN is a perfect swan song but he was in a couple of movies after that, including REGULAR LOVERS and ACTRESSES, a very funny movie by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. Louis is in that one too.
I was thinking of “swan song” with respect to the character, who, as we know, is speaking from what I’ll call another place, and who won’t be heard from directly again. Of course he’s magnificent in “Regular Lovers” and “Actresses” is one I need to catch up with.
Oh my. An amazing acotr. I find him especially fascinating in Patrice Chereau’s Son Frere and his son’s masterpiece Les Amants Reguliers (which stars his grandson.)
Why is there not a Criterion edition of Kings and Queen yet…[?]
The existing Region 1 DVD of “Kings and Queen” is fine, and has the advantage of including an excellent interview of Desplechin by Kent Jones, which this viewer found extremely informative. Fans of the movie would not go wrong acquiring it, imo.
If Criterion was to bring out a Blu ray disc, of course, there’d be no complaint from me. I hope Mr. Jones’s interview would be ported over and included among the extras on any Criterion release, assuming such a thing would be possible from a licensing perspective.
Of course he’s magnificent in “Regular Lovers” and “Actresses” is one I need to catch up with.
Criterion hasn’t licensed anything from the Wellspring catalog since “Ran,” way back in 2005. That was around the same time Wellspring was snapped up by the Weinsteins – I doubt the timing is coincidental. It’s a small miracle the DVD is even still available (most of Wellspring’s titles haven’t fared so well).