French director, screenwriter, writer and Oscar winner Bertrand Blier died on Tuesday in Paris at the age of 85which has several so-called art films, but he became famous as the one who launched the later star Gérard Depardieu into the world of cinema. TASR informs according to the report of the AFP agency.
The director’s son, Leonard Blier, told AFP that his father died at home in Paris, surrounded by his wife and children.
The French newspaper Le Figaro wrote that in Blier “One of the last giants of French cinema has passed awaywho managed to create his own universe, wrote and directed films unforgettable for many generations, attracted the most important actors”.
According to AFP, Blier “burst onto the scene” at a time when French New Wave directors were “running out of steam” and dazzled the audience with his black comedies full of marginal charactersvillains, rogue policemen and prostitutes.
Blier is considered one of the classics of the cinematography of the 70s and 80s of the last century. He started his career in 1963. His famous works include the crime comedy Les Valseuses and the 1977 film Prepare the tissues (Préparez vos mouchoirs), for which he won the American film Oscar in the category of best foreign language film.
In 1984, he released the drama Our Story (Notre histoire) starring Alain Delon, for which the actor won his only French César film award in his career. Blier himself received César for the best screenplay.
Blier’s film Too Beautiful (Trop belle pour toi) with Depardieu in the lead role also caught the attention of the international audience: he played a man who gets bored with his beautiful wife and falls in love with his much simpler secretary. Blier won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for this film and five Césars, including an award for Depardieu’s film and then life partner Carole Bouquet.
In the 1990s – after a series of film flops – Blier had problems securing financing for his films.
In 2010, he returned to surrealism with the black comedy The Ring of the Ice (Le Bruit des glaçons), in which he addressed the topic of cancer. In the film, an alcoholic writer played by Jean Dujardin talked about his illness. Cancer took the form of a man in this film, played by Albert Dupontel.
