The STUDENT In meeting the 26/07/2017

The student with Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel is the subject of an advert at the cinema. Directed by Edouard Molinaro, this classic is strongly impregnated with the leg of Francis Veber.

Directed by the expert adaptations of the plays Edouard Molinaro (who has previously made Oscar and Hibernatus, and later La Cage Aux Folles), The EMMERDEUR (1973), is considered a “classic” by its success in theaters, and most importantly, its strong entry in this kind of comedy of boulevard cinema version where there is a mixture and confusion, dramatic circumstances, puns, and gags.

However, the first five minutes have any the polar. Objective : to stage the arrival of the character, the more cold and unfazed by the story. By his natural charisma come straight from his passive wrestler, Lino Ventura plays the hitman methodical and emotionless. It is only when the music to suspense gives way to the sounds of the most picturesque of the accordion that landed on a small country road the second man, François Pignon.

Jacques Brel is the first to embody this character to the movies. Although his performance as an actor is embedded in the continuity of what he was capable of doing during his musical performances, always inhabited and striking, every time it is impressive to see how much the actor managed to scan a line, the singer he had been. Another Jacques Brel stands in front of the spectators in each of his films. And The STUDENT is once more (but the last : it will not turn more film after this one) evidence that he had a genuine gift for comedy.

Funny, he also knows how to play his body, of his physical singular to be even more… And to make a formidable François Pignon. The arrival of her character explodes the whole atmosphere of crime, and then installs the comedy which will not leave now the film. After a clumsy suicide attempt, this man depressive and naive makes a lot – in all unconsciousness ! – the plans of the bandit. The height of the story, a strange sort of compassion comes to us in respect of the latter, which tries to get rid in vain for the companion of misfortune, the real ” nuisance “. The two actors, in harmony, make up the duo’s traditional white clown authoritarian and malicious destabilized by the Augustus, which accumulates disasters. Offering a nearly closed door, resting, therefore, on this pair of actors, this comedy to the stage classic is effective only when the couple is.

It is simple, it is benevolent. It is of the Veber.

In addition to this dimension, the imprint of Francis Veber (who wrote this film based on his play The Contract), feels very strongly, much more than in previous scenarios. It is part of the reason that The STUDENT is important. Has never yet produced movie, we see that all the bases of his cinema are already well represented, here, in this long film of Molinaro. If the filmmaker will fine-tune everything during more than 30 years, there are already well-sharpened his writing vaudevillesque, well-developed meaning of the short story set as letter paper, well-defined character traits of their recurrent characters.

In addition, in The Goat, The Fugitives (with Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu), Le Diner de Cons (Jacques Villeret and Thierry Lhermitte), Tais-Toi ! (Depardieu and Jean Reno) and therefore in The STUDENT, the scheme remains substantially the same. There was always this meeting totally risky of the two guys opposite. By the powerful course of things (in this case, the sequence of comic situations), the fate of one cannot be without the other : they become inseparable. The more lucid of the two (usually the rogue) is in a constant mixture of aberration and of admiration for his sidekick who happens to become entangled or extricate themselves from situations that surpasses it completely. These are characters that one starts with a lot of a priori (the one that it takes for an idiot, the other for the heart of stone), and then you eventually find it endearing. The emotion is part of these stories, brought usually by the sincere kindness of Pinion gear, to the tunes of the man in the world. It is simple, it is benevolent. It is of the Veber.

With all these features, The STUDENT is then inseparable from the long list of comedies “Veber” to success, although it didn’t performed. Conscious himself of this little hiccup, and in order to fix the shooting, it will make a remake in 2008. But for Patrick Timsit and Richard Berry, to be difficult to go after Jacques Brel and Lino Ventura that have seared this story ” emmerdeur “, giving this version ofEdouard Molinaro , a work unique and irreplaceable.

Yohann Sed

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