After Tanned AND Bronzes skiThis is the other cult film since the beginning of Michel Blanc. Also made by Patrice Leconte, Come home, live with a girlfriend (1981) is a social comedy about the precariousness of young people. And one of the most striking roles of the actor, which shows all the subtlety of his game.
Michel Blanc embodies Guy, a character similar to Jean-Claude Dusse, an incorrigible female broker who lives from mischief and squadrons with his friends. Despite the similarities with the hero of TannedMichel Blanc breathes more emotion in this loser character that then begins to stick to her skin.
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The project was born in 1979 on the set of Tanned skiingOf a desire that Michel Blanc works only with Patrice Leconte. “It’s not that he wanted to escape from splendid, but he has always been more easily alone,” he says in our podcast Comedy Club. “He told me:” We should write movies together. “
“A very good dialogue”
When Christian Fechner, particular producer of Wing or thighoffers Patrice Leconte to adapt the part Come home, live with a girlfriendThe filmmaker immediately suggests the name of Michel Blanc as a writing partner. “This is how we take the tangent compared to the splendid.”
To write the script, the two men have a well -established work method. A task distribution that allows them to write a particularly fun and effective script. “It was happy and intense work sessions trying to do the best possible,” excites Patrice Leconte.
“We saw each other every day, we wrote the scenes, the construction of the movie,” he adds. “And then, at the end of the afternoon, around 5 pm, I was going to do it and dialogue the scenes that had been invented during the day. The next day, when I arrived, he read the scenes I had talked. It was a very good dialogue. He wrote incredible dialogues.”
“There was talk of the orgy”
One day, Michel Blanc has a block. Impossible for dialogue a scene. “If I did not get there, it is because the scene is not well designed,” the actor blows to its director. “He was right. We rework this scene and could dialogue it. And it always remained for me. If I have kept something essential in my work, that’s all.”
The original piece, signed Luis Rego, Jean-Luc Voulfow, Jean-Paul Sèvres and Didier Kaminka, had been created in March 1975 at the Édouard VII Theater in Paris. And she spoke without taboo sex. In their adaptation work, Michel Blanc and Patrice Leconte choose to keep the title, but completely change the story.
“In the room, there was talk of orgy,” said Patrice Leconte. “There is a bit (in the film) with the character of the anemone (in the scene where) they play the scabble and that she twists the idea that we are all naked and that we are full of the cushions.”
“There were one or two funny, pleasant (but) the argument of the work was a bit thin,” continues Patrice Leconte. “It worked in the theater, surely, but I think it would not have worked in a movie. So we wrote to our idea freely and nobody loved us.”
Social Comedy
Therefore, the duo writes a film about the economic reality of France in the 1980s. ” Return homeThere is this taste for marginalized species, “says Patrice Leconte.” These are people who have a job, who earn some money, but in two months they will be fired and will have to find something else. “
“I have never had the impression or desire to witness my time. In most of the movies I have made, I try as much as possible to escape the current era. But it is true that, in retrospect, I realize that Return home It is very outdated (Y) testifies to the reality of the 80s, “acknowledges the director.
In Come home, live with a girlfriendMichel Blanc plays a character in the line of Jean-Claude Dusse. The same mustache, the same skull of nudes, even the raffle of the losers. But Michel Blanc interprets it differently from Tanned. On the screen, all the subtlety of his game explodes.
“He interpreted characters for a long time that, in his own way, they were losers, but did not play them in the same way. Jean-Claude Dusse, is a bit unfortunate loser. Return homeGuy is a positive and enthusiastic loser. He saw it with a crazy joy. It is a very happy loser, “he analyzes.
“We saw each other very little”
In the set, despite his participation in the stage, Michel Blanc is humble, discreet, worker. “Never, on the set he behaved like the co-series or the dialogue of the film. Never. From the moment the shooting began, he was the actor who played Guy, and that was all.”
But when discovering the movie, Michel Blanc has a surprising reaction to say the least. “In the projection room of Boulogne’s study, we were both. The movie takes place. There is no particular reaction. Then, the movie ends and the room is coming back. It says’ Yes, that’s fine, that’s fine. But it’s all that is very interesting? ””
In cinemas in January 1981, Come home, live with a girlfriend It is a great success, with 2.8 million viewers. The director and the actor rework many times, especially in Mr. Hire. But even after working with him so long, Michel Blanc is still a mystery for Patrice Leconte.
“Among the movies, we saw each other very little,” reveals the director. “There was confidence, complicity, a true friendship between us who did not keep out of filming. That’s why someone quite mysterious remained for me, who had his gray areas.”
Source: BFM TV
