Gerard Depardieu

Our Francisco de Quevedo would have diverted the object of his pen if instead of Góngora’s nose it had crossed the one attached to this ‘wardrobe’ defective from the factory (it is not exactly a Greek statue). With sharp verb, cloak and dagger, he could not better defend his nasal appendage, even greater by the work and grace of another distinguished writer, Edmond Rostand . Luckily, pardiez, that he touched our hearts declaiming verses like an Cyrano de Bergeracunforgettable “profile” (1991). Perhaps smelling good papers is his thing, a sense revived among the bouquet of his Anjou vineyards, like him, with a French designation of origin (Chateroux, 1948); who knows if he also perceived among the essence of the Bouquet, that is, Carole, his beloved, his current Roxanne (he is already filing a divorce).

It will be because his voluminous nature exudes virility from every pore that proposed such impertinence to him: Do you want to be my wife’s lover? (1978). Although later, in a comedy key, his masculine ego was humiliated in Goodbye to the Macho (1978), and that before he was a prominent thug in Los rompepelotas(1974), turning point on his way to success. The perfume of glory of him (already national) is more than 35 years in front of the cameras. He has inhaled all genres and has found himself especially comfortable in the historical costumes (without mothballs) of Rodin, Danton, Balzac, Vatel or Columbus. Qualities of an actor, then, immense as his size, to sweat the characters, feel them on the skin and make them shine more than the knight’s medal of the Legion of Honor that hangs on him for his services to the… screen, big screen (above all). . More upturned nose since then?

At least about his work – “cinema is a team effort” – nobody can swear. Both under the command of established directors (Truffaut, Resnais, Weir, Bertolucci…) and new ones (Pitof), he has left a trace of his absolute professionalism – “if you don’t show your soul, the camera immediately gives you away when you don’t succeed”– . Anti-fascist peasant ( Novecento , 1976), tough cop ( Police 1985), urbanite idealist ( El manantial de las colinas , 1986), father in trouble ( My father. What a flirt!, 1991), oppressed miner ( Germinal , 1993), unsuspecting fool (Shut up!, 2003)… come on, records, those who throw him out, in the purest style of his colleague Robert De Niro, leaving aromas of interpretive high school. It is difficult to sniff out his track in more than 170 film and television productions, shot in a variety of countries, not only as an actor, but also as a producer and director ( Tartuffe , 1984). He sends noses that he takes the female audience to the orchard with that striking mixture of wild attractiveness and hidden sensitivity, evidenced after the tender ‘undocumented’ of Marriage of Convenience (1990), which earned him a Golden Globe. Uncle Oscar also called at his door with Cyrano , although César is the award that has entered his house twice, precisely because of that film and with El último metro (1980). Of course, the star also has “sins” that stink commercials excessively (The Iron Mask , 1988), not to mention that with some films the critics almost got distemper ( 102 Dalmatians , 2000). The truth is that the interested party is vaccinated against everything. Much more because in an American magazine they turned him from a spectator to a participant in the rape of a girl, when he was a juvenile delinquent. As in the past to get out of the street, interpretation was once again his escape route for such a bad situation. After an existence of full artistic evolution, he is now asking for early retirement. Be that as it may, the file has it fulfilled, although we would all like to continue enjoying this rebellious, romantic, vulnerable but daring figure. In the smell of crowds… Gérard, how great you are!