Philippe Noiret

Born on October 1, 1930, in Lille, in northern France, Philippe Noiret studied acting at the Center Dramatique de l’Ouest. He started in the theater, specifically in the TNP company. At that time he excited viewers for his versatility and his powerful voice. It was the director Agnès Varda , that of The Gleaners and the Gleaner , who at that time was the photographer for the TNP company, who realized her potential for cinema. Neither short nor lazy, she gave the actor his first major role on celluloid, in La Pointe-courte, an extraordinary cinematographic experiment that mixed documentary images of life in a small fishing village with a tragic fictional story. Shortly after, he played his first unforgettable role, Gabriel, the eccentric uncle of the protagonist of Zazie in the subway , one of the great films by Louis Malle , who filmed a comedy against the current, in the midst of the hegemony of the Nouvelle Vague. After starring in Jean-Paul Rappeneau ‘s Naive Wife and Yves Robert ‘s The Art of Living… But Well , Noiret decided to leave the theater to focus on her film career.

In addition to falling in love with his profession, Noiret fell in love with a fellow professional, actress Monique Chaumette , whom he met while filming a 1959 television version of Macbeth , in which both had very little roles. They married three years later, and remained very close until the actor’s death, despite the fact that Noiret had a reputation for dazzling all the women who passed around him. He tried the American Adventure, after George Cukor gave him a small part in Justine . And despite the fact that he got to work with the wizard of suspense in Topaz , one of Alfred Hitchcock ‘s worst films, he quickly realized that his chances in Hollywood were quite limited. “I think that for a European actor there is nothing to do in Hollywood, apart from Banderas. Even the English have had it difficult. I did two or three things; for example, shooting with Hitchcock and Universal. It was funny, but it was mostly just an unimportant anecdote. The truth is that he had no ambition to succeed in Hollywood, so I’m not complaining, ”the actor recalled in an interview.

He had more luck in Italian cinema. He played one of the four deranged people who, in Marco Ferreri ‘s La gran comilona , ​​reached a most terrifying pact: they would all lock themselves up together to eat until they died. The film caused a great deal of controversy at the time, and made Noiret a star in Italy, where he made numerous films.

Bertrand Tavernier discovered him in 1974, when he gave him the leading role in The Watchmaker of Saint Paul , an adaptation of a novel by Simenon in which he was a watchmaker, investigating the murder of his son. From then on, Noiret became the filmmaker’s favorite actor, who recruited him for several of his best films: The Judge and the Assassin , where Noiret was the judge, 1280 Souls , A Holiday Weekend , Veillées d’armes , Contre l’oubli , Around midnight , D’Artagnan’s daughter , in which he was a sick d’Artagnan with numerous ailments and above all Life and nothing else, where he played Commander Dellaplane, who at the end of World War I helped a woman find her missing husband.

At the end of the 80s, Philippe Noiret became the emblem of a type of quality European cinema, capable of competing with the more commercial cinema coming from Hollywood. He participated in The Family , by Ettore Scola , a success after being nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film. But the real bombshell was another Italian film, Cinema Paradiso, a sensitive tribute to the passion for cinema, in which he embodied his most unforgettable character, the mythical Alfredo, a projectionist who collected the pieces of celluloid with the kisses that censorship forced him to cut from the movies.

“I am very grateful to the United States for saving us in the war. But I also have to say that today we are victims of his cinematographic imperialism. We have allowed American cinema to completely invade us, but we are all guilty of that in Europe, because we have not been able to unite to compete with it”, recalled the actor. Of course, he was capable of standing up to the great majors, for example with El cartero (and Pablo Neruda) , in which he became the famous Chilean poet, who reproached his postman for having appropriated his works, to seduce his beloved, and he answered: “Poetry belongs to no one. It belongs to those who need it.”

Filmmakers demanded much less of him at the end of the 90s, which is why Philippe Noiret decided to return to the stage, alternating the theater with the screen. The thriller Edy was his last work, although before he died he finished 3 friends , a comedy by Michel Boujenah , in which he played a small role.