A French artist and gentleman

France paused today to salute a great and beloved actor and for once the superlatives were justified. Philippe Noiret, the warm-hearted, velvet-voiced veteran of 120 films, succumbed to cancer at the age of 76. He was not a star in the sense of glamour and sex-appeal. He was no Alain Delon or Yves Montand.  He was Monsieur Ordinaire.  His rumpled face, hang-dog expression and nonchalant character was the essence of Frenchness. For nearly 50 years, he was part of the landscape.

Noiret, a stage actor in the 1950s, is best-known abroad for his Franco-Italian films, Cinema Paradiso in 1988 and and Il Postino in 1994. But at home, he is remembered for decades of hits, starting with Louis Malle's Zazie dans le Métro in 1960 and ending with Claude Zidie's Les Ripoux 3 in 2003, his third outing as a corrupt but loveable police detective.

For those of us of a certain generation, Noiret, bon vivant, world-weary and wry, was one of the reasons we fell in love with France.

His greatest decade was probably the 1970s. My favourites were the two Bertrand Tavernier films in which he starred with his friend and frequent movie foil, Jean Rochefort. These were L'Horloger de Saint Paul, where he played a Lyon watch-maker and Que la Fête Commence, in which he was the dissolute regent of early 18th century France.

In later life, Noiret cultivated the image of a literate gentleman farmer, dividing his time between a country house near Carcassonne and his flat in Saint Germain-des-Près on the Left Bank. But he kept hard at work almost to the end. Last year, he returned to the Paris stage in A.R. Gurney's Love Letters, appearing to sold-out houses alone with Anouk Aimée (see September post ).

The tributes to Noiret from President Chirac and official France have had an unusually heart-felt quality. The president, who is two years younger than Noiret, called him a "giant, one of the masters of the stage and the screen, one of theatre's and cinema's most outstanding and engaging people.

"Through his genius, his sense of humour, his elegance and composure he gained the recognition of his peers and the heart of all French women and men."

To get back to politics, Noiret's parting shot was to upstage Nicolas Sarkozy, Chirac's would-be successor next spring. The leader of the centre-right UMP party was appearing live on the TF1 main evening TV news last night to launch his campaign against Ségolène Royal, the Socialist. They broke into the broadcast to report Noiret's death, robbing Sarkozy of his moment of glory.

Comments

[pouet]

What a loss!
I remember a recording he made of Queneau's poems. It was a great one. I'm so sad I lost it (old LP)
He also made a lecture of Gargantua. I find it very representative of his character: human, humorous, sensible and sensitive.

[fleetmoon]

All right so even on a (great man's) orbituary, one can't prevent from talking about N. Sarkozy.
I'm worried for the future and this paper.

[christopher muir]

Phillipe Noiret can never be replaced.
His acting skills,firmly set in the performance disciplines of the past, are often being replaced by the shallow and the superficial. He listened intently to the lines of his fellow actors, leaving it to his often weary eyes to silently show his feelings about their desires. The most minor of characters appeared to be always worthy of Noiret’s deep consideration. Whatever their status, he generously believed they deserved his deliberations. Phillipe Noiret (like Milan Kundera’s book, “Slowness”) made me wonder why the world is forever in such a hurry. His contributions to the cinema were something of a two hour refuge from what looks like contemporary chaos. Undoubtedly he was an admirable human being.

[jorgandersen]

Noiret will be sorely missed. It's a pity that the world is so dominated by Anglo-Saxon actors. There are few in Hollywood who could begin to compare to him. You expressed it excellently...

[Jay Bhattacharjee]

What a loss for world cinema and the
arts !

Papa Jacques, for a change,was also perceptive in his elegant tribute to this gentle giant.

My first memories of this superb actor date back to the winter of 1962 when the Alliance Francaise and the French Consulate in Calcutta had a showing of "Zazie dans le Metro". Those were the days of a non-globalised India, with strict foreign exchange controls. Major Hollywood productions took at least two years to reach the cinema halls and European films never made it at all.

A fussy official (a passed-over French fonctionnaire) tried his best to prevent our entry - we were impecunious undergraduates in our teens and scruffily attired. The French phrases that we bandied around finally did the trick and the man relented. We managed, therefore, to see Philippe Noiret doing his magic.

For me, "Cinema Paradiso" was also moving. However,nothing can surpass "Il Postino" : - what a combination - Neruda, Noiret, Michael Radford and the wonderful Italian actor, Massimo Troisi (who tragically died a few days after the film was released)!
Massimo Troisi's gaunt visage as he plays the role of the postman, who is fascinated by the great Neruda, is imprinted in most viewers' minds.

Thank you Charles Bremner for sharing your memories of Philippe Noiret with us.

[jean-michel]

quelle perte ! je ne peux m'empêcher d'écrire ici un message en Français... et de noter aussi que cette perte est ressentie des côtés des rives avec une égale intensité
adieu l'artiste

[Arthur Craig]

A great loss to World Cinema.Noiret made it all look so easy, natural and unfussy,he didn't appear to be acting and kept it simple. Whatever role or character he played he was that person,you couldn't conceive of anyone else in that part.
He will be greatly missed.