For the viewing pleasure of our non-french friends!
I subbed the scene in Hibernatus (1969) where Louis de Funès' character, Hubert, freaks out and start confusingly telling the truth to Paul (the truth being, they reconstituted his house to keep the illusion, but he's 60 years in the future, and Hubert is sick and tired of having to put up with him)
And by dump i really mean in this essay i will, so be wary of the readmore.
Louis de Funès was born in 1914, his parents were a dysfunctional but mostly in love spanish couple of aristocratic descent (favorite trivia bit of people who want to look like they're shining is: his full name was De Funès De Galarza. My favorite bit of trivia about his family is that his dad faked his own suicide to move to south america away from his wife but she disagreed with it and went there to pull him back home by the ear. Moving on)
He was small, he was balding as a 30 yo or so, and he had heart problems. Spent most of WW1 in diapers, as explained above, and most of WW2 playing the piano in bars to make ends meet. He was also a royalist which, before anyone says anything, is the punkest thing a 1950s-60s-70s french guy can be. He was also a devout catholic.
Anyway, moving on from the guy himself and onto his characters.
The characters he plays are generally in position of authority, but not supreme authority (a police officer, but not the chief of police; a grandee of spain, not the king himself), and when he IS at the top of the ladder (frequent roles of CEOs, less frequent role of mafia boss or troop director, etc) it's not that ladder of power that matters for the plot. It leads him to bully the weak, clumsily curry the favor of the strong... he is also mostly high-strung, constantly mere minutes away from a heart attack (in real life, he was shy and reserved... and he did die of a heart attack, sadly enough), and giving ulcers to everyone around as well as themselves.
One of his earliest movies with a good deal of screentime, and one of the best remembered at any rate, is La Traversée de Paris (roughly translated: The Crossing of Paris). Funnily enough, he shares the screen, as a background character, with Bourvil, who plays the main role. Why it's funny is that Bourvil and Louis de Funès went on to play a couple of movies as co-leads in the late 60s or early 70s, and would have done more if Bourvil hadn't died. From what I know, they became good friends. So it's kinda funny in hindsight that they were already sharing screen in 1956 way before he got big. In La Traversée de Paris he plays a merchant who deals in black market. In his role can already be recognised the marks of his later characters: the merchant bullies Bourvil, then, when faced with the more intimidating Jean Gabin, immediately caves in. Strong with the weak, weak with the strong.
Then he played in theaters, where he got popular. In 1961, he played a pair of twins in La Belle Américaine, (The Pretty American, american here meaning american car) a movie I honestly love despite the small role he has. It's very vaudevillesque with intersecting comedic plot lines, misunderstandings, etc. The roles he play there are even more similar to his iconic ones: not only the Strong with the Weak, Weak with the Strong is already there, but he is also high strung as one of the brothers, and in a middle management position in both cases (middle management of a factory, and chief of a small police precinct).
At the time of La Belle Américaine, he was 47 and already looked like a 60-something man, as he got white hair then no hair very early.
His role in the play Oscar leads to his success. He will later play the main character again for the screen adaptation of the play, opposite Claude Rich who is honestly breathtakingly good in it. But let's leave Oscar for later. First, we have Pouic-Pouic.
Pouic-Pouic is also a play that was adapted for the screen. In it, he plays a role he would play a lot for the rest of his career: the highstrung father of a small family, at the head of a booming business, but nerfed by the eccentricities of everyone around him as well as his own eccentricity. Let's not spoil further, except perhaps to say the title is the name of his wife's pet chicken, to give you an idea.
the main characters of Pouic-Pouic: from left to right: a guy about to be conned, a guy pretending to be both the son and the son-in-law of De Funès, an airhead with a pet chicken, Louis de Funès, and the daughter of Louis de Funès' character.
From Pouic-Pouic (1963) onward, Louis de Funès dominated french cinema.
He played an ambitious police officer in the six movies of Le Gendarme, he played a dozen of high strung CEOs (Oscar, Le Corniaud, Rabbi Jacob, La Zizanie, Hibernatus...) or other figures of authority (a grandee of Spain in La Folie des Grandeurs, a boarding school director in Les Grandes Vacances, the founder of a culinary guide in L'aile ou la cuisse, the top boss of a restaurant in Le grand restaurant, etc), a police officer again in the three Fantomas movies, the main character in a Molière adaptation, and a peasant in a movie which existence i'm just going to ignore because it's so much not one of his bests that it actually becomes one of his few bad movies imo.
From 1963 to his death in 1983, he was a giant among the greats of French Cinema.
Anyway, top ten of his best roles imo to follow some day soon.
It's a wrap! After 32 shooting days, filming for series 2 of Ghosts has wrapped. Cristina shared the picture above on her Instagram today to mark the occasion. It looks like we're getting a camping episode!
a gifset for every tww episode (in no particular order): bartlet for america (3x09)
“I’ve been walking around in a kind of daze for two weeks. And everywhere I go, planes, trains, restaurants, meetings… I find myself scribbling something down.”
