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Ebert writes about Michel Piccoli---

posted 13 years ago by hisgrandmogulhighness
4 replies | jump to latest

Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, April 27, 2012 [Movie Review Section], p. 11:

[Extracted from the review of the movie "We Have a Pope."]

He is played by Michel Piccoli, now 86 years old, winner of the best actor award at Cannes in 1980, a favorite of that noted atheist Luis Bunuel, with whom he made seven films, including "The Milky Way," in which he played the Marquis de Sade. That alone would comprise a career, but he has worked with virtually every notable director and made more than 200 features. This is one of his most endearing roles, and he brings great love to it.

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[–] ecarle 12 years ago

Michel Piccoli in "Topaz" always rather intrigued me because...paired with the very interesting-looking, puckish Phillipe Noiret(who seemed equal parts Walter Matthau and Alfred Hitchcock in look to me), Piccoli seemed (the first few times I saw "Topaz")...rather dull and bland looking. Balding. Not particularly handsome or even distinctive of face. Tall, but that was about it for distinction.

As the years went by, I became more and more aware of Piccoli's centrality to foreign films -- to Bunuel and Godard, and in "Belle De Jour" and "Contempt," etc. Piccoli's stature in my eyes grew "retroactively." (And modernly, I often think of the "starless" "Topaz' as actually HAVING stars: Michel Piccoli and Phillipe Noiret.)

And now in 2012, Michel Piccoli is part of a small roster: active movie actors over the age of 80.

Let's hope he joins the ones over the age of 90.

[–] hisgrandmogulhighness 12 years ago

The cast of Topaz is distinctive, it does give us a chance to see some foreign players we normally wouldn't get a chance at seeing . . . one reason I like the film . . . however, again, the film has no "lift"!

[–] ecarle 12 years ago

No..no lift, really.

My defenses of it are twofold:

1. Totally personal(as many movies are to many people); great actual late childhood memories of seeing the film as a newly minted Hitchcock fan at a nice time in my life(thus the movie "feels nice" when I see it)

2. The sense that while not in Hitchcock's top drawer, the various episodes sometimes DO come to life, his style is evident, SOME of the actors(Browne, Noiret, Piccoli, the defector) ARE interesting.

[–] udippel 10 years ago

Ebert or not - I don't need some acclaimed critic to tell me what to think, I can watch and judge on my own!
Correct is, that Piccoli and Noiret are the only two adequate actors in here - sorry, forgot Browne and Vernon, which makes it four.
Piccoli never had a wide variety of roles that he fitted (or was chosen for?), but he has always been the number one fit for 'mysterious character'. I couldn't think of anyone else in this capacity. And, truly the genius Buñuel was, noticed this fact and asked his friend Piccoli whenever he needed just that. The only movie in which he blew it, in my opinion, was La Grande Bouffe. To me, in there he is more primitive than mysterious, but that's another chapter.
Luckily, the last part of this movie played in Paris, and we had two great actors spicing up an otherwise partly dreary movie.
I often felt that European actors were left behind by Hollywood people, who catered for American actors, and stars. So sad! Characters like Deneuve, Piccoli, and a bunch more would have effectively improved on the width and breadth of personifications. Most of all, my favourite, Fernando Rey. Similar to Piccoli, nobody has ever surpassed his 'rejected lover' role, and not only in The Obscure Object of Desire! Hollywood was seemingly most interested in the world class actors of untiring heroes. Which I admire likewise, of course!