It is the President of the Republic who fell from a train in pajamas. The Tiger and the President by Jean-Marc Peyrefitte relies on the performance of Jacques Gamblin and an excellent screenplay by Marc Syrigas to reveal that Paul Deschanel (1855-1922) was actually much better than this eccentric anecdote.
“The story told by the film sticks to historical reality, explains Jacques Gamblin to 20 minutes. This politician was a visionary and the director Jean-Marc Peyrefitte brought together the most beautiful ideas of Paul Deschanel in a booklet which he distributed to the whole team in order to impregnate us with them. The President of the Republic, who only remained in office for seven months, wanted, among other things, to give women the right to vote, abolish the death penalty and establish a universal income. But he will find on his way Le Tigre, that is to say Georges Clémenceau, embodied in the film by André Dussollier.
An interpretation of reality
“I obviously looked at images and photos of Paul Deschanel, confides Jacques Gamblin, but it was impossible for me to reproduce his grandiloquent way of speaking which would have seemed too emphatic for today’s spectators. The actor therefore relied on his imagination to bring this brilliant man back to life, but suffering from a depression that his enemies and loved ones too quickly baptized madness.
“Day by day, his condition deteriorated and it was the most complex part of my composition, because we weren’t shooting chronologically,” recalls Jacques Gamblin. Obsessed with a speech he has to deliver, the man gives in to terrible stress until a drug calms him down, probably a little too much.
“Slipping into the period costume also helped me a lot to find the character, his appearance, his behavior,” says Jacques Gamblin. His mustache also that I really grew, allowed me to appropriate his gestures. The spectator feels a deep tenderness for this historical figure who becomes human before his eyes. His meeting with a family of farmers like his verbal duels with Le Tigre allow Jaques Gamblin to give the full measure of his talent and the charisma of the President. “I tried to suggest the reality of Paul Deschanel” insists the actor. The public feels an immense empathy for this man ahead of his time, who was removed from power by illness.