Le Monde journalist Raphaëlle Bacqué investigated at length the monster of French cinema Gérard Depardieu. After the publication of her work, she returns to her discoveries in the light of the artist’s recent indictment.
Raphaëlle Bacqué investigated Gérard Depardieu at length to produce a remarkable series of six articles published this summer.
The monster of French cinema
Is the Gérard Depardieu case not crystallizing the subject of sexual violence?
He is the best-known French actor, the one who has the greatest longevity at this level. He played a series of very great roles, the most symbolic of which was that of Cyrano. You still have to keep in mind that Cyrano is being shown in schools! Everyone knows Depardieu, which explains why everything relating to who he is, to what he represents, has a national and international impact. And if, in addition, it intersects with such a burning social issue…
What is the responsibility of those around him in his own drift?
She is very important. Nobody stopped him. It is firstly linked to the power that I described previously: when you are the one on whom the production of a film depends, few people dare to reprimand you. It is also linked to the admiration he arouses. This is why I find it absurd to want to deny his talent. If he had been a mediocre actor, we would never have let him do it. He would have been fired from filming. From this point of view, his talent, his genius even, played a pernicious role in what he became. When it should have been a blessing, it became a curse. The world of cinema also plays a role in this drift: we always have in mind the image of the very progressive, and to say quite moralistic, speeches delivered during the César ceremony, but cinema is an incredibly hierarchical world, and actually quite archaic. So, either you are the star and you are given absolutely everything, or you are a small hand – makeup artist, extra, technician – and you have no say. It is also these people that Gérard Depardieu attacked. He never attacks a woman who has as much power as him. He never attacked Catherine Deneuve…
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“I am very worried about Gérard but I trust the justice system” says Sophie Rigon from Nîmes, friend of Depardieu
Exactly: how could the strong women who shared his life, like Carole Bouquet, ignore his behavior?
Because he is a man with two faces. He is both the obscene character that we saw in the Complément d’Enquête sequence and the erudite and poetic man who recites the great writers by heart. He is both, as much one as the other. He can be wonderful, touching, very sensitive and at the same time he can be a monster of obscenity, vulgarity, brutality. This is why it is absurd to react to his remarks in a Manichean way. We can neither say only that he is a genius, nor only say that he is a bastard. He is both a great actor and a bad guy.
What role did his massive alcoholism, which you mention numerous times in your investigation, play in his excesses?
He is obviously responsible for what he ingests, but I believe that alcohol plays a very big role in his trajectory. Every time he slips up, by word or gesture, he has been drinking. He is almost always drunk. This is someone who drinks a lot, on the order of several liters per day. This obviously does not excuse his behavior with women, it is even an aggravating circumstance, but it is an explanatory factor. This addiction has also played tricks on him in his career. Finally, she undoubtedly expresses a deep unease.
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After the platform for Gérard Depardieu, the president of the Les Papillons association in Perpignan withdraws his title from Pierre Richard
Emmanuel Macron’s reaction is making a lot of noise. How do you understand it?
I am very surprised that he did not have a more nuanced reaction. He could perfectly have said “I had a lot of admiration for the actor. I respect the presumption of innocence but there are complaints and justice must now be done.” Nobody would have spoken about it. Instead, he denies what is happening, with an almost conspiratorial vision of the four minutes broadcast by Complément d’investigation. He apparently had Gérard Depardieu on the phone. Perhaps he is doing it for human reasons? But for a President of the Republic, in the current context, this still remains a reaction for the less surprising.