His unique style will have marked French cinema. Director Michel Deville, who received a César for Peril in the House in 1985, died at the age of 91 on February 16. “We are only announcing it today because we wanted to collect ourselves in the intimacy of the family and Michel hated the ceremonies…”, declared his wife and collaborator Rosalinde Deville to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Michel Deville started touring during the New Wave, without ever really belonging to this movement. His last film, Un fil à la patte, dated from 2005. A lover of classical music, he was known for the whimsical and erotic side of his works, but above all for showing unfailing self-sacrifice in producing his films. The screenwriter liked to say that he “didn’t climb very high, but on his own”, quoting Cyrano de Bergerac.
After fifty years of career, the director leaves behind him some thirty masterpieces such as A bullet in the barrel, Tonight or never, Benjamin or the Memoirs of a virgin – with Catherine Deneuve and Michèle Morgan -, L ‘Ours and the Doll – one of Brigitte Bardot’s last roles – or even Peril in the House with the duo Nicole Garcia-Christophe Malavoy and La Lectrice with Miou-Miou.
Michel Deville had learned the craft of filmmaker for ten years, with his mentor Henri Decoin. “All my films, comedies like other more serious, even serious, have been for me games, with rules”, said this man with the bony face and the steel blue eyes who loved above all to treat human beings against their instincts.
For him, writing, in all its forms, was essential. Almost all of his films were taken from literary works that he adapted, such as Le Dossier 51, based on the book by Gilles Perrault, or La Maladie de Sachs, with Albert Dupontel, adapted from the novel by Martin Winckler.
Born in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Hauts-de-Seine, in 1931, the director has never left his town. He died there, at his home, “of old age”, on February 16. He was “buried in the cemetery of Boulogne-Billancourt, his city”, according to his wife.
