Screen Icons: Gerard Depardieu DVD | Movie Mail UK

Film Description

Features four films: Tout les Matins du Monde, Le Colonel Chabert, Buffet Froid and Mon Pere ce Heros.

From delinquent youth to one of France's most prominent and prolific actors, Gerard Depardieu is one of a kind. His acting career kicked off when he was taken in by a small traveling theatre troupe. Then Bertrand Blier (director of Buffet Froid, included in this set) gave Depardieu his first big break in Les Valseuses. It was a massive hit in France, and established him as a star. Amazingly prolific since then, the larger than life Depardieu is undoubtedly France’s most legendary actor whose talent for diversity is explored through all four of these titles.

In Tout les Matins du Monde (Alain Corneau, 1991), a legendary viola player, Monsieur de Saint Colombe (Jean Pierre Marielle) has lived a hermit-like existence with his two young daughters since being devastated by the death of his wife. Refusing even the invitations of king Louis XIV, Saint Colombe remains exiled from the outside world until the arrival at his house one day of a man named Marin Marais (Depardieu) who asks to be taught how to play the viola. Marais is portrayed as a young man by Depardieu’s son Guillaume, with the all-star cast rounded out by the likes of Anne Brochet, Michel Bouquet and Jean-Claude Dreyfus. Winner of 7 Cesars, including those for Best Film and Best Director.

Le Colonel Chabert (Yves Angelo, 1994) is based on the novel by Balzac and was nominated for 6 Cesars. It sees Depardieu in the title role as a soldier gravely wounded in the Napoleonic wars who goes missing for 10 years. When his memory returns, he finds his way back to Paris and his “widow” (Fanny Ardent) who has since remarried to a Count (Andre Dussolier) and is financing his bid for political power with Chabert’s money. Chabert hires a lawyer (Fabrice Luchini) but will the court case provide Chabert with justice at last or unmask him as a fraud?

In Mon Pere ce Heros (Gérard Lauzier, 1991), Depardieu stars as a divorced father who takes his precocious daughter on holiday to the Bahamas in order to bond with her. In desperation to make her happy, he agrees to pose as her older lover in order to arouse jealousy in a local boy on whom she has a crush. Depardieu was so winning in the role that he was recast as the father in the Hollywood remake opposite then unknown Katherine Heigl.

Finally, Buffet Froid (Blier, 1979) is a blackly comic tale of a young unemployed man, his neighbour, policeman Inspector Morvandieu and their unwitting involvement in a series of murders. An impressionistic look at life and alienation in modern city, it also stars Bernard Blier, Carole Bouquet and Jean Carmet.