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It seems strangely appropriate that 76-year-old French movie star Gérard Depardieu was found guilty of sexual assault and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence on the eve of the 78th edition of the Cannes film festival. Both Cannes and Depardieu, born in the 40s, belong to an old world, but it seems only one of them has managed to adapt to the times we live in, especially since the #MeToo movement.
For anyone who followed the trial closely, it was never in doubt that justice would prevail and that a French monument was about to fall. Once the accusers, two female technicians who worked as set-dresser and assistant director on the film Les Volets Verts in 2021, had pressed charges and the facts been exposed in court, there was little doubt as to the dignity of the victims and the veracity of the sexual assaults. But what was particularly striking was how Depardieu behaved throughout the trial. His attitude was an aggravating factor for the public but also the court. Unrepentant, uncomprehending, lamenting that he didn’t understand this new world, Depardieu pretended to be physically frailer than he was, and lacked gravitas.
For this French citizen, there was one particularly revealing moment in the trial, when 76-year-old actor Fanny Ardant (who starred alongside Depardieu in François Truffaut’s The Woman Next Door) testified in support of her friend Depardieu. She made her entrance in a long black dress and white collar, and delivered a passionate monologue about the art of acting. “I know we are here to search for the truth, but I would like to broaden the debate and say why Gérard Depardieu is such a great actor. He is a genius at giving his characters depth and richness, and a complexity with its share of contradiction, good and evil, light and shadow. Any genius carries in them something extravagant, rebellious and dangerous (…) If he is loved all over the world it is because everyone can recognise themselves in the characters he plays. (…) Yes, he has a big mouth, yes, he shouts obscenities, yes, he plays the fool. Without taking risks, one is no more an artist, one is just a servant.”
Ardant ended: “I know the world has changed, I know we now find intolerable what we used to tolerate and that institutions are here to transform society, but fear should not become the new morality.” The court’s president thanked Ardant for “this beautiful portrait of Gérard Depardieu” and, implacable, reminded the actor that “we are not here for morality purposes; we are here to apply the law. And to look at facts of sexual assaults.” Indeed. There was never a better reminder, especially in France, that facts prevail and that even genius cannot be a shield any more.
On Tuesday, Depardieu’s lawyer declared they would appeal against the court’s decision. However, the film industry sentenced him a long time ago. The actor, arguably one of the greatest of the 20th century, hasn’t shot a film in the last three years and his rare performances on stage have been disrupted by protesters. In light of this judgment his career could be finished and his reputation profoundly tarnished. What remains is his work: more than 200 films and TV series. They exist, in people’s memories and in celluloid, and they cannot be erased.
This cinephile will not banish masterpieces such as Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900, Truffaut’s The Last Metro and The Woman Next Door, Andrzej Wajda’s Danton, Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satan, and Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s Cyrano from her personal cinematic pantheon. A film is a sum of many talents, in front of and behind the camera and the acts of one individual should not taint the work of another hundred. However, to say that the fall of Depardieu will have no impact on our experience as viewers is of course deluded. Cinephiles are also citizens, they don’t live in a vacuum-packed world. Watching those films again may prove a bittersweet experience, just like watching postwar French films with actors who chose to collaborate with the enemy during the second world war. Unsavoury and sad.
