Hé bé, Prévost !
 

Posted on 14.10.2023

The first documentary devoted to actor Daniel Prévost, Bande de ringards by Julien Camy, is a fine blend of humorous memories and intimate confessions.

Bande de ringards, 2023

The actor

Daniel Prévost is 83 years old and his career has been dedicated to the comic dynamism of supporting roles, sometimes veering towards the absurd, or even the disturbing, with a twinkle in his eye or an inimitable laugh. The crowning glory (among others) of these seemingly average characters that hide a subversive madness is “Lucien Cheval”, the football-obsessed tax inspector in Francis Veber's Le Dîner de Cons, which won him the César award for Best Supporting Actor in 1999.

The premise

The idea of setting up the actor's "secret garden" by the sea, the Mediterranean he crossed as a child, is a wonderful way of steering the documentary towards intimacy. After all, Daniel Prévost was raised for a long time by a stepfather with anarchist tendencies, learning only later that he was the son of a Kabyle, belatedly reconnecting with a previously unknown family. Alongside excerpts and testimonials (notably from normally non-loquacious filmmakers Thomas Gilou and Eric le Roch), it is Prévost, in his own words, who reveals the inner flaws behind the clown's mask…

Highlights

The memories and insightful analyses of José Garcia, his co-star of Would I Lie to You? 2; an astonishing archive of Le Petit conservatoire de Mireille, a TV show from the “olden days” (pointing this out for youngsters), where a young Daniel Prévost dreamt of becoming a singer with (surreal) lyrics; an incidental confession: he was unhappy with host Jacques Martin and the latter’s Le Petit Rapporteur (“The Little Snitch”, barely more recent than Mireille), even though it is thanks to this television show that many of us discovered him.

Aurélien Ferenczi

Bande de ringards by Julien Camy (Documentary, 2023, 52min)
Institut Lumière (Villa) - Sat. 14 at 2.15pm
in the presence of Julien Camy and Daniel Prévost.

Daniel Prévost, the author of Autobiographie de moi par moi (Le Cherche-midi) and Le pont de la révolte (Gallimard) will hold a book signing at the end of the screening.