The acute awareness of death at work inhabited the films of Paul Vecchiali, a figure of a rebellious, reflexive and hypersentimental cinema, of which there are few examples in France. The filmmaker died on Wednesday January 18 at the age of 92, announced his producer and one of his relatives at the World. Without having always met with the recognition it deserved, his work nonetheless remains prized by connoisseurs and even claimed as a major influence by a whole nebula of young disciples (Axelle Ropert, Laurent Achard, Serge Bozon, Yann Gonzalez, etc. .).
His favorite territory was that of melodrama, a genre conducive to emotional storms as well as all sorts of deviations and exaggerations. He delivered a few tormented, dark, painful and shameless jewels, like the magnificent body to heart (1978), Rosa the rose, public girl (1985) or Once More (1987). Above all, he bequeathed a true model of artistic independence, having produced and distributed not only his own films, but also those of others, thanks to his company, Diagonale, headquarters of one of the rare collective experiences of creation within French cinema.
Born on April 28, 1930 in Ajaccio, Paul Vecchiali grew up in Toulon, with a mother who was a teacher and a father miraculously affected by the Great War who, at the end of the next one, was accused of collaborationism. His encounter with the cinema took place early, from the age of 6, and took the form of a shock: in front of Mayerling (1936), by Anatole Litvak, he swooned over the sparkling Danielle Darrieux, to whom he devoted an ardent cult from then on. He will entrust the legendary actress, forty-seven years later, with the leading role ofAt the top of the stairs (1983): that of his own mother, whom he imagines returning to Toulon to accomplish his vendetta against the enemies of the past.
Trained in the ranks of the Ecole Polytechnique, he was called to Algeria in 1956, where he led several construction sites, sharpening there a sense of organization that he would later reinvest on the sets. Returning to Polytechnique in 1961, but this time as an instructor, he frequented Studio Parnasse, a Mecca for Parisian film lovers, where he notably met the future filmmaker Jean Eustache. The same year, he made his first feature film with Nicole Courcel and Michel Piccoli, The Little Dramasunfortunately lost in the process of finishing.
Criticism, production and direction
Throughout the 1960s, Vecchiali was divided between several activities which, for him, would always remain intrinsically linked. In 1963, he entered the Cinema notebooks, the prestigious magazine with a yellow cover, and writes about his favorite filmmakers (Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Demy). He also produced the first medium-length films of his “Parnassian” friend Jean Eustache, Bad Associations (1964) and Santa Claus has blue eyes (1966). He finally devotes himself to his own films, moving briskly from short to feature film and from the big screen to the small skylight. Criticism, production and directing are in his hands as many ways of taking the cinema in a pincer movement, by his thought, his gesture, as much as his figures. To which are also added food work on many photo novels, far from being anecdotal, since he will meet there one of his favorite actresses, Hélène Surgère.
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