A highly anticipated highlight of this 47th Cesar ceremony, the tribute paid to Gaspard Ulliel. Xavier Dolan read a vibrant text. A sequence that echoed another text that Xavier Dolan had read 5 years ago almost to the day.
Xavier Dolan paid tribute to Gaspard Ulliel during a particularly moving sequence this evening during the 47th Cesar ceremony, a sequence that we suggest you review.
This tribute to the actor, who died on January 19, following a skiing accident, was announced this morning during an interview that Xavier Dolan gave to France Inter. The filmmaker, already moved, explained thinking about the actor all the time.
Gaspard Ulliel: Xavier Dolan constantly thinks of the actor of Just the end of the world
This tribute had a particular resonance when one recalls the history of Gaspard Ulliel with the Caesars. The actor had indeed been named 5 times, between 2003 and 2017. And in 2017, precisely on February 24, almost 5 years to the day, Xavier Dolan had the mission to read a text written by Ulliel himself. ..
Gaspard Ulliel, retained by a shooting, had not been able to go to the ceremony, and had entrusted a text to the director of the film for which he was appointed, in this case Xavier Dolan for Just the end of the world. A text that the latter had discovered live, responding to Ulliel’s wish that he not read it first.
“The way you look at your actors has no equivalent. (…) You always bring your actors to the freshness and brilliance of the new. (…) Our meeting, which I fantasized for a long time as an unmissable meeting, without ever really daring to covet it, seems to me today as a happy evidence“. Visibly touched by these words, Xavier Dolan had not failed to react as they went along, giving this moment surprise and joy.
Then, later in this speech, certain words resonate differently today: “Some will not fail to note the malice of being rewarded with a film under the title of apocalypse. It seems that the great stories of cinema are those which at the beginning do not foreshadow the end. Isn’t that what this life on the big screen is all about? The end of a film will never be the end of a world, but the promise of adventures to come.“
That evening, Xavier Dolan had also received the Césars for Best Director and Best Editing.
This speech, which you can review in full by following this link, in the presence of Valérie Lemercier, presenter of this trophy that year, also came to close a beautiful story of friendship between Pierre Niney and Gaspard Ulliel. Two years earlier, Ulliel had been appointed against Niney for the “confrontation” around Saint Laurent. A true-false rivalry that was won by Pierre Niney in 2015.
In total, Gaspard Ulliel had been nominated 5 times for the Césars: Embrace whoever you want (2003), Les Egarés (2004), A Long Engagement Sunday (2005), Saint Laurent (2015) and Just the end of the world (2017).
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Gaspard Ulliel in 2005 when receiving his first César for A Long Engagement Sunday by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
He had been precisely nominated twice for the best hope, and therefore obtained the second time for A long engagement Sunday by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
The trailer for It’s Only the End of the World: