After Obélix or Cyrano De Bergerac, Gérard Depardieu will play another popular character from European literature: Maigret! Expected for February 23 in theaters, the feature film unveils its first images.
After his remarkable appearance as an eccentric editor in Illusions Perdues by Xavier Giannoli, Gérard Depardieu is back in the cinema with another period film: Maigret.
This time, the famous commissioner created by Georges Simenon is investigating the death of a young girl. There is nothing to identify her, no one seems to have known her or remember her. He meets a delinquent, who strangely resembles the victim, and awakens in him the memory of another disappearance, older and more intimate…
THE FRENCH SHERLOCK HOLMES
After Obélix or Cyrano, Depardieu this time tackles a new popular figure in European literature: Commissioner Maigret! The actor wears all the characteristic elements of this hero: long coat, hat screwed on the head, without forgetting his famous pipe.
Patrice Leconte, director of the saga Les Bronzés, directed this new version of the novel Maigret and the dead girl, published in 1954. This story has already had four television adaptations from 1959 to 1973, including one with the inevitable Jean Richard.
The character’s last film appearance dates from 1968, with the release of Maigret fait mouche, an Italian-Austrian-French-German co-production. This film adapted the novel The Dancer of the Gai-Moulin, which confronts Maigret (Heinz Rühmann) with the mystery surrounding the murder of a museum guard during the theft of a van Gogh painting.
AN ULTRA POPULAR CHARACTER
Jules Maigret has often been played in the cinema or on television. In particular, it was worn 54 times in 14 years by Bruno Crémer in the Maigret series and TV movies during the 90s. Jean Richard slipped into this costume 88 times in a series that began in 1967.
In the cinema, the character was initially represented by Pierre Renoir in La Nuit du carrefour (directed by his brother Jean Renoir in 1932), then three times by Jean Gabin, and the Canadian Maurice Manson, Albert Préjean, Abel Tarride, Harry Baur , Charles Laughton, Michel Simon, Heinz Rühmann, Michael Gambon, Rupert Davies, Rowan Atkinson, Kees Brusse or Gino Cervi… the list goes on and on.
Maigret version Gérard Depardieu will carry out his investigation until the end from February 23, 2022. He will be surrounded in the casting by Mélanie Bernier, Jade Labeste and Aurore Clément.